for ConnectWise

But…

  1. Can’t I (or my staff) do this myself?

    • Technically, yes you could.  And if “ConnectWise report software development” is in your core mission, then that might make sense.  But don’t you have better things to do?  Things that are more aligned with your core mission?  You could bring on a new employee just to do report development, but compare the cost of that to our monthly subscription fee.  And we’ve been at this for years, and we ONLY do ConnectWise reporting.  So we validate the accuracy of our reports across our entire base of customers.  And when ConnectWise updates their software, we automatically update YOUR software so that it stays in perfect lock-step with the version of ConnectWise that you are running.

  2. Can’t I use ConnectWise ReportWriter to do this?

    • ConnectWise ReportWriter is a great tool to allow you to make simple queries to the ConnectWise database, things like a list of customer names or contacts.  But if you haven’t done so yet, go to a local ConnectWise User Group meeting when they are doing a workshop on ReportWriter.  Wait until they actually open up ReportWriter and let you see the 1,327 tables and 21,008 fields in the ConnectWise database that you have to choose from.  Best of luck finding the information you are looking for, oh and it definitely exists in more than one table, so you better ‘bone up’ on those SQL JOIN commands.  And when ConnectWise does their next update, get ready to have to figure out which of the fields that you are using changed in the last update.  And finally, when you “get the answer” from your report, are you sure it is correct?

  3. I’m pretty sure that the information I have in ConnectWise is “jacked up”

    • Okay, so this is not the most “politically correct” answer:  Yes, yes it is.  The information that you have in ConnectWise is messed up.  So even when you look at a ConnectWise built-in report, you may (and perhaps should) question if it is accurate.  So when I look at my first New Haven report, will it be accurate?  Probably not.  You’ll find some things that just do NOT look right, just the same as the ConnectWise built-in report.  But with the New Haven report you can click on the information that “looks wrong” and DRILL-DOWN to the underlying details.  And if those underlying details look wrong, DRILL-DOWN again (and again, and again) until you see ALL the details.  For example:  Looking at my best customer, it looks like I am only making $30 per hour (i.e. Effective Hourly Rate or EHR) on that customer.  Can that be true?  Click on the customer name to see the agreements and T&M work that you have done for that client.  Click further to see the underlying invoices.  Click further on the invoice to see the hours that your engineers spent on that agreement that month.  And you see that your engineers are putting time on a Fully Managed agreement, but marking it as “non-billable”.  New Haven shows you the TOTAL cost of their time (whether it is billable or not, since you have to pay them anyway), while the ConnectWise built-tin report you’ve been looking at ignores the cost of that time because it was marked “non-billable”.  They key takeaway is that you WILL find errors in your ConnectWise data, and by using the New Haven drill-down capability, you’ll find out if the data was entered incorrectly, if you have a process-problem you need to address, or both.  In either case, we give you the VISIBILITY so that you can FIX the problem via our drill-downs.

  4. I don’t like long-term commitments

    • We don’t ask you for a long-term commitment.  Our service is month-to-month, and you can cancel at any time.

  5. I just don’t believe that this will work for ME

    • That’s why we offer a Free 2-Week Trial of the service so you can see YOUR ConnectWise data in the Briefing Service.  We do a one-hour orientation session to get you started, then give you time to dig in.  If after two weeks you find the service to be valuable, you sign up for your monthly subscription.  If not, we end the trial and the software is deactivated.  Easy.  No obligation.

  6. I don’t even have time to LOOK at this, and my engineers are SO swamped that they can’t spend any time on it either

    • We install, configure and test the software on your local network, and we automatically update the software every evening with the latest version of the Briefing Service.  In terms of your engineer’s time, all they have to do for us to get started is:
      1. Spin up a standard Windows server on your internal VMWare/Hyper-V cluster.
      2. Provide us RDP access (from our locked-down IP address) to that server.
      3. Create a read-only account on your database server (we even have a simple step-by-step “cookbook” instruction set to walk them through the process, complete with screenshots for every step).
      4. That’s it!  We take it from there!

  7. I get SO busy that I might not remember to even LOOK at this information

    • Yep, definitely CAN happen.  That’s why we have options so the information can “reach out to YOU”:
      1. Scheduled Reports:  You can easily schedule any of the reports to be e-mailed to you (and/or your team and/or your customer) on a schedule of your choosing.  So you can take 3 seconds to look at the information when it shows up in your Inbox.
      2. Dashboards: You can have the information constantly displayed on an LCD on the wall in your office or break room, and the information will update throughout the day with the latest info.  So when you look up or go get a cup of coffee, you’ll see the information immediately.
      3. SmartPhone reports: We also have a series of SmartPhone reports included in the service, so when you are at a customer site waiting on them to show up for a meeting, you can quickly get the information that you need for that meeting, or other information about your business.

  8. I JUST don’t think I NEED this service…

    • Maybe.  But why do you have ConnectWise?  Doesn’t it make it easier to do the “transactional-level” business in your MSP practice?  In the same way that ConnectWise is a tool to help reduce the “friction” in running your day-to-day MSP practice, the Executive Briefing Service is a tool for you and your leadership team to MANAGE the business more effectively via data-driven, informed decisions.
      STOP GUESSING.  START KNOWING.