We just released enhancements to four reports for Cognition360, providing your MSP with improved analysis of your operations and financial situation. Four reports for our fourth and final release of 2024 for Cognition360, and just like the previous releases, you have to ask for the reports to get them.
Let’s take a quick look at each and see exactly what’s new and improved.
Here’s the list:
Team Utilization is one of our most popular and important reports, and the other three are valuable core reports as well.
Also, there are no references to 90s pop music or films anywhere in this update. Think that was leaned into a little too hard last time around, so we’ll keep it on topic this time. No more 1992 references. At least, not many. Maybe just A Few Good Men references.
The Cognition360 Support team kindly set up a request form (shout out to Marnel for setting this up in literally minutes!), as we’ve found it worked well the last couple updates we did. Please fill in this form and request the reports you want to have updated to the latest version. 💥, next thing you know you’re in and using them.
Our running joke is that “these improvements will improve customer retention, enhance your quality of life, and empower you to make more informed and strategic business decisions.” But you know what? In every joke, there’s a grain of truth, and in this case, more than just a grain – the enhancements will help you make more informed decisions for your MSP. We’ll go through the four of these in detail below.
Did you take advantage of the last reports that we updated? If you missed out, here’s the form to get the updates from October. You’ll want those ones too.
We’ve added a new Configuration Type filter to the Computer Information page inside the Technology Business Review.
The added Configuration Type filter allows you to quickly filter device data, helping you understand which devices warrant additional attention and discussion with clients during a business review conversation. Lifecycle Manager also helps identify opportunities and provides you with a workflow to renew warranties or replace end-of-life devices, and you should definitely check it out if you haven’t already.
There may be problem (or opportunity) areas within specific Configuration Types, and this gives you a way to identify those. You likely already have a plan in place for your MSP to capitalize on opportunities with Windows 10 going EOL in October next year, but here’s a way to identify potential problematic hardware and encourage clients to budget for replacements.
Project Management Hours are now added to the Project Details Report under the Project Summary in Project Details as a separate column.
It wasn’t straightforward to compare actual project spend vs the budget, schedule, and estimated hours, and project management overhead hours are a necessary evil that need to be tracked and accounted for.
Adding this additional column of data will allow users to understand how many hours a technician spends as a project manager. Ultimately, you need to account for these hours when planning and quoting future projects, so this will provide a useful actual measure on project management overhead for current and past projects. It can be easy to forget about or underestimate management hours when calculating margin at the outset, so we wanted to make this clearer right in the high-level Project Details.
A drill-through to the Total Labor per Hour has now been added to the Hourly Labor page in the Team Utilization Report, showing labor per hour by technician.
This drill-down view lets you see your entire tech team, and how many hours they’re utilized. In the example above, we’ve set the Labor Hours to the time from 08:00 to 17:00, and Joseph, Shon, and Catherina are the highest utilized over the last week.
A yes/no filter for Child Tickets has been added to the Customer page of the Work Type Usage Report.
The addition of this filter allows you to toggle child tickets off or on when viewing / reviewing your technicians’ work by work type. Some service desk teams make extensive use of child tickets as part of their workflows, but feel these shouldn’t necessarily “count” as they weren’t created by client users. Other times (on projects, for example), including child tickets may be desirable. The addition of this filter gives your team another option on viewing information.
Winter has very much arrived here in Canada, and our American friends have celebrated Thanksgiving now, so as mentioned at the top, these are the last updated reports of the year. Please use the form to request any of these that interest you, and keep an eye out for more enhancements to Cognition360.
Check this post out and discuss it on our Community site if you’re already a partner. Love to get your feedback.
Not a Cognition360 partner yet? Join us for a personalized demo, or check out this quick overview here. We’d love to help you unlock insights hidden in your ConnectWise PSA data so you can make better decisions and grow a more profitable MSP business in 2025.
ScalePad has launched the next step towards a unified experience across our product suite – the ScalePad Hub. Now, all ScalePad app users have access to all of their products through a single centralized account, which we’re calling the ScalePad Hub.
The ScalePad Hub is a centralized portal for all ScalePad apps – it is the entry point into the ScalePad app ecosystem for Partners. It’s the first step in our vision of an integrated product suite that allows seamless flow of crucial data & information between our apps.
We strive to provide our Partners with the most advanced automation so they can spend less time cobbling together data and more time on high-value work that supports their clients. The ScalePad Hub is a stepping stone into tighter app integrations, expanded automation, and an enhanced experience for all of our Partners – something we’re calling the ScalePad OS. We have lots more in store (read more at the bottom of this update) and the ScalePad Hub is the foundational first step.
The Hub grants ScalePad Partners the following:
Partners with subscriptions to multiple ScalePad applications can now quickly navigate between apps without the need to sign in to separate app-specific portals. Users will only have to sign in to the ScalePad Hub once to have access to all of their apps from their account By centralizing the access point for all the apps, Partners no longer have to store multiple app-specific credentials or bookmark several sign in pages – every ScalePad app can be accessed from a single screen (or pane of glass for those who prefer the term… we know it’s polarizing).
From within any ScalePad, users can seamlessly navigate to their other subscriptions. Partners only need to click the Bento Box menu in the top nave to quickly open any of their other subscribed apps. A centralized sign in streamlines app switching as there is no longer the need to enter another set of credentials from another sign in page.
The ScalePad Hub is the portal for adding new users and granting them permission to access the apps necessary for their role and responsibilities. Admins are able to manage their ScalePad app users from one place, easily update their entitlements, and enforce security settings for MFA and SSO. Individual users can update their profile details, password, and MFA settings all in the ScalePad Hub.
Note that access permissions to specific features in each app are still configured in each app. The ScalePad Hub simply adds (or removes) users to each Partners ScalePad account. The individual app-based permissions are still managed in each app. For more details, visit our new ScalePad Hub help center.
Within the ScalePad Hub, Partners are able to manage their ScalePad app subscriptions and entitlements. On the Billing tab you will be able to view details of your current ScalePad subscription, manage your plans, and even add new ScalePad apps into your stack.
The URL for the ScalePad Hub is app.scalepad.com. As of November 20, 2024, all users signing into their ScalePad apps will be automatically redirected to app.scalepad.com for sign in.
From within your ScalePad apps, clicking on the ScalePad icon in the top nav bar will take you back to the Hub.
We have answers! Visit this FAQ to find the answer all your questions about the ScalePad Hub. You can also find more detailed information in our new ScalePad help center or get in touch with our team at [email protected].
The launch of the ScalePad Hub sets the stage for unifed billing. Ove the next few weeks, we’ll be migrating to a centralized billing system so Partners can manage all of their app subscriptions in one place. Keep an eye out for in-app messages as we migrate each apps billing to the ScalePad Hub.
At the ScalePad Innovate event in June, we outlined our vision for the ScalePad platform – a deeply integrated suite of apps that helps MSPs truly grow while providing the highest level of service to their clients. The Hub is just the first step towards achieving this vision.
We’ll continue working on the rest of the ScalePad vision, which includes developing the ScalePad OS to unify integrations in the Hub instead of each separate app. This is a critical piece of our platform that will connect your tech stack to all of our apps internally to allow free flow of information to eliminate information silos. Keep tabs on our updates page for more exciting releases as we continue rolling out enhancements to our product suite.
ScalePad will be hosting our next All Partners Conference, Ignition, on January 23. Join us as we bring insight into the key trends, challenges, and opportunities for MSPs. We’ll also be giving a peek into our 2025 product roadmap. Register here to save your seat for this virtual event.
Cognition360 has released enhancements to five reports that provide your MSP with improved analysis of your operations and financial measures, including four of our core reports. Just like the set of several reports we updated in March, and the four more we updated in July, however, you have to ask for them to get them.
Let’s take a quick look at each of the new-and-improved reports and see exactly what’s new and improved.
Here’s the list:
You might not be using all of these reports now, but they’re all well worth a second look.
The Cognition360 Support team has just what you need. If you know exactly what you want, you can fill in this form and request to have the reports you want updated to the latest version. Next step, you’re in and using them.
Once again, the official word from our Product team is that “these improvements will improve customer retention, enhance your quality of life, and empower you to make more informed and strategic business decisions.”
Did you take advantage of the last reports that we updated (by the way, here’s the form if you missed out last time, and a link to read what you missed)? Did they enhance your life’s quality? These ones just might. Read on to learn more… and FYI, the best is saved for last.
“Save The Best For Last” was also a huge hit song in 1992 for actress, pop star, and former Miss America winner Vanessa Williams.
Speaking of 1992, do you remember the 1992 Disney film Aladdin, when the titular character sang about “a new fantastic point of view” in the film’s Oscar and Grammy-winning signature song “A Whole New World”? Well, now in 2024, we’ve added a whole new Billable Technicians page that will give you a new fantastic point of view – the technicians who worked on those tickets, including the billable hours and the billable amount.
All the ticket details are linked here, along with bar charts for the number of billable tickets per technician, the billable hours per technician for these tickets, and the associated billable amounts.
You can also see in the table on the top right how many techs worked on bigger tickets, and this can help you find oddities… like our example, where 6 techs worked on a fixed-fee workstation update for 68.68 billable hours and billed nearly $10,000. Hopefully you don’t find alarming examples in your own business… feels like the client relationship could be in “A Whole New World” of pain.
This is just a quick clean-up to the Entered | Resolved page:
The Entered | Resolved page will now show tickets entered vs tickets resolved on the same date range selected for an easier visual comparison. Strongly recommend getting this fix as it makes the page much more useful.
The Customer Profitability Report has been updated with a new filter for Technical Account Manager added:
Technical Account Manager has been added as a filter just below Account Manager on the Summary page of the Customer Profitability Report. If your organization has both AMs and TAMs, with different customer responsibilities or lines of reporting, this will allow you to see how profitable each TAM’s portfolio of accounts is by month.
An incorrect URL on the Report Information page had been used (which you’d find if you drill down), and refreshing the report with this updated one will correct the error. This one is just a fix so nothing is broken. No screenshot, but we’ll update it for you.
Saving the best for last, but unrelated to Vanessa Williams, three enhancements have been made to Project Summary Report’s main Project Details page that improve oversight for projects:
Billable Budget Hours Remaining and Billable Budget Hours % Remaining have been added to the Project Details page of the Project Summary report. These two measures will indicate the Billable Hours compared to the budgeted hours for the project. This shows at a glance whether billable hours are over or under budget, how many billable hours are still left in the budget, and the percentage of remaining hours of budget.
This enhancement is useful for MSP project managers to communicate with stakeholders, allowing them to quickly highlight projects in the portfolio that are going well and get ahead of issues that have arisen on others (perhaps scope issues with the client, or resource challenges with internal team members).
We’ve also added Project Management Hours and Engineer Hours to the Details page of the report. Again, this is great for portfolio-level project oversight – understanding overhead requirements / overruns and getting an at-a-glance look at the technical resources individual projects have consumed versus estimates / budgets for each. Take action on any projects that are moving in the wrong direction before they’re on fire.
A new With Opportunity filter has been created, which will allow you to view only projects with associated Opportunities that have been created in your PSA, or see those that don’t have any Opportunities at all. This will let you see projects that just got missed on updating Opportunities on the sales process side (or just aren’t linked correctly), or if you’ve moved ahead with a client-sourced project that wasn’t “sold” and never had an Opportunity at all (like a surprise office move).
Summer is over here in the northern hemisphere, so these are the last updated reports of the season. Please use the form to request any of these that interest you, and keep an eye out for more enhancements to Cognition360.
Already a partner? Check this post out and discuss on our Community site.
Not a Cognition360 partner yet? Join us for a personalized demo, or check out this quick overview here. We’d love to help you unlock your ConnectWise PSA data to make better decisions and grow a more profitable MSP business.
Cognition360 has released enhancements to 4 reports that provide your MSP with improved analysis of your operations and financial measures, including two core reports. Just like the set of reports we updated in March, however, you have to ask for them to get them.
Let’s take a quick look at each of the new-and-improved reports and see exactly what’s new and improved.
Here’s the list:
You might not be using all of these reports now, but they’re all well worth a second look.
The Cognition360 Support team’s got what you need. If you know exactly what you want, you can fill in this form and request to have the report you want updated to the latest version. Next step, you’re in and using them.
The official word from our Product team is that “these improvements will improve customer retention, enhance your quality of life, and empower you to make more informed and strategic business decisions.”
Are we over-promising? I’d sure like to enhance the quality of my life. Read on to learn more about each; you be the judge.
Yes, we just updated this a few months ago, but it’s even better now.
The Opportunity Dashboard now shows the latest conversion stage with the latest conversion value. This will help avoid any confusion, as it will only show the latest stage and value instead of multiple conversion stages with different values. Feedback was that the granularity of multiple conversion stages was more trouble than it was worth.
The report now uses the actual last invoiced amount to improve accuracy.
The enhancement to the Agreement Renewals Report improves it to use the actual last invoiced amount as renewal amount instead of amount of the agreement. This better represents true renewal values, as the actual amount can be different from agreement amount. This allows you to see the effects of discounts or deals – how much are your clients actually being charged?
The Service Profitability Report has been updated with ticket summary, board, and billability status.
The report itself has been updated to display Invoice Details with a ticket summary. Scroll to the right, and you’ll see an at-a-glance overview of each ticket, and the ability to sort by which board tickets were assigned to – another way to look at cost/profit/margin by ticket on each service board.
A “Is Ticket Billable” filter has also been added, allowing you to filter out ticketed-but-non-billable work that you may choose not to include in your profitability reporting. This allows you to maintain best practices of tracking all work with tickets and time entries without distorting your margin measures; for example, when team members may be assigned to non-revenue internal projects.
Three enhancements have been made to Ticket Daily Stats:
Want to see right from the Ticket Daily Stats report who’s been sending in tickets and get a hold of them for follow up? Contact is now listed right there.
The Tickets Resolved page now displays the average age of resolved tickets and compares the average age of those resolved tickets by day, week, and month. The Ticket Age calculates the time elapsed between the ticket creation date and the resolution date.
A new page, Ticket Owner | Ticket Resolved, allows a ticket owner to see all their resolved tickets, regardless of who actually resolved them. Perfect for when you’re coming back from summer vacation and you want to know who to thank for closing out some tough ones.
Speaking of summer, we’ll have more updated reports at the end of it. Please use the form to request any of these that interest you, and keep your eyes peeled for more enhancements to Cognition360.
Already a partner? Check this post out and discuss on our Community site.
Not a Cognition360 partner yet? Join us for a personalized demo, or check out this quick overview here. We’d love to help you unlock your ConnectWise PSA data to make better decisions and grow a more profitable MSP business.
Cognition360 has released 7 enhanced reports that provide your MSP with improved analysis of your operations and financial measures, leading to improved efficiency and profitability… but you have to ask for them to get them.
Let’s take a quick look at each of the new-and-improved reports.
Here’s the list:
You might not be using these reports now, but they’re well worth a second look.
The Cognition360 Support team’s got what you need. If you know exactly what you want, you can fill in this form and request to have the report you want updated to the latest version. Next step, you’re in and using them
Some are small tweaks, like added filters, while others have entirely new pages added to them. Read on to learn more about each.
You’ll see two changes here: an additional page called ‘Addition (Qty)’, and the validation of summary quantity.
As you look to cross-sell new products to your clients, you want to know not only which products have been sold through the agreement but also quantities of each product sold. By including product quantities, you have a more accurate depiction of exactly what has been purchased through the Agreement.
Fill in this form and request to have the report you want updated to the latest version.
A new filter enables inclusion or exclusion of Product Classes, which allows you to identify if specific products have been invoiced or not.
Say your MSP has received the latest invoice from a vendor, and you want to cross-reference the number of products you are being billed for against the number of products you will be invoicing your clients for. Now you have an easy way to do just that.
Fill in this form and request to have the report you want updated to the latest version.
Not one, not two, but three updates here. First, this update improves the performance of the Products Sold Report. If that wasn’t enough, we’ve added data validation for products sold on Opportunities, Sales Orders, Projects and Tickets. And last but not least, we’ve added a filter for ‘Site’.
Generating the report quicker – think it’s obvious why you’d want that – and the selectable data validation field lets you only see what you want to see.
‘Site’ filter: if your MSP has multiple sites, like an East Coast office and a Midwest office, this new filter option presents products sold by site instead of only to clients in total. This way, you could see the sales split between the two site locations to compare performance.
Fill in this form and request to have the report you want updated to the latest version.
Here we’ve added a new page called ‘Sales Rep Summary’. Sales Rep Summary shows won opportunities per rep by month. This includes total and Lifetime NRR and MRR as well as profit and margin percentages for the current month, the previous month, and YTD:
Sales Rep Summary better presents the key closed opportunity sales performance metrics of each of your MSP’s sales reps by month. This enables more in-depth review and analysis of month-over-month sales. It’s excellent for improving performance – coach for improvement, and celebrate the wins.
Fill in this form and request to have the report you want updated to the latest version.
The updated Getting Started Report adds a new page ‘Product Release Notes’, which gives you a direct link to the ScalePad Community Product Updates page, where you can find out about future releases… like this one!
Perhaps we should have put this at the top of the list as it’s a place to get started… 🤔. At any rate, use this handy mailto: link to get access, and never miss another update, as you’ll find them all on our Community site.
Fill in this form and request to have the report you want updated to the latest version.
Here we’ve added a new field called ‘Manufacturer’ which, as the name suggests, permits viewing revenue info by OEM.
Why might you want this? Perhaps you’re looking to deprecate an existing OEM’s product you had been selling to your clients. This new field will show the potential impact on upcoming or forecasted sales if you decide to deprecate that manufacturer’s product(s), and point out where you may need to spend a little extra time to ensure those sales move to the alternative you are selling instead.
Fill in this form and request to have the report you want updated to the latest version.
Saving the best for last, we have added a new page, called ‘Technician Metrics’, as an enhancement to the ‘Technician’ page on Ticket SLA Insights.
‘Technician Metrics’ shows the SLA Response, Resplan and Resolved values only where the selected Technician were responsible for each of those actions. The visuals on the ‘Technician’ page shows all values where the selected technician closed the ticket (regardless of which technician was responsible for the other stages of the ticket).
Measuring your team’s technicians’ outputs is a key component to a successful MSP practice. For a service delivery manager, being able to review specific technicians’ SLA response times and resolution notes can be a valuable aid in cross-training new technicians and an important management tool.
Fill in this form and request to have the report you want updated to the latest version.
Hope you see a lot of value in the work we’ve done to enhance these reports, and watch this Community Product Updates space for future upgrades!
