Improve Watchman Asset Integration
Linking Customers to Watchman Assets: I'm not sure how this works for individuals, but some of mine are linked and some are not. Please provide insight to this process.
Quickly identify a Watchman subscriber on Customer profile: I currently have a "Ticket Issue Type" for Watchman computers to identify our subscribers in the ticket list, but it would also be nice to be able to flag a Customer somehow if they are a subscriber (and the Watchman Asset is properly linked). For example, Jim Doe calls the shop and we look him up in RS. There is currently no quick way to tell whether he is a current subscriber or not. It would be great to be able to see a flag or icon on their customer profile page to quickly identify whether they are a subscriber, pull up their Watchman profile, etc. Or maybe a button at the top that just says "view in Watchman" when they have an active account.
What happens to Watchman Computer assets when the customer is no longer a subscriber. If the computer is deleted in Watchman will it get removed from RS? That would be very bad.
Thank you very much!
Amy M
shared this idea
-
Joe
commented
Please don't call it "Watchman Computer" on the Customer Portal. Watchman Monitoring goes to great lengths to allow us to "white label" the software, and we don't use their branding anywhere.
Can we have the option to call it what we want? Or just use a generic term like "Managed Computer" or something like that?
-
Joe
commented
I agree that the Watchman integration needs to be improved. The Asset page in Repairshopr should link to the Computer Record in Watchman! Duh!
And what about updating asset names when the name is updated in Watchman Monitoring, or updated on the machine for that matter? I've asked, and it goes nowhere.
Watchman support has also indicated that they'd be happy to help Repairshopr with this but Repairshopr seems not to follow up. I shouldn't have to coordinate their teams to look into this and follow up multiple times. It's clearly a bug if the name doesn't even update. Machines get repurposed and renamed – obviously. If the old name keeps showing in Repairshopr, it makes me just ignore the whole "feature" of having assets listed because I can't rely on the info presented in Repairshopr.
Assets in Repairshopr seem pretty pointless pointless to me. Like when I get an email from Repairshopr with a link to the Asset in Repairshopr, the Asset page has some very basic info but it's not useful because it doesn't even link to the Customer in Repairshopr. And because nothing updates after the fact, the data is stale in Repairshopr. So I just ignore it.
What's worse, these Assets are listed with old data in the Customer Portal, so now we're presenting incorrect info to our clients too! Plus, it shows type "Watchman Computer". We don't use the "Watchman" branding anywhere else, it's a "white label" service. So now our Customers are wondering "why do you have these old computer names listed?" and "what does Watchman Computer mean?" More work for us to address these questions with our clients.
Like a lot of things in Repairshopr, it's more of a minimally viable proof of concept than a feature per se. Frankly it lets them "check a box" that they "have" some functionality that their customers would want, but in practice it's not actually useful.
-
Michael Miller
commented
Amy, the tip for creating a custom field to identify their subscription is a great idea. Brilliant!
-
Amy M
commented
An update for anyone interested:
1. I don't know if this changed, but it seems easier now to link. Here is how I've done it:
- Go to Tickets
- Click Watchman Monitoring Alerts
- Click 'Show Unmapped Alerts'
- Click on the Computer name--this takes you to the RS asset
- Click Edit, then add the Customer's name that belongs to this Asset. Voila!2. I have created a custom field under the customer to identify their subscription. This is a manual process that is part of on-boarding a new client--but the custom field allows for an icon of your choice to appear next to the customer's name, which is nice. It's not perfect, but it really helps us and maybe a good option for others as well!
3. The answer I can see from my experience so far is: Once the computer is removed from Watchman, it remains in RS, but still has the "Watchman Computer" as the asset type and all the specs from the last time it checked in. This is very good IMO!
-
Michael Miller
commented
Just to re-iterate all the truths spoken to here. The icon, or some similar method, for a subscriber is something I forgot to mention earlier, but sounds like a really fantastic idea. It would haven't have to be watchman specific, either - just the ability to say 'hey, these are the customers who are integrated with a service' whether it's Watchman or MaxFocus or Solarwinds would be huge.
-
Vincent S. Hamm CIO, Aim High!, Inc.
commented
Ditto on this. As Mr. Miller has stated, the integration sometimes works and some times doesn’t.
We’ve contacted Watchman directly about this and, apparently, they have tried to contact someone a RS to review logs, but have not had a response (we’ve had an open ticket with them for 3+ weeks.) -
Michael Miller
commented
Agreed - the integration is awesome to have, but parts of it are a bit opaque - there is a screen where one can re-synchronize the assets (sometimes they don't carry over) but I'm frankly at a loss as to how I stumble on it.
The delete issue is indeed a definite concern as well!
-
Tim Nyberg
commented
+1
All so true, it would be very nice to manage those RMM alerts better. Such as being able to apply macros to the WM alerts so we could automate more.