Introduction
How do you strike a balance between being more productive in your business and improving your customer service?
The way to success isn’t a walk in the park, though with automation practices that become an integral part of our daily routine, it's not unattainable either.
But let’s face it, many managed service providers cannot muster up the courage to implement automation practices. Why? It appears that IT services automation initiatives raise a number of challenges that MSPs do not want to deal with. This is mostly due to the reasons mentioned earlier: productivity and enhanced customer satisfaction expectations.
In this article, we will observe this fearsome set of challenges for MSPs, provide practical solutions that can help in overcoming these challenges, and demonstrate 5 IT automation use cases as examples of establishing a balance between your desired level of productivity and customer experience expectations.
Automation of managed IT services: Key challenges and how ElectroNeek RPA can help in overcoming them
There are generally 3 main challenges that stop MSPs from implementing automation in their daily operations.
Lack of talent
Hiring full-time developers solely for writing scripts in order to automate the interaction between various applications and tools used by MSPs can be a challenging task. With IT engineers’ salaries rising constantly, this initiative may seem even less feasible for MSPs.
ElectroNeek RPA can become a simple yet still cost-efficient solution due to its drag-and-drop functionality and zero commercial software costs. With ElectroNeek, MSPs can implement automation in their current or future projects by using existing IT resources as developing a bot will be a hassle-free task for both junior and experienced IT engineers.
Compatibility and integration capabilities
MSPs’ daily operations require the support of multiple applications and systems, including legacy ones. Each of these platforms has its integration capabilities, and finding solutions to make them compatible sometimes can get on anyone's nerves.
The good news is that RPA is a non-invasive technology that works on the surface of applications. To put it simply, it mimics human actions performed when interacting with various interfaces, including switching between applications, authorization, migrating data, etc. With ElectroNeek RPA, supporting the execution of tasks performed on various platforms will be seamless. Additionally, the integration with over 2,000 Zapier apps opens up limitless opportunities for integration and connectivity between desktop and cloud services.
Security risks
Security risks related to automation mostly coincide with traditional cybersecurity risks: privileged access abuse, vulnerabilities, system outage, and disclosure of confidential information.
And just as with the traditional cybersecurity risks, they require sound and well thought-out preventive measures, which may include ongoing data monitoring and risk analysis, access management procedures, data encryption, and creating a governance framework.
As for ElectroNeek RPA, it is a SOC-compliant solution, protected with AWS Guard Duty and having implemented data management policies in place, which means that private data stays on the bot level and is not disclosed further.
Managed IT services automation: 5 simple use cases that will save an enormous amount of time
So what areas are included in managed IT services?
Here is the list of some of them:
- Helpdesk technical support monitoring
- Network testing
- Network monitoring
- Security risk mitigation
- Data storage and web hosting provisioning
- Installation and update management
- Connectivity and bandwidth management
- Software patches implementation
- Employee onboarding/offboarding
Below, we will disclose 5 IT automation use cases within the areas given above. And even though they may seem basic, by implementing them in your team's daily operational grind, you could save up to 40% of productive time.
Use case #1: Software testing
Testing software manually may result in undiscovered bugs and lead to an increase in your IT team's workload.
What can be automated by an RPA bot?
- Hardware and software configuration testing
- Unit, API, and regression testing tasks
- Bug detection
- Code line checking
- Testing initiation, statuses, and completion reporting
- Expected and actual results comparison
- Report creation
Use case #2: VM setup and maintenance
Employees' onboarding procedures require setting up and maintaining virtual machines, which includes setting up operational systems and software, installing drivers, etc. RPA bots may significantly improve the efficiency of the engineering team by automating the following tasks.
What can be automated by an RPA bot?
- Installation of pre-set software packages, drivers, and OS
- Configuration of workstation parameters
- Troubleshooting report creation
- Email service setup
- Corporate account setup
- Alerts and notification management
- Building and installing required software, drivers, and OS
Use case #3: Password generation
Dictionary attacks are a common hacking technique, and the generation of a complex password by following pre-set rules and criteria may be one of the ways of preventing cyberattacks.
What can be automated by an RPA bot?
- Recognition of provided inputs
- Password generation according to the pre-set criteria
- Storage of the output file in the pre-defined folder
Use case #4: Legacy system maintenance
One of the reasons businesses use legacy systems is the vital information that they store. As mentioned above, RPA is a non-invasive tool, hence it can easily deal with automating tasks within legacy systems’ maintenance usually executed manually by MSP teams.
What can be automated by an RPA bot?
- Automation of switching between various legacy environments (CRM, ERP, email system)
- Legacy systems data updates
- Data imports from external systems
- Data transfer from a legacy system to external systems
- Status reports
- Notifications and alerts
Use case #5: Helpdesk management
Manual helpdesk ticket management is a time-consuming task for IT teams. Automation can become a great solution for handling a variety of tasks included within helpdesk management.
What can be automated by an RPA bot?
- Creation of helpdesk tickets from various resources
- Adding tickets into relevant CRMs and systems as tasks
- Tagging tickets
- Emailing stakeholders with helpdesk tasks
- Creating reports when a ticket's status changes
- Notifications and alerts
Managed IT services automation: Where to start?
We’ve observed the key challenges of automation for MSPs and provided advice on how ElectroNeek RPA can help in overcoming them, as well as demonstrated 5 simple use cases of managed IT services automation that can make the daily routine much easier for MSPs.
There is no denying that, while automation is no longer a growing trend, for managed IT services, it is still a valuable asset that can bring competitive advantage in the market.
In this regard, choosing the right RPA vendor becomes a vital aspect of your automation initiatives’ success. ElectroNeek RPA is a trusted RPA vendor that boosts RPA adoption for MSPs. Our stable and secure automation solutions, premium UX, and revolutionary business model that offers unlimited RPA bot licenses at no cost guarantee business continuity and growth for you and your clients.
Want to see ElectroNeek RPA in action? Book a demo today!