Thursday, December 10, 2009

OMG: I Love Zenith Infotech

If you haven't been reading this blog for very long, let me just say I Love Zenith Infotech.

One of the principle rules of success at KPEnterprises (Sacramento's premier small business consulting company) is "If it can be done by Zenith, assign it to Zenith."

One of the consistent messages I hear from Zenith management is "Bring it on. Keep throwing stuff at us until we squeak."

Well, after months of watching from the sidelines, we pulled the trigger this week and integrated Zenith with Autotask. The only real delay was that we had a series of junior technicians and no one who could take on the project and manage it through to completion.

Well, we have a new Level 2 tech with nothing better to do, so we started the integration.

Here's an example of the tickets we saw immediately:

    Log Date/Time: 12/09/2009 03:07 AM ET
    Account / Zenith Site ID:
    Device / Zenith Device ID:
    Autotask Ticket: T20091209.0001
    Zenith Ticket: 200912090000029
    Status / Zenith Status: Complete / NOC Completed
    Assigned To: Partner
    Assigned By: NOC
    Subject: Anti-Virus not synchronized on Server :-SIERRASBS
    Notes: This task is to notify you that NORTON Antivirus is Not Updating on Server SIERRASBS. NOC has carried out the necessary troubleshooting and now NORTON Antivirus is updated with Latest Antivirus Definitions. No action needs to be taken from your end. Note: In case, the issue re-occurs, we will troubleshoot further and will update you with the status.
    This e-mail was automatically generated for Autotask Account with Zenith PSG of 2DB52820514D4FC4. Please do not respond.


Okay. Whatever. Blah Blah Blah Ginger.

Here's the essence of that service request:

1) We found a problem with SAV updates

2) We created a ticket for the problem

3) We fixed the problem

4) Ticket closed

The sweetest words of all are: Please do not respond.

Not that we don't want a personal relationship, but Zenith found a problem, fixed a problem, created value for our client, and solved the problem. In other words . . .

    The first time we heard about this issue is after it was fixed.


How could we respond? Thanks. Imagine the disc space of millions of ticket entries that just said thanks.

- - -

Perspective:

I hear a lot of partners complain that they turned on integration with Zenith and got overwhelmed by the tickets. Oh My God. They're killing me. Boo hoo hoo.

But slow down and read through the tickets.

You got 50 new service requests regarding problems on your client computers. In the span of 5 hours, 45 of these were fixed. In the next 5 hours another three are fixed.

So: Zenith caught fifty issues you didn't know about and fixed 48 of them.

Just because you don't know about an issue doesn't mean it's not there. If Zenith is "spamming" your board there are lots of little things that were going un-done. Time to do them.

We recently went through an extremely busy time around here and I needed to hire some additional help. I have learned an important lesson in all that: You need the right personality to take charge of a project like this. You need to know that you're going to get a flood of tickets. You need to not freak out. And then you need a strategy for getting your arms around the new reality of your bigger, better service board.

For us the Zenith integration is pretty smooth. We're meeting daily to refine the system in response to interactions between Autotask and Zenith. We went through the same thing with ConnectWise. When you take two tools at the core of your business and get them to talk to each other, it takes a little extra attention.

We've loved Zenith for years. Today we love them more.


:-)



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9 comments:

  1. Hi Karl,

    Do use the A.S.E. in Zenith much? I'm just beginning to try to use it to monitor hack attempts on the RWW it's not the easiest but I'll get there and I do love Zenith!

    Stu

    ReplyDelete
  2. When we used Kaseya we used their scripting. Since we ran Kaseya and Zenith side by side for more than a year, we just never switched over the scripting.

    When we got rid of Kaseya, I believe the guys decided to user Powershell rather than learn the advanced scripting engine from Zenith.

    I could be wrong. Also, we have two new techs so I don't know what they'll want to do going forward.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, Karl...

    We're thrilled that the new and improved A-Z (Autotask-Zenith) integration is working for you. And we're not done with it yet. The integration is based on Zenith's new API talking to the Autotask API, and both sides are still learning (and working together) to make it even better!

    We have a very active Zenith Infotech forum set up in the Autotask Community here: https://community.autotask.com/forums/105.aspx#options. I would encourage you and other Autotask users to provide feedback to us there on any issues you run into, as well as helpful comments or tips to the hundreds of other service providers who have both Zenith and Autotask and have already lit up the integration.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. Thanks Bob. We're eager to see how all of these services integrate into the new products and services coming down the pipe (including cloud services).

    ReplyDelete
  6. Karl,
    I know this is an old post, but it came up when I am googling this.

    Question:

    I have contacted ZeContinuuminuim support a few timethey tehy are telling me that the A/Vsynchronizednized only means that the license is going to expire. They said they do not track virus definitions only license. (with the red dot, green dot) This is a direct conflict to what the Zenith operation manual says. However, when we take a workstation and let it get a virus we dont see a zenith alert or the AV dot go red.

    So, I liked your post, we are thinking about integrating into zenith more. Do you recommendationndation on WHO, HOW the best way to communicate with someone who knows? Is there a manager to manager relationship? Or do you always have to talk to Tech Support 1 on a chat window?

    thanks in advance,

    Matt

    ReplyDelete
  7. Karl,
    I know this is an old post, but it came up when I am googling this.

    Question:

    I have contacted ZeContinuuminuim support a few timethey tehy are telling me that the A/Vsynchronizednized only means that the license is going to expire. They said they do not track virus definitions only license. (with the red dot, green dot) This is a direct conflict to what the Zenith operation manual says. However, when we take a workstation and let it get a virus we dont see a zenith alert or the AV dot go red.

    So, I liked your post, we are thinking about integrating into zenith more. Do you recommendationndation on WHO, HOW the best way to communicate with someone who knows? Is there a manager to manager relationship? Or do you always have to talk to Tech Support 1 on a chat window?

    thanks in advance,

    Matt

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yeah, Cx2, That was awhile ago.

    We still use Zenith/Continuum. And it's a changing landscape, so I don't know everything they're up to. Info is at http://www.continuum.net/.

    We get tech support primarily through chat/email. 99.9% of the time it's not urgent, so this communication is fine.

    Somewhere I wrote a blog post about having a "sit down" with Zenith many years ago to agree on what's covered, what's not, and how we can best communicate. You should have an account manager who can go through this with you.

    As with all outsourced services, you have to figure out the balance of what you're willing to pay and the services you need. But start with a complete list of all your concerns. This includes what you must have, what you'd like to have, what you think they should be doing, and questions you have about the services you're paying for.

    Just like any other relationship, you need to nurture it.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Cx2:

    There are many programs to choose from at the new Continuum (formerly Zenith). The key to success is to work with your account manager and make sure you have the program for your needs. That's a combination of price and support that makes sense.

    For the most part, we rely on chat and email for support. You can be very precise and define the problem exactly. It works great for us.

    ReplyDelete

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