another customer tracking question

[adam12]

Hi all,

I have a business that does drop off repairs in shop and on site work of all sorts of business from 1-40ish computers, things are going well and I am about to launch an MSP plan and do some advertising. The on-site part of the business is really starting to grow and I am having trouble picking good tracking software. I use PC Repair Tracker for drop off repairs and it works great, but I need to keep completely different details (and way more) for on-site clients.

Currently for my on-site clients I am using Freshbooks for billing and I love it, I can't believe I used Quickbooks so long. I just put job notes in the notes section of an invoice, but usually I want to add more and feel that it is not an appropriate place to put settings etc. Sometimes I will type notes out in notepad, then print them for the client, but If I go back later and ask the client for the notes so I can see a password or network key, most of the time they have lost it; I don't think it should be the clients responsibility to keep track of what I did out there. I want to easily be able to look up what I did the last time I was out, or check what I did a year ago.

All of my MSP clients will be on Logmein Pro (I have logmein Central to manage them)and I need to keep track of when I have done monthly updates or fixed something that came up due to a monitoring alert, phone call, or email.

Here is a list of things I would like to have in a program:

1. Asset tracking for each device where I can easily pull up system settings for that device i.e. authorized software, authorized users, shared drives, network address, etc. or if it was a router a place to keep track of WPA keys, open ports, and other settings.

2. Contact info for that client

3. Ability to attach files, Internet and email use policy, pictures, keepass files. (this is not something I have to have, but would be real nice.)

4. Web host and domain information tracking

5. project management i.e. We are going to hire a new employee will you buy us a computer and set it up. I need to be able to track the basic steps of this process 1. find computer 2. order computer 3. configure computer 4. deliver and set up computer.

6. Support tickets

7. Software license tracking

8. ability to access this software from anywhere preferably web based.

9. does NOT have to do billing, I will do all billing through Freshbooks.

That's all I can think of right now.
Does anyone use software that does all or most of these things? I just want to have all the information I could need at my fingertips. I want to avoid calls to ISPs for password changes etc.

Anyone use Spiceworks? Will it do everything I am looking for?

Any input will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Adam

 

[Fixedathome.com]

CommitCRM ticks most of those boxes. Its not a cheap program (You have the core program and then various plug-ins for things like Web Access, Outlook Syncing etc. but It's worth every penny in my opinion. I've been through most of the tracking software mentioned on these forums including TSMan, PCRT, VTiger, MHepdesk but none of them seemed to fit my needs for both workshop and Onsite tracking. With Commit I'm running a whole lot more efficient.

They do a trial so you should take a look and see if it fits your needs.

http://www.commitcrm.com/download.php

 

[danrcf]

CommitCRM ticks most of those boxes. Its not a cheap program (You have the core program and then various plug-ins for things like Web Access, Outlook Syncing etc. but It's worth every penny in my opinion. I've been through most of the tracking software mentioned on these forums including TSMan, PCRT, VTiger, MHepdesk but none of them seemed to fit my needs for both workshop and Onsite tracking. With Commit I'm running a whole lot more efficient.

They do a trial so you should take a look and see if it fits your needs.

http://www.commitcrm.com/download.php

I totally agree with Fixedathome, i have been using commit for over a year, its worth every penny. you can also have MSP Integration with commitcrm
http://www.commitcrm.com/wiki/MSP_Integration_Setup

 

[adam12]

I looked at CommitCRM a few years ago when I started the business, but the cost kept me away, and it seemed to do more than I needed at the time when home users were my larger customer base. I will check it out again.

Do you think it is a viable option to use Commit for just my Business/on-site clients and keep PCRT for the drop off repairs? I would prefer to keep these two parts of my business separate.

 

[Fixedathome.com]

I looked at CommitCRM a few years ago when I started the business, but the cost kept me away, and it seemed to do more than I needed at the time when home users were my larger customer base. I will check it out again.

Do you think it is a viable option to use Commit for just my Business/on-site clients and keep PCRT for the drop off repairs? I would prefer to keep these two parts of my business separate.

I had planned to do that as I like PCRT but I just found entering data on 2 different systems was tedious so everything goes through Commit now. I'm still looking to use PCRT in some way though and may use it as a Healthcheck database.

 

[MobileTechie]

So you guys using Commit - do you pay for the updates? It's $149 per upgrade and that could get expensive assuming you took them all up. Is that for each step so like 5.3 to 5.3 or only major ones like 5 to 6?

Have you done anything to add typical repair workflow to the system such as tracking which tools you've used on a repair so far and the results?

 

[Knightsman]

Talk about a huge cost with log me in Pro!

Come on over to GFI, ill set you up with a good Technibble price.

How many onsite clients will you have? The price for logmeinpro and logmein central is expensive.

GFI is $12 per server and $1 per workstation per month for monitoring, remote access, scripting, etc. You can then use Log me in free for good remote access.

 

[Knightsman]

Currently for my on-site clients I am using Freshbooks for billing and I love it

Now this, is awesome. I am signing up today!

 

[BuckeyeIT]

Talk about a huge cost with log me in Pro!

Come on over to GFI, ill set you up with a good Technibble price.

How many onsite clients will you have? The price for logmeinpro and logmein central is expensive.

GFI is $12 per server and $1 per workstation per month for monitoring, remote access, scripting, etc. You can then use Log me in free for good remote access.

I got a 100 pack of LMI Pro licenses for $15/each/year. Made it pretty nice, using that as a interim while I get things rolling. Works great for the 2 or 3 pc offices that want to be "Managed".

Still banging between GFI and LabTech... You like the scripting in GFI? Can it automatically run scripts based on alerts like LabTech does?

 

[MobileTechie]

So you guys using Commit - do you pay for the updates? It's $149 per upgrade and that could get expensive assuming you took them all up. Is that for each step so like 5.3 to 5.3 or only major ones like 5 to 6?

Have you done anything to add typical repair workflow to the system such as tracking which tools you've used on a repair so far and the results?

Any input from the Commit users?

 

[K007]

So you guys using Commit - do you pay for the updates? It's $149 per upgrade and that could get expensive assuming you took them all up. Is that for each step so like 5.3 to 5.3 or only major ones like 5 to 6?

Have you done anything to add typical repair workflow to the system such as tracking which tools you've used on a repair so far and the results?

Haven't checked lately, but Commit website said that upgrades are released every 3 months or 90 days or so.
That makes me think you get free upgrades for 3 months

 

[Fixedathome.com]

So you guys using Commit - do you pay for the updates? It's $149 per upgrade and that could get expensive assuming you took them all up. Is that for each step so like 5.3 to 5.3 or only major ones like 5 to 6?

Have you done anything to add typical repair workflow to the system such as tracking which tools you've used on a repair so far and the results?

I haven't paid for any upgrades yet but there were 2 within my 90 day purchase period so I got those without extra charge.. I'm now outside of that period and there hasn't been another update yet. When the next update appears I will make a decision on whether to buy a one off update or go for the annual package. There is only $50 difference between the two.

You can see the prices here

With regards to workflow, I haven't really done anything out of the ordinary as I haven't needed to.

My typical workflow goes like this:

Recieve call>>Create Account/Asset if needed>>Create Ticket>>Create Appointment>>Visit customer and complete job>>Enter resolution details or history notes if multiple visits required. (Add to knowledge base if useful info)and charges.>>Mark job as complete>>Send to Quickbooks for invoicing.

This has worked brilliantly for me so far.
You can also create activity templates which will basically assign a set of tasks to a ticket. This is very useful for things that you do often like Tunes ups for instance.

The program also has a lot of custom fields that can be edited to track whatever you like so if you want to log how many infections you've removed from a PC then you can do it. The report feature is customisable (But a little clunky to edit) so you would be able to get a report up of whatever you wanted.

I'm not the most organised person in the world but I can honestly say that since using Commit my business is running a hell of a lot smoother.
PS I don't work for them!

 

[adam12]

Talk about a huge cost with log me in Pro!

Come on over to GFI, ill set you up with a good Technibble price.

How many onsite clients will you have? The price for logmeinpro and logmein central is expensive.

GFI is $12 per server and $1 per workstation per month for monitoring, remote access, scripting, etc. You can then use Log me in free for good remote access.

As I have continued researching and planning my MSP platform, I have to agree that logmeinpro is expensive for what it offers. I have found the reporting to be pretty limited, and the fact it does not have 'on event' scripting built in is going to keep me from going with that. I will continue to use logmein central to enable groups of computers for simple remote access and easy deployment, I will just keep everyone on free accounts rather than use logmeinpro.

I am certainly am interested in looking at GFI. I am currently evaluating labtech and I really like it. Please send me some more info, or just let me know if I should head over to the GFI site.

I currently have about 75 break fix on-site clients, some are just single user residential clients, and some are small businesses with anywhere from 5-25 computers plus servers. I will probably target about 10 current break-fix business clients with my initial MSP plans so I can iron out any kinks, then really step up the marketing and try to get some more of my clients switched over and target some new clients as well.

 

[cyabro]

Has anybody looked at, or is using, Spiceworks?

 

[adam12]

I have spiceworks set up at one of my clients offices, it saved me a ton of time creating an inventory of all of their computers and network devices. I just started using it and I like it quite a bit. It wont do everything I need though, so I am still looking into other software. I might use it as a support ticket system.