Syncro’s Priorities for Q4

Hey folks - I wanted to give you an update on what we’re working on, why, and what you can expect in Q4 2022. We recently shared that our platform now supports over 4,000 MSPs! With this continued increase in demand, we’re working hard to ensure that the platform is reliable and working hard for you as you grow with us. We hear from many of our partners every day, and we know you are wondering what we are working on. We vow to share at least once a month about what’s in the works and what’s coming up next.

Here’s what we’re focused on in the next few months:

  1. Increasing trust in the platform; including reliability, scalability, and flexibility
  2. Top-requested PSA features; such as ticketing communications, profitability reports, invoicing updates, and other quality of life enhancements

Making sure the platform is performing to your expectations is the most critical thing for us, and we are investing a lot of our Engineering resources here. We feel this is in accordance with the sentiment we hear from the community wanting us to focus on platform reliability. You will still continue to see features ship in Q4 too, but the emphasis is on reliability, scalability, and security of the platform and RMM functionality first, PSA features second.

Want more details? Here ya go…

Increasing trust in the platform, including reliability, scalability, and flexibility

The platform has scaled well over the years. However, there are three main areas that are still concerning to our partners and we are investing in those to build trust and set the platform up for long-term success.

Recurring Invoices - There have been cases where recurring invoices have failed to generate at their scheduled time. We’ve moved the Recurring Invoice system over to AWS already, and have therefore gained more observability. We can now see every time a Recurring Invoice fails to run. We made it a priority to release fixes for every issue we’ve found since July. We are currently testing and monitoring to make sure before we call it “done”. It’s worth noting that when we’ve seen failed invoices, we’ve manually re-run them on our end to make sure they’ve been generated successfully (so you shouldn’t have seen invoices fail to run on your end since July). If you do see this again, please submit a ticket here.

RMM Scripts - There have been intermittent issues causing RMM scripts not to run when they should. To help resolve this, we just finished moving the recurring scripts system over to AWS. This enables us to start monitoring for failed script runs. If we can see every failure, we’ll be able to find the root causes and resolve them. We’re simultaneously investigating a complete replacement of the system, just in case.

False Positives for Online/Offline Alerts - We have had reports of false positives for offline alerts, meaning users were getting alerted for an offline asset when in reality it was not. To address this, we’re researching a replacement for the current system that runs our presence monitoring. This one has been particularly difficult to tackle because it’s hard to tell what a “Positive” vs a “False Positive” is without context from the user in combination with debug logs, and it’s hard to test a fix to have confidence that it resolved the issue. We’ve released so many patches for the current system but still see reports of false positives pop up. We’ve decided it probably makes sense to rip it out and replace it with something else, and are vetting that idea in combination with other new ideas for reducing false positives.

Heroku to AWS migration - I’ve talked about this pretty extensively at this point, but to recap…We’re currently using Heroku for our cloud hosting. This served us well until about 2 years ago because it is built on top of AWS and abstracts low-level configuration and management quite a bit so you can move fast without having a bunch of DevOps folks on staff. However, our ability to scale the platform was limited on Heroku, which is why we’re migrating to AWS. AWS will give us more observability, scalability, reliability - and control. We’ll be able to diagnose issues faster and detect them earlier. Some of our long-standing issues (which I’ll get into in a second) have been very hard to resolve because we don’t have enough control over our infrastructure in Heroku. A recent real-world challenge was the database column change we performed last week, which I detailed here. The platform migration is a long-term investment in Syncro that will help us scale. This is obviously a large project and is split into two phases. Phase 1 has already been completed and we plan to have Phase 2 completed in Q4. This should result in all kinds of performance improvements, and should unlock work that was previously blocked, such as separate data centers by region, improved “Search all the Things”, and more (I’m not saying those things are on the roadmap, I’m saying they couldn’t even be on the roadmap previously).

We’re committed to updating you on a regular basis on our progress toward the initiatives above. We will post updates in the Community Forums in the Announcements section.

Top-requested PSA features and other quality of life enhancements

Rich Text and Image Embed in Tickets - As you know, we attempted to roll this out a short while back. There were some minor bugs discovered which were pretty straightforward to fix, and we could have just fixed them within a day or so and been done (and everyone would’ve been able to enjoy Rich Text). However, we also discovered a potential security vulnerability. We rolled back the deployment so we could take our time looking into the issue without any risk to our partners and platform. The rollback itself resulted in unfortunate issues that affected users negatively, but when weighing the pros/cons it was clear that rolling back was better than leaving a security vulnerability in the wild. Security is crucial and we’re taking the necessary actions to ensure we’re delivering a secure and robust solution. The team is working diligently to take this to the finish line next month. It will be released to an Early Adopter group of users who volunteered to test it (Thanks!) before going to everyone else. We’ve already made a few changes to our development process based on this, but I count it as a win that we were able to detect it so quickly and prevent it from being in the wild for more than a few minutes. For the avoidance of doubt, we do already have automatic code scanning, a Responsible Disclosure program, and have 3rd parties regularly conduct penetration tests.

Stripe ACH support - We already had work to support ACH through Stripe underway before the Worldpay outage a few weeks ago, and that event reinforced the importance of having multiple payment provider options that support ACH. While I don’t have an exact timeline on this, I can say you’ll see it before the end of the year.

Customer & Tech Efficiency Reports - We will be rolling out reports around ticket processing efficiency, both by technician and customer, that will help you identify opportunities to grow your business faster. This has been heavily requested by the larger MSPs using our platform. We’re gearing up for Early Access within the next few weeks. If you’d like to be on the early access list, please email me at ian@syncromsp.com.

Enhanced VAT support for Australia/New Zealand/Ireland - In April, we dramatically improved the way VAT works for our partners in the UK. We are planning to update VAT support in the same way for our partners in Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland.

UI/UX Improvements - We’ve recently hired some awesome new UX folks who are getting up-to-speed on the platform. It’s a little early to say what exactly they’ll tackle first because they’re still getting a lay of the land, but we’re excited to bring you an updated interface. If you are interested in being a part of informing or testing the redesign, please email me at ian@syncromsp.com.

Mac Agent support for Mac OS Ventura - We’re in the research phase here, but we fully intend to support Ventura.

Other

Community Engagement - I recently changed roles from Chief Operating Officer to Channel Chief, after having been out on Parental Leave. I’m making a very concerted effort to increase our engagement with our Partners in any way we can:

  • We now have a dedicated area for Feature Requests in the Community Forums, and our Product team reviews every single post.
  • We’re doing “What’s New in Syncro” webinars roughly every 2 months again.
  • We’re re-engaging in various Syncro User Groups around the web, on Facebook, Reddit, and more, in addition to the Official Community Forums.
  • I’m working with Andy and the team to spin up a reimagined version of the “Open Office Hours” webinars we used to host. Our goal is to host the first one sometime next month.
  • We recently launched the Syncro Skimmer which is an awesome newsletter to keep you updated on the MSP Industry.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this is helpful!

Here’s my ask to you: Please let me know if there’s something that we should be working on that is very high-impact that would increase your trust in the platform. I’m talking about issues that dramatically impact your ability to run your business on Syncro daily and have confidence that Syncro is a partner in improving your efficiency and accuracy. To give us feedback, please reply to this Community Post thread.

Let me know if you have any questions,

Ian

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My own opinion is to focus on completing the migration, then hyper focus on security for a time to help us meet requirements of insurance and add the ability to limit access to Syncro admins in various ways (e.g., 365 login integration, YubiKey, secondary non-admin accounts at no cost, etc.)

Then move on to improvements.

Thanks for the communication.

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Same… if the migration is still holding everything up and/or slowing everything down - might just as well focus on that so we can get over that quickly. Not sure what all it entails that is making it take a while, but if its slowing everything down I rather we just get it over with as quick as possible.

With that said - is there a reason why its taking so long to make this happen? While I understand you are moving - that isnt the question - but what is causing the hold up? Databases? Code? All the above?

Thanks for all the current information though! Keep up the hard work:)

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There are a lot of moving parts, and we have to migrate while also keeping the app up and running. It’s like upgrading a plane while you’re in the air and have passengers in it. So we move one part at a time. There are a lot of parts: web servers, app servers, database, microservices, etc. And while we’re moving, we uncover opportunities to make things better. Another analogy might be when you move from one house to another but are also working a full-time job and have kids. You end up finding boxes of stuff that need to be cleaned, thrown away, unpacked, and old bills you have to pay, and you deal with that stuff so you don’t have to move the junk to the new house. So anyway, now that you’ve read my horrible analogies, maybe that helps :man_shrugging:t2:

The last point I’ll make is that there can only be so many cooks in the kitchen on one project. It wouldn’t actually be more efficient for us to only work on this.

Let me know if you have any questions,

Ian

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Thanks for the follow up, I am just nosey, forgive me:)

Thanks for this.
Not that you’re doing any differently- but: Do focus just as much on security, and revisit it constantly.
Your security team should of course be taking every publicized breach as an opportunity to review EVERY facet of your entire Security umbrella - policies, practices, monitoring, training, vigilance and regular rigorous review.

As my unsolicited 2+1/2 cents.

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Regardless of the hiccups and glitches here and there this post alone is a great example of how you continue to differentiate yourself from the other PSAs out there - keep on engaging and talking to us directly its very welcomed and refreshing.

+1 for Stripe ACH support - thanks for listening and developing this out

I know you are doing the What’s New webinars but can we also get a future-looking roadmap for new features etc? One of the things I liked about Halo’s approach for example was the detailed roadmap publicly available - even if you limit it to current partners it would be nice to see a future state in terms of what you are working on.

Cheers to the team though - thanks for what y’all do to help keep us running everyday.

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Sounds great, too bad that resources will not allow development of some areas we find lacking and have requested for several years.
1.) Ability to exclude patch categories on the executive summary report. Drivers are the main one. We do not deploy driver updates unless there is a need. NIC, BlueTooth, Video auto updates from Microsoft can be problematic. Microsoft has, as a default excluded drivers from patching and must be manually selected by group policy or at machine level. Syncro gives the ability to exclude drivers, but they are not considered in the devices 100% patched. Excluding drivers causes this report to show 0 machines fully patched. Not good for a client facing report.

2.) Windows server backup reporting is not accurate. Many event log errors that Windows Server Backup can generate are not included in the monitoring and must be manually added in.

3.) Ability to report on ALL Windows Event Log errors.
Currently, the folder tree Event Viewer (Local) / Application and Services Log is not searchable, nor is the ability to trigger alerts on these logs. Windows Server Backup generates important errors that we cannot define. (We have been asking for this one for 2.5 years now.

Thank you

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Glad to see I’m not the only one asking for the ability to exclude certain patch categories in the executive reports for clients. Drivers are the main one for us too. Especially on servers, we’re not going to trust random drivers installing automatically on critical client infrastructure.

Syncro, would this be that resource intensive to implement in the executive reports? This is an issue affecting our client relationships right now. Is there anyway it can be done in the next few weeks?

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I’m glad to hear this! Reliability has been a major issue in different parts of Syncro, and I’m really glad and grateful that Syncro is focusing on taking care of their current clients and not trying to just get more in the door like so many other companies do.

With that said, I do have similar concerns as others on this post do about feature implementation/fixes to some current headache issues such as the ability to exclude patch categories (primarily drivers) from executive reports which we provide to clients on the status of their computer systems we manage. Having to tell the client to ignore certain numbers on a report is very unprofessional and embarrassing as a company striving to provide top notch services. Is there any way this can be taken care of in the next few weeks?

Thank you!

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When you say Stripe ACH support, I hope that includes the ability to use Stripe Direct Debit in Australia. ACH is a US product/process in Stripe’s back end, it’s called BECS here.

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There are still features that are broken. Syncro has just raised the prices (again) on the platform, and we have basic features that do not work. If Syncro is already installed on a machine and we try to upgrade the machine to include Webroot, then Webroot never installs and it has to be done manually. The whole point of this platform is supposed to be reducing our workload in managing the RMM devices. Please don’t say that previous security software is blocking the installation because I’m seeing this on clean installs when the end user decides to upgrade to Webroot within a few days.

What do you mean when you say “upgrade the machine to include Webroot?” You mean you have Webroot integrated with Syncro, and you enable it on the policy, and then it never installs?

If what I said here is accurate ^, then I’d definitely reach out to support if you haven’t already. We have not seen this behavior frequently reported by any means, and it’s typically not going to be related to another security product being installed since Webroot is designed to install side by side with just about anything.

We have a ton of MSPs deploying Webroot and this is definitely not a pervasive issue, so I’d definitely like to have support take a look at your account specifically.

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If its the one base in the forum already… its a pretty common issue that has been around for a while that has been reported on a few times already.

What happened to the priorities for Q3?

In Q3 we completed the first major milestone of our Heroku to AWS migration. We also released a bunch of smaller QOL feature improvements:

  • Report Builder List Blocks now support 100, 250, and 500 records
  • Added ability to add time on behalf of another technician
  • Added customer names to ticket comments
  • Added ability to subscribe another technician to tickets
  • We added the ability to filter Saved Customer Searches by number of assets
  • We added the ability to set a default per-technician labor product

And of course we fixed a slew of user-reported issues which we post here in the Community Forums each month:

This is on top of everything else we’ve been hard at work on for Q4 which Ian spoke to above. Two of those items are rounding the corner, Technician and Customer Efficiency Reports, and HTML Ticket Communications.

We’ve been quite busy over here :).

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@ian.alexander Venture is out today. Is macOS Ventura supported?

Thanks

Update has been posted here, but short answer is yes.

When it comes to increasing trust Syncro needs a central audit of what it did, and what was done in the platform.

Or at least a byo external log target. When I run a script against 1000 assets to monitor something the only way to know what happened is to go to each asset, and look at the script history tab. This would take so long that on device where I’m monitoring stuff hourly I’d risk the script history paging out before I could get to those assets to look at what happened.

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