CTI Technology Migrates to Autotask for Greater Efficiency

As CTI Technology grew, having point solutions for their core service delivery tools, such as PSA, RMM, BCDR and reporting, proved ineffective. These disparate solutions created inefficiencies among their team and bloated vendor bills.

When an inbound call for support would come in, the CTI Technology team couldn’t resolve the issue at the first instance since moving between their PSA, RMM and backup system windows took up much of their time. The sales team was also required to manually enter quote and purchase order information in Kaseya Quote Manager and their PSA solution.

Even though they had implemented a dashboard platform with a heads-up display, they found it tricky to set up the gauges and data feeds correctly. Even on legacy pricing, they were paying over $500 a month for a solution that would only display data on a TV.

Recognizing the inefficiencies in their workflow, CTI Technology evaluated Autotask. Having recently implemented Kaseya Quote Manager for Quoting and Procurement, Autotask was a natural fit. The deep workflow integrations between Autotask and Kaseya Quote Manager were just the tip of the iceberg. Being able to integrate Datto Continuity and Datto RMM with Autotask meant they could finally deliver first-call resolution to their customers.

“We wanted to get to a point where we could seamlessly transition from our PSA to RMM to documentation tools without the need to stop what we were doing, open a new browser and log into the next tool. It became easier to provide support for our clients once we eliminated the extra login steps” 

Compared to their previous solutions, using Autotask’s built-in dashboards and widgets meant that their team could not only visually see the data but also take action on it — all without the expensive price tag.

“Autotask’s built-in dashboards and gauges that pull data directly from the same database are great. We have customized dashboards for engineers to look at so they know where they’re at, what tickets they have, or what things are actionable.”

The Process of Implementation and Migration

The CTI team had been using their PSA for over a decade, and with so much legacy data in the system, the thought of going through a PSA migration seemed daunting at first. However, the flexibility and level of integration between their existing Datto Continuity and Kaseya Quote Manager products with Autotask sold leadership on the vision. To get the rest of the team onboard, CTI Technology spoke with a peer who had recently migrated. This conversation put them at ease knowing that although Autotask is highly customizable, they could take baby steps, instead of having to hit the ground running with all the different features.

“It was a hard decision to make, but we knew that it was the right one to make eventually, no matter how daunting a task it seemed to change PSA tools.”

Andrew credits the knowledgeable Autotask implementation team for a successful setup and onboarding experience.

“When we met with our Datto implementation expert, it was her experience and understanding of Sea-Level Operations and her understanding of their process that helped us align our setup of Autotask. She was extremely knowledgeable every time I had a question, she would say, ‘Yeah, we can help you get there by doing it this way.’”

Although Andrew does admit that there is some heavy lifting involved in a PSA migration, the Autotask implementation team was able to automatically migrate most assets, like companies, contacts, tickets and documents. Other more sensitive items, such as contracts, required a hands-on approach to ensure billing and cash flow are not impacted.

“We migrated in phases. First thing was just getting our data into Autotask. We started with companies, then migrated all the documents that we have for those companies. Step three was migrating ticket history. Built in checks and balances gave us confidence we weren’t missing data. Our consultant helped ensure ticket details and statuses made it correctly into Autotask. There was a lot of cross-checking involved, but I think it helped our dispatchers become more skilled at using Autotask.”

CTI Technology’s migration to Autotask was spread out over a few weeks to minimize the impact on operations. Andrew estimates that if he could dedicate his entire role to the migration, it would have taken a regular work week to accomplish the migration.

“If that’s all I did for one straight week without any other distractions, it would have been a 60+ hour week. But because it was broken up into manageable phases and meetings, the experience was less stressful than I had anticipated.”

After only a few months into their Autotask setup, Andrew was already seeing a positive return on investment.

“Autotask gives us more insight into contract profitability.  We have more efficiency from sales to service delivery. The technology supports our processes and allows for consistency. Autotask allows us to track the data we need to run our business effectively.”

When asked what advice Andrew would give to others looking to make the switch, he said, “I think if I was to do it all over again, I would spend more time on the front end. I would probably spend more time refining processes and just being in Autotask. Dedicate more time being in the tool before going full on with all the setup.”