Starting own IT consultancy - Gathering list of tools required and recommendations
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I am currently evaluating Max Focus and having a call with their team to better understand their licensing. My mind is between screenconnect and GFI, reason for GFI is that it has almost all required modules in one place which can be very helpful on retainer jobs: patch management, av, maintenance tasks etc. Thanks @hubtechagain
Regarding accounting, i think for now i can stay with freshbooks and don't require xero to be added.
Another thing I am thinking is about mails, i currently have it on google apps, the free 10 user pack. Thinking if i need to switch to O365, which will give me MS office license as well, which is anyways needed for my daily tasks. If so, which O365 can i start with to just have Mails+Office online and desktop?
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The $5 Office 365 SMB plan probably has everything that you want.
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MaxFocus is not as great as you might think. We used it for a bit and had lots of issues with it. The remote control software was unreliable at best. The AV piece (if you use it) is also not as good as others on the market (Webroot for the win here). I would recommend ScreenConnect.
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I am just getting started with MaxFocus. So far so good, with only a few hiccups. I have been using ScreenConnect and love it, but want to try a full RMM tool and LabTech was too expensive (they recently bought ScreenConnect.) On the other end, I am using CommitCRM and Quickbooks. They integrate nicely and I have all of my client info, records, tickets and billing in CommitCRM. It has made life much easier.
Steve
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i use max focus every day. like every day. i dont know what remote access issues the queen has had, but i've not experienced any of that . You can use Vipre or Bitdefender for your AV engine, and i never have any virus problems out of my clients who use either. Vipre is easier on the system than bitdefender. BD, looks nicer. once you tweak your monitoring templates it's great. as much or as little data as you'd like. Sorry you guys had problems with it if you'd like to have me consult in on the config let me know.
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@scottalanmiller said:
The $5 Office 365 SMB plan probably has everything that you want.
If he wants email and desktop apps he'll need to do the $12.50/month plan.
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@BRRABill Seems like so. Only that starts with email+desktop apps. so you guys agree on the move from google apps to O365 for these reasons.
Google apps for 10 users free for me, but then i don't get MS office. Or I stay with google apps for email, and use MS office only for $8.25. Again, nice to have all in one place!
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If you definitely want to use Office, I'd go with the $12.50 a month plan.
I personally like the hosted Exchange a lot.
You can always start with the $8.25 and upgrade any time down the road to the $12.50 one.
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Do you really need local office? What are you doing that requires that?
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I would require Outlook client for sure, and good to have desktop version, but i guess even online version would work. But even outlook comes with the desktop clients and start with the $12
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Also thinking on what laptop should i get; go with a MAC Air, so light weight can carry around and for larger display in the office, i can always hook that up to a big monitor. Or get Surface pro 4.
With a Macbook pro 13" i7, 512SSD, 16GB, i can easily run both windows 10 and mac, which would be very useful to support both clients, test and work. -
@Ambarishrh said:
Also thinking on what laptop should i get; go with a MAC Air, so light weight can carry around and for larger display in the office, i can always hook that up to a big monitor. Or get Surface pro 4.
With a Macbook pro 13" i7, 512SSD, 16GB, i can easily run both windows 10 and mac, which would be very useful to support both clients, test and work.I use a MacBook Pro with Parallels to run any VM I may need.
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@JaredBusch That's what I am thinking too. I know I've been asking too many questions on this thread, but goal is to possible compile one list of tools and post it.
Do you guys ever give on the spot quotes for an Annual maintenance contract, just an average at least? Lets say if you have set pricing for each types of machine like Win/Mac and also pricing for OS, what do you think about an on the spot quote, no frills, no waiting period, client can choose if that matches their req and possibly advice them to do some upgrades for eg: XP not supported anymore, so cost of maintaining is more, suggest to upgrade. This i feel would be good so long as i am one man, and only applying to AMC for machines which has basic maintenance tasks.
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Anyone used continuum?
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@Ambarishrh said:
@JaredBusch That's what I am thinking too. I know I've been asking too many questions on this thread, but goal is to possible compile one list of tools and post it.
Do you guys ever give on the spot quotes for an Annual maintenance contract, just an average at least? Lets say if you have set pricing for each types of machine like Win/Mac and also pricing for OS, what do you think about an on the spot quote, no frills, no waiting period, client can choose if that matches their req and possibly advice them to do some upgrades for eg: XP not supported anymore, so cost of maintaining is more, suggest to upgrade. This i feel would be good so long as i am one man, and only applying to AMC for machines which has basic maintenance tasks.
Something like this, which i was working with my friend
can be used as an app/site.
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The backend of this will have options to change pricing and add/remove categories
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@Ambarishrh said:
I would require Outlook client for sure, and good to have desktop version, but i guess even online version would work. But even outlook comes with the desktop clients and start with the $12
HUH? I use the $5/month/user SMB plan. Online versions of Office only and OWA for email. Does everything I need. If you needed to integrate a CRM into Outlook I could see needing a local install of Outlook, but you said you aren't looking at CRMs right now.
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@Dashrender said:
HUH? I use the $5/month/user SMB plan. Online versions of Office only and OWA for email. Does everything I need. If you needed to integrate a CRM into Outlook I could see needing a local install of Outlook, but you said you aren't looking at CRMs right now.
I like the local version of Outlook soooooooooooooooooo much better than OWA.
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@BRRABill When was the last time you used OWA?
I live in my OWA O365 version very well. If you're on an old version like 2007, or even 2010, it might not be what you want, but Exchange 2013 (not sure if O365 has upgraded to 2016 yet) OWA is very much like the local client.
