Highlights of our Fireside Chat for June 2020

2020 has not been what anyone expected, to say the least! By mid-February at Atera, we had already moved to a quarantine status in line with government directives, with only a few weeks to prepare.

Despite this sudden reality, we were delighted to see how well everything was working. Everyone was dedicated to doing their job from home, and the company was running as usual. It’s true to say that Atera didn’t miss a beat. In fact, within 10 days of lockdown, we had already released our game-changing support for this difficult period, our Customer Remote Access.

We have heard a lot of great feedback about this innovation, allowing thousands of clients to work from home computers, accessing workstations directly through Atera without risking the network at large.

We want to extend our thoughts to any of you who have been negatively impacted by this global tragedy. While at Atera, as a pure cloud solution that focuses on remote IT management, we have continued to go from strength to strength, we recognize that this has not been a simple situation. If there is anything that we can do to help, please do reach out and let us know. We encourage you to answer a question posed by our CEO, Gil, “What is the #1 top priority for your IT service since Covid-19?” Send in your responses so that we can work on solutions. Do remember, we will look back and remember this all one day, as something that happened in the past.

We are happy to announce our Referral Program, a new initiative that aims to strengthen our partnership with our customers. For every customer you bring to Atera, you will get a 10% discount on your subscription for that year. If you bring 10 friends to join us, you will not pay us at all for 12 months!

Highlights of our Releases So Far in 2020… Here’s What We Achieved in Quarantine!

One of the biggest updates so far in 2020 is our RMM and PSA mobile app. We released it at the beginning of the year, and we already have 2,394 installs on Android, and 1,230 on iOS. In line with our Agile methodology, we released what is known as an MVP, a minimum viable product, and we’ve been improving it every few weeks. You can look forward to more functionality soon, including featured tickets with attached images and time entries. Our goal is not to replicate the web app, but to fill the mobile app with the functionality you need to be productive and efficient on the go.

Did you see our latest Acronis release? You can now purchase back-up integration from within Atera, and we are planning to deepen this integration soon by allowing alerts from within Atera, as well as the ability to automatically invoice your own customers directly from the platform.

You guys loved our script library! We already have 150 scripts and counting – so keep that innovation rolling! On our side, we check all scripts and have recently upgraded the UI to make it more streamlined. In the pipeline is the ability to support any issues with scripts, and even running the scripts directly from within the library.

We are constantly improving user experience, and have recently refreshed agent capabilities, command bank, and installations, as well as adding Magic Scroll more widely for ease of use. We plan to enhance the platform with a command line for automatic installation without the need to download this onto the destination computer directly. This will allow for the batch installation or installing batch scripts in a more convenient way. Look out for an improved customer section, complete with devices, tickets, and alerts, which should soon be the main section in the UI.

Other changes over the quarantine period include improved alert management, an intelligent process ledger where you can track items such as software removal from the reports section, and a fantastic file transfer functionality, allowing you to transfer files to customers, and back again. We also added PowerShell mode, so that PowerShell can be run from the device’s menu.

Phew! We still have loads more in the pipeline for 2020, but we’re sure you’ll agree we have made great progress, especially considering Covid-19, and kept up the great pace of innovation that you guys have come to expect. We want to thank you all for being such great partners, a truly inspiring community, so a big shout out to you!

What’s Coming this Summer?

Here are just a few of the new features that are coming over the next few months. Many of these have first versions coming out over the next week or two, so keep your eyes peeled!

One exciting update is our new billing and invoicing framework, making it much simpler to handle finances, and enhancing elements such as taxes, multiple customers, products, and services. We will be integrating with QuickBooks Online and Desktop, Xero, Sage 50 and 200, and Wave.

We are also adding more options for security, notably – Bitdefender integration! We know that is going to trigger a fist pump from so many of you, so look out for the majority of the Bitdefender lab products coming up really soon.

Another update that comes directly from the Atera community is improved search. You will soon be able to search for tickets directly, as well as utilize a synonym search, where you can search for a similar term. Search results will be actionable where possible so that you can manage devices from the search results for example.

The first version of 3rd party patching and software installation will be whizzing your way this week, utilizing Chocolatey for Windows and Homegroup for Macs. In general, we are going to be focusing on providing better support for Mac users, fixing any outstanding issues, and making bulk installation just as east on Macs as we have on Windows at the moment. Look out for a Helpdesk agent specifically for Macs, also on the way!

Other updates include ticket scheduling ahead of time, and our awesome new MIB library, integrating with external libraries and providing the definitions you need for pre-configured alerts, all accessed via SNMP.

A Word from Our Customer Success Team

The customer success team is here for Aterans, all over the world. We want to hear your feedback so that we can improve Atera for you. You can get in touch via different support channels, including email or tickets that will be answered 24/7, and live chat available during business hours Monday-Friday. We also have our features board, which we have discussed many times before, and our Facebook group.

There are currently 1,700 members in our Facebook community and counting! This is a fantastic resource for gleaning insights, getting help with Atera, and networking with colleagues. It is a great place to make friends, ask questions, and share thoughts, especially for newbies to the MSP world. However, it is not a support channel – so if you have a specific problem, please do reach out more directly so that we can make sure you get the help you need.

Throughout this period, we have provided a lot of resources for both our own clients and their customers, too, as we know that everyone has been affected by the reality of lockdown. If you missed our white paper on working from home or the first edition of our MSP Minds webinar, make sure to spend some time catching up!

We’ll be adding an MSP Minds webinar every single month, as well as more specific growth training, such as our New Releases webinar, where you can find out how to benefit from the newest updates to our RMM and PSA solution. We will also be adding white label resources that you can implement in your own business, all part of our brand-new Atera Academy, launching next week with short videos on how to get started making the most out of the Atera platform.

That is all from us for this quarter. If that is what we can get done in lockdown, we cannot wait to see what’s coming next. As always, thanks for sharing the journey with us – we could not do it without you!

Here’s the webinar recording:

Thank you, and see you at the next Fireside Chat webinar!