Hacking your ConnectWise Manage by Stack Advisors - Automation Nation 2018
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Hacking your ConnectWise Manage presented by Stack Advisors at Automation Nation 2018
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Hacking your ConnectWise Manage by Stack Advisors - Automation Nation 2018
- 1. Hosted byIT TAKES A TEAM Hacking your ConnectWise Manage Bill Stucklen & Scott Wilson STACK ADVISORS
- 2. Hosted byIT TAKES A TEAM Hacking your ConnectWise Manage Bill Stucklen & Scott Wilson STACK ADVISORS Abstract As an ITSPs it is likely you have a unique process that can’t be completely solved with the powerful automation in Manage. Are you using repetitive manual labor to move the data? Does your process stay the same 99% of the time? In this session, we’ll discuss how to find those gaps, plan for the automation and share examples to show you how easy it is to solve them using Automate or another automation tool.
- 3. Hosted by WHO ARE WE? Stumbled into IT in the early 90s, getting his start providing technical support for Doom Next 25 years, lived .com bubble and early days of managed services. Co-founded Stack Advisors with Scott as a consultancy for MSPs, ITSPs and ISVs using the ConnectWise Business Suite Current ConnectWise Advisory Council Member Bill Stucklen CEO Stack Advisors
- 4. Hosted by WHO ARE WE? Co-Founded Marathon Consulting with Bill, a NYC based MSP for 18 years, selling it in 2015 Loves optimizing processes and talks about automation of anything and everything that he can ”Amateur Developer” Scott has served on the Partner Advisory Council for CompTIA and Tech Data Scott Wilson Co-Founder Stack Advisors
- 5. Hosted by WHAT IS STACK ADVISORS? Stack Advisors was founded in 2011 by the owners of a Brooklyn, NY based MSP. As long time power users of ConnectWise, they began sharing what they had learned with peers and quickly realized that they had overcome obstacles that many other ITSPs were still struggling with. From there, Stack Advisors was born and has become a premier resource for ITSPs to go when they don't have the bandwidth or expertise to get the most out of their investment into the ConnectWise suite of products. In addition to helping the ITSP, many of the largest software vendors leverage our ConnectWise focused developers to bring quality integrations of their products into the ecosystem.
- 6. Hosted by SESSION GOAL 1. Find areas for automation 2. Plan for the automation 3. Real world automation examples
- 7. Hosted by FINDING AUTOMATION Review your data • Tickets (add “Needs Automation” custom field check box) • Timesheets • Non-billable and admin time • Agreements • Invoices (vendors, subcontractors)
- 8. Hosted by FINDING AUTOMATION Ask Your Team • Shift to proactive focus • Weekly meetings • Dispatcher • Finance Ask your Clients
- 9. Hosted by PREPARE TO HACK Know what you are going to “hack” Choose your platform Identify your tools Determine MVP Prepare a SOW Build and Test Repeat
- 10. Hosted by PREPARE TO HACK Know what you are going to “hack” Know the details, research the backend
- 11. Hosted by PREPARE TO HACK Know what you are going to “hack” Choose your platform Identify your tools Determine MVP Prepare a SOW
- 12. Hosted by PREPARE TO HACK Know what you are going to “hack” Choose your platform Identify your tools Determine MVP Prepare a SOW Build and Test Repeat
- 13. Hosted by Idea Comes from data collection and analysis Deploy Schedule, communicate, stagger Review Data collection and analysis Develop and Test Internal, small groups, discuss Document and Process How does it work, what should it do, what do you tell your clients Iterate Modify and improve UNDERSTAND THE INFINITE LOOP
- 14. Hosted by EXAMPLES 1. Time review with Automate – “Timebot” 2. Repetitive Sales Process – ”Mover” 3. Outbound Sales Process – “Simple Caller”
- 15. Hosted by 1. TIME REVIEW
- 16. Hosted by PROBLEM: SLOW TIME REVIEW • Manual time review, but common requirements • Slow: 11 Engineers generate more than 20 time entries per day (2,200 per two week time period) • Management team time is valuable and we were losing about 16 hours every two weeks
- 17. Hosted by STRICT TIME ENTRY POLICY • 1 Line per 15 Minutes with “NEXT STEP:” at end of time entry • Travel shouldn’t be more than 30 minutes • There should be no gap larger than 5 minutes on the timesheet • Time entry should be work type specific • Is after hour status’s being used correct? • Check for incorrect usage of “follow-up” work type • Is the correct agreement type selected? • MSP client and is it missing an agreement
- 19. Hosted by TIMEBOT • select * from Time_Entry where date_start >= dateadd(week, datediff(week, 0, getdate()), 0) and owner_level_recid = '2' and notes not like '%NSN:%' and notes not like '%Next step%' and PM_Project_RecID is NULL and TE_status_ID <> '2' and TE_Charge_Code_RecID is null and company_recid not in ('1881','2') and activity_type_recid not in ('13','10','28') and member_id in (select member_id from member where role_id in ('engineer','engineer - edit autotemplate'))
- 20. Hosted by BONUS: SELECTIVELY BILLING TRAVEL TIME • Create a custom table in Manage SQL of zip codes • Marked which zip codes were “No Charge” • Create a script for each SQL task looking for the criteria • Mark each time entry that matched as “No Charge”
- 21. Hosted by BILLING TRAVEL TIME select * from time_entry, sr_service where time_entry.sr_service_recid = sr_service.sr_service_recid and sr_service.zip in (select zipcode from mara_zipcodes where mara_zipcodes.Boro like '%Manhattan%') and time_entry.activity_type_recid = '13' and time_entry.owner_level_recid = '2' and time_entry.TE_status_ID <> '2' and time_entry.time_sheet_recid in (select time_sheet_recid from time_sheet where TE_Status_ID = '4')
- 22. Hosted by 2. REPETITIVE OPPORTUNITIES
- 23. Hosted by PROBLEM: VALUES WERE THE SAME
- 24. Hosted by “MOVER” OPPORTUNITY CREATION
- 25. Hosted by “MOVER” OPPORTUNITY CREATION
- 26. Hosted by “MOVER” OPPORTUNITY CREATION
- 27. Hosted by 3. OUTBOUND CALLING
- 28. Hosted by PROBLEM: INEFFICIENT TRACKING • Full-time cold-caller with target number of calls per day • ConnectWise client can be slow to load • Each call took at least 5 screens • Conflicts with other sales people • Incomplete information required research • Lost notes, records and call attempts
- 32. Hosted by ADDITIONAL RESOURCES • Automate Server Mastery – Round 9 (Wednesday 2:00pm - 3:00pm) • Automate API Deep Dive – Round 8 (Wednesday 8:30am - 9:30am) • API Lab – Round 9 Labs (Wednesday 2:00pm - 4:30pm) • Intro to ConnectWise Developer Kit – Round 11 (Wednesday 4:50pm - 5:50pm) • http://developer.connectwise.com
- 33. Hosted by CONTACT INFORMATION Get more information and find out about our consulting team at https://stackadvisors.com
Editor's Notes
- Like many of us, Bill stumbled into IT in the early 90s, getting his start in the space as one of two people providing technical support for Doom. If you ever needed to know how to make a boot disk, you probably talked to him. During the next 25 years, Bill lived through the explosion of the internet, the .com bubble and early days of managed services. His experience leading and mentoring diverse technology professionals set the framework for co-founding Stack Advisors, a consultancy for MSPs, ITSPs and ISVs looking to get the most from the ConnectWise Business Suite. He is lucky to have a team of ITSP industry experts to work with on a daily basis. Just ask anyone of them.
- Scott started Marathon Consulting a NYC based MSP for 18 years, selling it in 2015. During that time he was also a co-founder of Stack Advisors. He loves to see processes work optimally and talks about automation of anything and everything that he can. He likes to do this by being creative with API’s and data and isn’t scared to hack together two systems with messy, unreadable and clearly amateur code to prove that something will work. When he’s not breaking things, Scott has served on the Partner Advisory Council for CompTIA and Tech Data.
- Started MSP in 2002, sold in 2015 Connectwise users for many years (Arnie did our ConnectWise implementation) Became Power users of the Business Suite Founded in 2011 after a decade in the MSP space
- Look at Type, Subtype, Item – important to have this organized Review timesheets, look for big hour tickets or employees with high-volume tickets Non-billable employees, look at what they do and how it can be inefficient (ex SimpleCaller) or administrative work Agreements – profitability report Invoices – what are you spending money on, what services do you buy, subcontractors
- Challenge the team to identify – Have an after-hour automation night with pizza and beer Pick a problem and ”Group Think” to solve one problem Ask them to think about what is time consuming Weed out the complaints
- Know what you are going to “hack” -cw screenshot Register at http://developer.connectwise.com Choose a platform API requires a host – simple php, Heroku, AWS, Azure Identify your tools Postman Visual Studio Samples Determine MVP Prepare a SOW Repeat
- Know what you are going to “hack” -cw screenshot Register at http://developer.connectwise.com Choose a platform API requires a host – simple php, Heroku, AWS, Azure Identify your tools Postman Visual Studio Samples Determine MVP Prepare a SOW Repeat
- Know what you are going to “hack” -cw screenshot Register at http://developer.connectwise.com Choose a platform API requires a host – simple php, Heroku, AWS, Azure Identify your tools Postman Visual Studio Samples Determine MVP Prepare a SOW Repeat
- Know what you are going to “hack” -cw screenshot Register at http://developer.connectwise.com Choose a platform API requires a host – simple php, Heroku, AWS, Azure Identify your tools Postman Visual Studio Samples Determine MVP Prepare a SOW Repeat
- Repeat the process until it’s finished (which may be never)
- Remember: Know what you are going to hack!
- Run an Automate script that included each step of for each SQL task, replacing values as necessary You can use a query for key words in a ticket and auto-select an agreement type for the ticket itself as well as time entry BONUS: WE REALIZED: That we can Auto-submit your “Backoffice” account’s timesheet - manually doing this can be forgotten and take a while since you have to load a very large timesheet
- THIS IS A SAMPLE ONLY
- Remember to know what you are going to hack
- All engagements started with a system review – same opportunity values and prices
- API integration Gathered from wufoo form Screenshot of form Take initial call/notes Mover screen Create company and opp and payment request
- API integration Gathered from wufoo form Screenshot of form Take initial call/notes Mover screen Create company and opp and payment request
- My Lists Specific Activity Company Company Activities Contact Web Browser Calendar Window (multiple times) Multiple Saves
- Advanced API integration Consolidation of multiple CW screens User specific – to the Sales Rep Company information Contact Info Activity Screen
- Adding notes Remove Prospect – changes company type, closes activity, places timestamp Creates appointment using activities, and resources, sends calendar invite to prospect and resource Went from 50 to 120 calls per day
- CODE SAMPLES Complex layout Multiple classes Open Source libraries Handled with 3rd party Went from 50 to 120 calls per day