Picture this: you're an MSP pro, and it’s another busy Monday morning. Without an MSP project management software like Asana, you sit down with your coffee, ready to tackle the day. But as you glance at the screens in front of you, the chaos feels overwhelming—it’s a lot to take in!
One screen shows your PSA. It's full of tickets from clients who are complaining because you said you would get back to them; however, it turns out that you and your team forgot to.
Another screen has your Project Boards in Asana. You’re trying to get your team to keep tasks up to date there, but it's tough because they also need to enter time into ConnectWise for billing purposes.
And on the third screen? That’s the big spreadsheet you made. It’s supposed to keep things organized, but it often feels messy and hard to follow
On top of that, you have emails back and forth with team members and the clients to update everyone on project status and your best guess as to when it’ll be done....
Does this sound like a typical day for you? If so, you’re not alone!
The Power of Kanban and Visual Tools: Improving Your MSP
This is where the solution comes in, Kanban.
Why do MSPs need Kanban boards and other visual tools? It’s straightforward: these tools make handling tasks easier and more efficient in these ways.
With Kanban, you can quickly view what each person is working on. It’s like having a clear picture of all your projects. You can catch problems early and keep things running smoothly.
But that’s not all! There are other helpful visual tools that make your MSP even less stressed:
• Gantt charts: These show how all your projects fit together over time.
• Horizontal swimlanes: organize work by person, skillset, queue, client, type or category
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Resource allocation tools: These tools help make sure everyone has the right amount of work and is focused on what they need to do.
When you use these tools together, you gain clarity and control, helping your team stay organized, work more efficiently, and deliver better results.
When Even the Best Tools Aren’t Enough
So, the solution is clear. You decide to try a tool like JIRA, Asana or Monday.com because it seems like the perfect answer to give you and your clients the bigger picture.
The Kanban boards are simple to use, and the idea of having everything laid out in one place feels like a dream come true.
At first, those Kanban boards seemed like the perfect answer. Everyone was excited to have everything laid out in one place. But after a while, keeping the PSA and PM tool (Asana, JIRA, etc) manually in sync every day started to become a huge hassle. Technicians got frustrated, and you take on copying over notes for them which in turn makes you frustrated.
The Story of How TopLeft Began: Turning a Big Problem into Something Awesome
"I'll never forget the year we were struggling so bad to manage projects and ticket backlogs. We were losing clients out the backdoor as fast as we got them in the frontdoor. All while we had a PSA (ConnectWise) to help manage the business. I got so frustrated and desperate" our founder frequently shares. "One day, I realized the irony: my other company, a SaaS product for internet speed optimization, was using JIRA and the Agile Scrum project methodology. They had low stress and steady progress and were getting work out the door every day. I got to thinking: how can we apply that in the IT Operations world? I knew there must be a better way. After a bit of research and thinking, we settled on the Kanban method. We couldn’t find any decent integration to existing tools (Zapier doesn’t count), so we experimented with creating our own.
Why Your PSA Is the Heart of Your Business
You might be thinking, "Why not just stop using your PSA, move everything to a tool like JIRA or Asana, and call it a day?" That's a good question. But here's the thing: your PSA is way more than just a ticketing tool.
Your PSA is the heart and soul of your MSP. It's where you keep all your tickets, time entries, invoices, contracts, and super important client data. It's the main hub for all the key info about your clients and the history of working with them.
Plus, all your financial reporting, forecasting, and keeping track of rules and regulations depend on the data in your PSA.
In other words, your PSA is the foundation of your business. You can't just get rid of it! What you need is a way to make it work even better with your MSP.
Real MSP Success Stories: How TopLeft Made a Big Difference
Here’s a true story from Chase, the Engineering Manager at Appalachian Network Services Inc.
Before switching to TopLeft, their workflow was a mess:
• They only met their SLAs 60% of the time.
• They had an employee utilization rate of 30%
• They had issues keeping track of everything!
But several months after they started using TopLeft? The change was amazing:
• They upped their meeting SLAs to an awesome 90%!
• Their employee utilization was bumped up to 75%. They're almost at their goal of 80% now.
• All the updates sync automatically in real-time. They don't have to do anything!
• One single screen now shows them everything they need to know about what's going on.
They can now spend way more time doing what's important - solving problems and giving clients great service.
Streamline Your MSP Workflows with Confidence
Ready to eliminate scattered workflows and disconnected tools that you get when using tools like Asana? Book a demo with TopLeft.
This demo shows how TopLeft streamlines project management, ticket tracking, and task assignments while cutting down on manual updates for better service.
