Let me tell you about Dashboarding, and why I love it. My own career journey working within MSPs – and with ConnectWise – has had a consistent thread of frustration. You know the data is there, if only you could get at it, easily, when you need it, and with certainty that the data you’re making decisions on is accurate.
Today, using Cognition360 to consult with our MSP partners, that thread of frustration has disappeared. There’s a joy in helping partners make dramatic improvements in their operations by helping them get what they need from their data.
Dashboarding is a prime example. Yes, we have more than 100 reports targeting every key aspect of an MSP’s business touched by ConnectWise. Yes, our data warehouse ensures data accuracy. Yes, our Power BI reports make it fast and easy to get the data you need when you need it. Cognition360 reporting impressed me in the first five minutes of seeing it, but our Dashboarding capability really is the icing on the cake.
Every MSP business is unique and has their own set of challenges and opportunities. Key metrics and KPIs can be different depending on the focus and the team. The strength of Cognition360’s Dashboarding is that it gives you the power to quickly spin up the metrics and KPIs that you need to focus on – in a single place.
Dashboarding is a powerful way to simplify and focus a sea of data. You can narrow your field of vision to get what you need, by team, by individual or by company. Plus, you can pull multiple data sets from multiple Cognition360 reports – all into a single pane of glass.
Here are some Dashboarding examples:
Dashboarding has been successful in helping our partners run daily huddles and weekly service delivery meetings.
Some partners have setup Dashboarding for individual technicians to review during one-on-ones. These include KPIs for average billable hours per week, single tech on ticket percentages, closed first contact, percentage of reopened tickets, real-time time entry, and utilization percentages.
Service Managers are taking advantage of “alerts” to manage Utilization and Realization on a weekly basis.
Managers are creating dashboards with the important metrics they want to see on a regular basis and then using the dashboard to have all those metrics in one visual for quick insights into their teams.
The reason all this is possible is absolutely by design. Compared to templated dashboarding tools that pull directly from your ConnectWise database, Cognition360 uses Power BI to pull from a data warehouse. All data in the data warehouse is accurate and validated. Add to that, Cognition360 gives highly responsive advice and support. Leveraging your data is an iterative process. Having a partner to walk hand in hand with you is so important.
Making it easy is also important. Cognition360 is designed to encourage ‘power to the people’. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “give us the tools and we will do the job”. With the right encouragement and support your team leaders will be empowered to surpass their goals.
That’s why I love Dashboarding.
Christy Perez, Partner Success Manager, Cognition360
Christy has worked in the MSP space for over 20 years. She has deep experience in MSP operations and with ConnectWise, and brings this experience to the fore managing the onboarding process for new Cognition360 customers, as well as working day to day with existing customers to help them get the actionable insights they need. Read bio