The ESET Professional Service Automation (PSA) plugin tracks license usage, creates billing adjustments, monitors dynamic groups from the ESET PROTECT Server, and automatically creates tickets within the PSA software.
In the beginning, managed services sought to ease technical burdens on companies by passing them on to external providers who are experts in their respective fields. This win-win cooperation has been complicated by increasingly complex systems management, with different tools and alert systems, as well as the constantly growing cyberthreat landscape that needs to be covered.
If you are familiar with the Managed Service Providers (MSPs) concept, you’ve probably heard about alert fatigue, a term describing IT staff being overwhelmed by tons of alerts every day. But there is also portal fatigue, which means that MSP admins receive an alert and then need to visit multiple portals to understand and deal with the threat.
This increasingly complicated use of (often multiple) management systems drains employees’ energy and, of course, MSPs’ money that need to be spent on more admins. Being well aware of this predicament, ESET comes forward with the brand-new Professional Services Automation (PSA) plugin that establishes direct communication between its ESET PROTECT console, ESET MSP Administrator (EMA), as well as several other major PSA vendors: ConnectWise Manage or Datto Autotask. With several handy capabilities, this ESET PSA plugin reduces time spent on a single action performed in the MSP system.
Easier licensing and ticketing
To explain the new plugin, let’s start with the basics. MSPs not only manage their clients using Remote Management and Monitoring (RMM) tools, but also a big portion of their work is to efficiently track billings and automate daily operation tasks (ticketing) utilizing PSA applications.
The ESET MSP Partners Program already offers plugins for integration with leading PSA and RMM vendors, and now it brings its own PSA plugin. With the ability to track license usage reported by the EMA and create billing adjustments directly in PSA, the new plugin makes MSPs’ lives even easier.
Additionally, the ticketing functionality of the new PSA plugin allows MSPs to handle alerts from endpoints more easily. They can create dynamic groups of computers, set alerts based on the group’s information, and select the queues and priorities for displaying alerts within the PSA.
Reflecting on countless discussions with clients, ESET also expanded these alert tickets to include severity and information concerning which queue they should fall into. This way, the PSA plugin makes sure that the right ticket finds the right technician.
All these features aim for reducing system load, the number of portals that an MSP employee needs to visit to deal with the alert, and the time one needs to spend on a single ticket.
Setup
In the early access program of this new plugin, ESET supports two major PSA software: ConnectWise Manage PSA and Datto Autotask PSA, but the goal is to make sure that any MSP can utilize this solution depending on their setup.
The plugin is a cloud-based solution, which means that any MSP root admin can log in to the console itself via their EMA Account.
After being logged in to the product, they will be instructed with the initial setup guide, leading the user through the establishment of the solution, from connecting their PSA software to mapping customers, mapping solutions to their contracts, and lastly, establishing their alerts.
The ESET PSA plugin represents the next step in our commitment to provide MSPs with solutions that are not only defending MSPs with multilayered protection against all kinds of threats but also are reflecting MSPs’ needs for doing business effectively. This plugin also allows for higher penetration of the ESET security products in MSP businesses, making them more protected than ever before.