Description

This course covers the most important pieces of making your PSA (Professional Services Administration) service board work effectively. Your PSA is the brain center of your entire operation.

Most Managed Service Providers don’t use their PSA systems efficiently. In fact, most of them only use 10-20% of the capabilities of their PSA. This costs you money because you have the tool to run everything in your business more effectively. But if you don’t put the right information into the tool, then you can’t get the reports you need to improve your business.

This course covers the daily operation of a managed service business – or any IT shop with a service board and one or more technicians who execute the service. It assumes you have a service board or PSA (Professional Services Administration) and a service manager.

Whether you sell “break fix” or flat fee services, a service board will take your company to the next level – if you use it right. In addition to covering setup and core standard operating procedures, we’ll get into the “nitty gritty” of running a service board and managing the service department.

Which PSA?

I used ConnectWise for four years in my business. Then I switched to Autotask and used that for five years. Eventually, I moved to SolarWinds and used that for more than five years.

On top of all that, I’ve worked closely with coaching client who have used all of these products. This course is intended to apply to all PSAs. I will point out areas where differences are most obvious.

You will learn:

• How tickets should flow into, through, and off of the service board
• How to set up the core components of a service board
  • Priorities
  • Statuses
  • Workflows
  • Time Estimates
• The most important processes and procedures for making the board work effectively once it’s set up
• Introducing new processes to you employees
• Getting clients to understand the new processes
• Time tracking the right way
• The most important reports you need to run
  • Every Day
  • Every Week
  • Every Month
• When it’s time for client renewals
• Avoiding the biggest pitfalls with service board management
• Building an Action Plan that works

Additional Topics Include:

• Welcome to the Service Department
• After Hours Work
• On Call and Night Staff
• Managing Internal Administrative Tasks
• Assign Techs or Rotate Them?
• Approved Tools
• Employees in The Tech Department
• Technician Daily Time Management — includes daily work flow
• Time Tracking for Employees
• The Tech on Call for The Day – Managing Daily Workflow
• How to Maximize Billability of Technicians
• Email Rules and Etiquette for the Consultant
• Technician Supplies
• Final Friday Training
• Troubleshooting Guidelines
• Troubleshooting and Repair Logs
• Service Delivery Policies and Procedures
• The First Client Visit
• Guide to a Service Call
• The Network Documentation Binder – NDB
• Response Times – Guarantees and Delivery
• Time Entry and Note Entry in Service Tickets
• Information Sharing
• Service Board Backlog Management
• Daily Monitoring of Client Machines
• Patch Management Philosophy and Procedures
• Setting Up Alerts in Your PSA and RMM
• New PC Checklists
• Server Down Procedures
• Third Party Tech Support – Documenting Calls
• Third Party Tech Support – Rules of Engagement
• Document Pouches
• Service Focus: Monthly Maintenance
• Why We Do Monthly Maintenance
• Scheduling Monthly Maintenance and On-Site Visits
• Checklist for Major Scheduled Maintenance
• The Monthly Maintenance Checklist
• Monthly Single Checklist
• Outsourcing (some) of Your Monthly Maintenance
• Backup Monitoring, Testing, and Management
• Disaster Recovery – An Overview