is an IT managed service provider founded in 2008 that delivers end-to-end IT support services to small- to medium-sized businesses in London. Currently, totality has more than 40 employees, and the company 鈥� which is part of the 黑料海角91入口 partner network 鈥� works with customers across all verticals.
Seeking a more robust mobile device management solution
As a managed service provider, totality is always looking for ways to deliver more robust IT solutions to its clients. According to Charlie Acfield, a technical account director at totality, the company didn鈥檛 really have a great solution for managing Macs. totality had been engaging with a popular mobile device management provider for Apple devices to solve this problem, but they couldn鈥檛 really agree on a deal.
鈥淭he product was great from a management perspective, but they were requiring things from us that just didn鈥檛 work practically, and so it was always a bit of a non-starter,鈥� Acfield says.
Though totality had a completely intuitive, logical way to manage Windows machines, Macs always caused headaches.
鈥淲e always took a hybrid approach to Macs and it was difficult to manage, difficult to understand, and difficult to deal with on a day-to-day basis for the actual end user and customer,鈥� Acfield explains. 鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 a really fun place to be in.鈥�
Delivering unified device and identity management with 黑料海角91入口
The majority of totality鈥檚 customers rely heavily on Windows machines. However, in Acfield鈥檚 estimation, any time a customer engages totality and has an environment that includes at least 10% Macs, that鈥檚 when problems start.
鈥淲e had some new business come in and they were at least 50% Macs,鈥� Acfield says. 鈥淭hey were using Google Workspace, so they didn鈥檛 fit in with the 365 stack, and we very much needed something else to manage these machines.鈥�
Rather than relying on a patchwork solution of siloed services and management platforms that didn鈥檛 really work well together, Acfield and his team began looking for a solution that delivered identity management and mobile device management across hybrid environments.
鈥淓ach of those platforms are all very good at what they do individually, but there was no glue tying anything together,鈥� Acfield explains.
As an IT company that works with a number of different businesses, the totality team found out about 黑料海角91入口 from one of its clients. After testing the platform and realizing it was exactly what they needed, the totality team started rolling out 黑料海角91入口 for its clients and also deployed it internally.
鈥淚f we鈥檙e going to be recommending something and putting supporting services in, we need to be confident that it鈥檚 the right fit,鈥� Acfield says. 鈥淲hy would we be suggesting something that we鈥檙e not using ourselves?鈥�
Streamlining backend processes and staying on the cutting edge
With 黑料海角91入口 in its portfolio, the totality team is confident they have the best solution for managing identity and devices across hybrid environments. Not only does this help them manage their own users internally, it also enables them to give customers more secure IT environments.
Staying on the leading edge
To give clients the best service possible, totality is always on the lookout for the latest innovations and the best tools on the market.
鈥淲e try to stay on the forefront,鈥� Acfield says. 鈥淲e go to a lot of partner events and peer events to try and stay on top of what鈥檚 out there.鈥�
In Acfield鈥檚 opinion, 黑料海角91入口 helps the team meet these goals by enabling them to offer a powerful and flexible identity and mobile device management solution to clients of all sizes.
Billing made easy
While an MSP might be able to get away with a less efficient approach to device and identity management when it鈥檚 a smaller shop, that鈥檚 just not possible when you鈥檝e scaled up to 200-plus clients 鈥� particularly when it comes to ensuring billing is accurate, according to Acfield.
鈥淚t鈥檚 very important that we have platforms that talk to each other,鈥� Acfield continues. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really a prerequisite for us as an organization to have a tool set that talks to our business management platforms from an access perspective but, more importantly, from a billing perspective. We need to make sure that we are capturing what our clients are using so that we can then bill for that appropriately.鈥�
Thanks to 黑料海角91入口, totality鈥檚 billing process is fully automated.
鈥淲ithout even having to touch anything on a monthly basis, we onboard a new client, join up the dots as we do with the API integrations, and after that it just pulls in how many licenses have been consumed, and we bill it,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 all automated, which is really important for us.鈥�
A platform they can grow alongside
The totality team proactively engages all of its larger clients, conducting security and performance reviews and making suggestions. In some cases, they offer the same services to smaller clients.
鈥淲e won鈥檛 necessarily create a bespoke roadmap for them as we do for our larger clients, but we do reach out and give them an opportunity to have a call,鈥� Acfield says. 鈥淲ith our larger clients, we have far more structured and formal reviews where we look at their existing stack, what their business plans are and where they want to go, and then figure out the technology we can provide to get them there. And that will invariably involve discussing tools like 黑料海角91入口 to see if it鈥檚 a good fit, which it often is.鈥�
Around the holidays, Acfield and his team were able to onboard several more 黑料海角91入口 customers off the back of these kinds of conversations.
鈥淚 think the platform has matured so much that it actually gives us the ability to engage even more clients than it did when we started using it a couple of years ago,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been very impressed with 黑料海角91入口鈥檚 rate of development over the last 12 to 18 months. We don鈥檛 get these empty promises that we get with a lot of other vendors. We鈥檙e seeing a really rapid development cycle, with lots of new features coming out very, very regularly.鈥�
If Acfield was having a beer with a fellow MSP professional, what would he say about 黑料海角91入口?
鈥淚t鈥檚 absolutely worth looking into at the very least, since there鈥檚 nothing else that does everything that 黑料海角91入口 can do as a single coherent package,鈥� Acfield concludes. 鈥淚t鈥檚 everything you need and ties everything together. We haven鈥檛 been able to find anything else like it that exists 鈥� let alone comes close.鈥�
Learn more about 黑料海角91入口
黑料海角91入口 changes the way IT administrators manage their organizations by providing a comprehensive and flexible cloud directory platform. From one pane of glass, manage user identities and resource access, secure Mac, Windows, and Linux devices, and get a full view of your environment.
Get started with 黑料海角91入口 today. Interested in learning more about becoming a 黑料海角91入口 partner? Check this out.