The Widgets of Aahs!: Leveraging the SLA Summary Widget and Others

Here’s what you’ll read about today: 

• A tale of Autotask & the snowblower 

• The Powerful SLA Summary Widget 

• A smarter way to respond to upcoming tickets 

• Ticket Count widgets only tell half of the story 

• 7 Steps to avoid disappointing the client 

• More on how to make Autotask work for you 

aah 

interjection 

1. (used as an exclamation expressing surprise, delight, joy, etc.) 

(per Dictionary.com) 

Welcome Autotask Gladiators!  So glad you’re here! 

As the days turn colder on the East Coast, my thoughts have turned to all the things needing done before winter. Things like cutting the grass for the last time of the season and winterizing the mower. And making sure the snow blower is ready to go.  

Thinking of mowers and snowblowers and the time and effort to maintain them reminds me of Autotask and the journey we have been on this year to implement process, hone your Service Delivery, and grow in size and profit.  

What does Autotask have to do with a snowblower?! 

“Steve,” you say, “What does Autotask and a snowblower have in common?” 

I’m glad you asked. I could choose to use a shovel to clean my driveway…or I can just use a snow blower (tool).  

On a larger scale, the city can use a thousand guys with show shovels, or they can send out a payloader to scoop it into a dump truck. An MSP using Autotask can also use manual processes or our Best Practices. One is easier mentally, but more grunt work (inefficient). And one takes more time and effort initially, but once going is efficient and just needs proper maintenance to keep it running.  

Can you guess which method brings in more profit? 

So, let’s get to work and show how an “oh no” Client experience with ho-hum widgets can make your Clients say “Ooh!” and “Aah!” We will use the SLA Summary widget in Autotask as our example.  

The SLA Summary Widget  

By itself, this widget gives great alerts, but to leverage the information takes additional tools and processes. (As a reminder, the SLA Summary Widget shows Triage Due in < 1 hour, Tech Engagement due within 2 hours, Completion due within 2 hours, Triage Overdue, Tech Engagement Overdue, and Completion Overdue). And you can use it manually or follow our Best practices. 

Manual Process: 

You could click on the number which will take you to a list of tickets coming up on Next SLA Event Due Date. With the list of tickets in hand, contact the Techs listed as owning the ticket, and disrupt them to see if they are going to meet expectations or not. 

If the answer is not, you are left with three choices: 

1. Walk away and let the chips fall where they will… 

2. Disrupt all the other Techs to see if anyone is sitting around with their feet up and willing to take the ticket. 

3. Disrupt the Manager to see if they have any better ideas. 

When none of these disruptions work, you then have to notify the Client that the MSP is going to disappoint them yet again. Each time, you are hoping after many disappointments this is not the straw that breaks the camel’s back and they start looking for another Technology Service Provider. But, hey, at the very least, they have been updated, and that’s good enough. Right? 

There you have it, the SLA response Standard Operating Procedure most MSPs use. 

Best Process: A Smarter Way to Respond to Upcoming Tickets 

There is a better way to respond to tickets coming up on Next SLA Event Due Date: start with looking at the list of tickets, but rather than disrupt the primary Tech, all Techs, and Managers, pause** and move to a different Dashboard to work the list. 

**Note: I know the word Pause is not in an MSPs vocabulary, so we have looked to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. One definition is a “temporary stop.” Another one is, “temporary inaction especially as caused by uncertainty.” 

Just for grins, let's call the different Dashboard a Tech Workload Rebalancing Dashboard, or SC #2 Dashboard for short.  

On this Dashboard, the top row shows three widgets of tickets on the Techs’ plate: 

1. Open Tickets – ideally this number will be about 20 tickets for each Tech, less for Project Engineers. 

2. Ready to Engage Tickets - ideally this number will be 8-12 tickets for each Tech, less or None for Project Engineers. 8 tickets are half of a days’ worth of work, and 12 tickets is a full day. When there is less than a half of a days’ worth of work in the queue, the Techs tend not to work as hard and learn to take it easy. More than a full day’s worth of work causes the Tech to speed up and maybe start cutting corners. This is where errors start creeping in and quality deteriorates. 

3. Overdue Tickets – which is a meaningless KPI because the Due Date can be set to anything you want and voila, no more overdue tickets. But it is an indication of the stress level of the tickets and how they may be rushing to keep up. 

Ticket Count widgets only tell half of the story.   

The rest of the story is how many hours are on the Techs today and this week. For example, Remote Desktop Support, high volume and probably less than a ½ hour per ticket. Whereas a Project Engineer will have a few tickets but more than a days’ worth of work due today. 

So, it is the 2nd row that really matters. The widgets in this row are: 

1. Tech Hours due Today 

2. Tech Hours due this Week 

It is the Tech Hours due today that provides the most amount of information. Look at the Techs with the least number of hours due today, and see if they have the right skill-set to take on the work that is about to miss Next SLA Event Due Date. 

There are a few other Widgets that come in handy for determining who is best to, without disrupting the Tech’s. 

1. Out of Office 

2. Onsite Service Calls 

7 Steps to avoid disappointing the Client (& to retain them) 

With this information in hand, it is an easy process to determine what can be done to avoid disappointing the Client and running the risk of them switching providers. 

Here are the steps: 

1. Notice which SLA is in jeopardy of being missed from Triage being the most important to Completion the least, with Tech Engagement in the middle. 

2. Click on the Number and see who owns the ticket about to be missed. 

3. Look at their workload and see what they are actually working on (hint: Ready to Engage Widget as viewed in Service Coordinator Dashboard #3) to determine if the Next SLA Event Due Date is going to be missed. 

   1. If not, walk away and look at the next Tech in the list 

   2. If so, continue to Step 4 

4. Look at the workload across all Techs and see who is most available 

5. Review the Tech Skill Sheet to determine if any of the most available Techs have the right skill set to take the Client Requests 

   1. If so, reassign the ticket and let the Client know 

   2. If not, Step 6 

6. Reach out to the Service Manager and 

   1. Let them know this Client Request was about to miss SLA expectations 

   2. Ask them if they have any mitigation ideas 

   3. If so, follow their advice 

   4. If not, Step 7 

7. Notify the Client that the Team is busier today than normal, that their request has not been forgotten, but there would be a delay in engagement due to the high work volume. 

Use Those Autotask Widgets to Your Advantage 

In Summary: Repeatedly disappointing Clients is a great way to lose them and destroy Team morale. When you use your widgets to full efficiency, however, they become Widgets of Client Aahs.  

Simply follow the 7 steps above and life is good. With practice they can be executed in minutes, without disrupting the Team, and minimal, but necessary disruption of the Service Manager. Then watch MSP performance rise from the average of 63% to the high 90’s (97%, 95%, 90% respectively).  

For more on how you can leverage the SLA Summary widget, please contact us at Info@AGMSPCoaching.com 

The elephant in the room:   

Who is Advanced Global, and why should we listen to them?  

Recently, someone we’ve been in communication with since DattoCon 2018, who was faithfully reading our articles, commented that up until a few months ago, “I really did not know what Advanced Global does.” So here are a few bullet points to let anyone interested know who we are and what we do:  

1. We Are – the Autotask Global Service Delivery Authority  

2. We Help – MSPs thrive  

3. We Solve – Service Delivery issues, inefficiencies, and challenges by making sure that:  

   1. techs know what to work on next  

   2. someone is managing all open tickets and driving them to completion  

   3. the staffing levels are correct, and the workload is balanced   

   4. Real-Time Time Entry is a cultural habit  

   5. the Client has a great client experience  

   6. profit is maximized  

   7. Autotask is being fully leveraged  

   8. the historical data that is in the Autotask software is accessible to benchmark, track & USE effectively  

   9. the Service Delivery operations can scale  

   10. projects are completed On-Time and On-Budget  

   11. the company can grow  

   12. MSPs know what they don’t know  

4. Our Tools:   

   1. Autotask “Best in Class” standard build  

   2. Our MSP robust Service Delivery SOP library  

   3. Advanced Live Reports  

   4. Expertise in providing a transformational experience  

Note: We are not philosophers; we are doers with 31+ years of Service Delivery experience, bringing real Service Delivery Improvement change, profitability, and Best in Class performance.  

  

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