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ConnectWise PSA: A Solution for Important Workflow Problems
What Are Workflow Problems?
 Whereas management problems can be seen as global, workflow problems are more local. Whereas unresolved management problems can put your company’s future at stake, unresolved workflow problems may not. But they always will threaten your profitability and your revenue growth.
As a rule, workflow issues are usually more around the processes by which work gets done or by which value is added at your company. However, even though processes are at the core of these issues, other contributing factors are likely to be present as well. This observation comes from our years of experience with our own IT Solutions firm, as well as the experiences of our hundreds of Partners on the ConnectWise PSA platform. That is why we, at ConnectWise, have taken a very holistic and integrated approach in our business automation solution. We want to make sure that you can solve your problems, and then keep them solved!
Looking At The Three Things That Matter…In Context
In an Overview of Management & Workflow Problems, three key areas of focus were described. They are Knowing (through Business Intelligence), Doing (through Process Management) and Measuring (through Performance Management). Even though we’ve said that workflow issues are mostly related to process, or Doing, is it is crucial to have information about your process strengths and weaknesses, or Knowing. You also need the ability to evaluate any changes you make by Measuring. Following are some of the most common workflows in which you might be looking for improved performance. One thing you can be assured of, ConnectWise PSA is just the tool you need to take your workflows to the next level.
Knowing, Doing & Measuring For Specific Workflow Problems
Ticketing:
Most IT Solutions companies have a service ticketing workflow that is crucial to company success. Whether you are primarily an IT Services firm, in which ticketing is a central profit center, or you offer Help Desk support as a value-added service for work you’ve done, how you manage this process can make or break your business. Clients judge you on your capability to efficiently capture service issues from multiple sources, the speed with which you respond and the quality of the service work you provide. Any IT Solutions business automation system must help you outperform in all of these areas by providing the tools to drive process efficiencies, and then to monitor, evaluate and continually improve what you do. ConnectWise PSA does just that…and more!
Click here to learn more about specific problems associated with Ticketing Workflow Problems and how ConnectWise PSA can help you.
Scheduling:
Scheduling is a tricky proposition, since your dispatcher or project manager is attempting to optimize in a fast-paced and changing environment. There is no luxury to ‘set it and forget it.’ Too much changes, too constantly. You have to juggle workload balancing and make sure you have the best skillsets matched to the task, even though there are frequent changes to client requests, task completion timeframes and even resource availability. Automation tools, reports and dashboards are key here: you must be able to have deep visibility into this function, and in real-time. Scheduling is one of the richest modules, in terms of functionality, within ConnectWise PSA. You will have to see it to believe it!
Click here to learn more about specific problems associated with Scheduling Workflow Problems and how ConnectWise PSA can help you.
Time & Expense Entry:
All employees need to track what they are doing since that is the only way you capture an accurate cost-to-serve, whether the work is billable or not. This information must be accurate and contain appropriate detail. For billable employees, tracking time and expense is even more critical, in terms of timeliness, to drive the invoicing process. The key to getting timely reporting with enough detail ends up being a combination of fitting the time and expense capture within individual employee workflows, exercising care to not increase administrative burden, and setting the proper approvals into the process. ConnectWise PSA does all of these things, and even shares information across multiple modules so there is no dual entry. With the Mobile Add-on, field employees can even send updates through their mobile devices.
Click here to learn more about specific problems associated with Time & Expense Entry Workflow Problems and how ConnectWise PSA can help you.
Invoicing:
This process flows through multiple work roles, which is why it can be problematic for IT Solutions companies. First of all, information about project tasks and service work must be entered timely, accurately, and with enough detail to satisfy your clients. Then it has to be approved, with determinations about what should be invoiced. Compounding this are the multiple agreements with different billing rates under different conditions. This, in fact, is where the excessive amount of time is added to the process at most companies. Someone has to check what rates should be applied. If project and service folks do it, you are impacting their utilization rates. If your controller does it, the task usually has to wait for free time, which is a scarce commodity. Once invoices are created, they too have to be reviewed against agreements and approved. It is no surprise this is a mess at most companies. Now, for a shocker: when using ConnectWise PSA, many of our Partners can invoice the same day the work was done, and sometimes within minutes of having completed the work.
Click here to learn more about specific problems associated with Invoicing Workflow Problems and how ConnectWise PSA can help you.
Agreements:
It is not a challenge at most IT Solutions companies for Sales to come up with some pretty *creative* agreements. The challenge is in delivering on them, both from a SLA management perspective and from a billing perspective. Clients watch both, and confidence is gained or lost based on how you deliver against them. ConnectWise PSA recognizes that, so everything you need is supported. There are no types of billing arrangements you cannot make for either service or projects, and you can have as many agreements as you wish for each client. Once recorded in the system, the behind-the-scenes workflow engine monitors performance against the agreements (including built in notifications and escalations) and automatically assigns the correct billing. Your managers just need to validate and approve, and work is immediately routed to the invoicing engine. It is that easy with ConnectWise PSA.
Click here to learn more about specific problems associated with Agreements Workflow Problems and how ConnectWise PSA can help you.
Opportunity Management:
This process is generally seen as limited to Sales and Marketing workflows, and it is true that this is where the bulk of the ownership resides. But in high performing IT Solutions companies, service techs and project personnel often participate by identifying new opportunities. ConnectWise PSA offers incredible tools for understanding – in real time – opportunities in process, for managing them toward a faster close with higher win rates, and for evaluating performance from the company level down to an individual sales rep level. And all other functions participate in the process by having access to information that will help them understand a total client perspective, as well as tools for conveying opportunities to the right person.
Click here to learn more about specific problems associated with Opportunity Management Workflow Problems and how ConnectWise PSA can help you.
Managing Managed Services:
Managed Services is a significant challenge at most IT Services firms that are trying to transition to this model. Not only are there new tools and new processes to master, there are also some pretty significant mindset shifts that have to occur. At the client level, you are trying to transition them to pay you more for not seeing you! If you do an excellent job, your clients will only see you for scheduled maintenance or regularly scheduled performance review meetings. For your employees, utilization changes because you now want them to do more in less time, so their utilization rates might decline even as they are creating more value. So you will have to come up with new performance measures and perhaps eventually a new compensation plan. Success comes from making use of the ConnectWise PSA tools to chart this new territory.
Click here to learn more about specific problems associated with Managed Services Workflow Problems and how ConnectWise PSA can help you.
Learn more. See all ConnectWise PSA Product Module Features.
See How ConnectWise PSA Helps You Solve Other Management Problems.
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