An MSP with little documentation

Business IT/MSP Talk
1

Hi folks, posted this on reddit. However wanted to reach out to other forums to get opinions on.

This is my first time working in IT and at an MSP. I’ve been here for at least 2 years+ - We currently have an estimate of 30-40 break fix and contracted customers. Contracted customers are our “managed” customers. It’s myself and another tech who does work on all of the IT related calls. We also have another tech who does work in other areas who rarely will assist in our IT calls.

Our ‘documentation’ is currently sitting in word documents and folders for each customers in our SharePoint. Word documents would have a very basic network diagram, very basic over view of the site and who to contact and a very basic over view of what systems are in place. There are also no solution articles for any customer for unique or widespread issues. There are also no procedures on updates, software management, installs etc. Our passwords for every customer which is about 50+ sites, some we don’t do work for anymore is stored in a password manager database file on our NAS. It’s had the same password for a while now. Customers have to ask us for access to their passwords which we’ll print and hand to them. As for the documentation, customers don’t know if any if at all exist.

At the moment, I’ve been utilising OneNote to write my notes on a few customers and the fixes (solution articles). I’ve been writing a few procedures that I do for each site in OneNote.

I’ve tried suggesting to the other tech who does IT alongside me if we can get some documentation software such as Hudu or IT Glue but they have said just use the Word documents and update them accordingly.

As I have barely any experience before this job, what’s best practice. How should we document each customer? What can we do better?

TLDR;

  • First-time IT tech at an MSP, 2+ years in, supporting ~30-40 clients (break-fix and contracted).

    • Documentation is in Word docs on SharePoint with minimal details, no solution articles, and no standardized procedures.

    • Passwords for 50+ sites are stored in a NAS-based password manager with an unchanged password; clients must request access.

    • Started using OneNote for documentation, but the other IT tech prefers updating existing Word docs instead of using a dedicated tool.

    • Seeking best practices for improving documentation and making it more efficient.

2

I wish your story was less common, but it’s not. We use HUDU for client documentation and Bitwarden for passwords. Getting things to those platforms will be a heavy lift but in the end make it much easier for people to do their jobs.

2 Likes
3

I worked at IBM Global Services before it was spun off into Kyndryl as well as at Atos. One of the biggest complaints from customers was lack of documentation, especially when we were transitioning an account in or out. One of the other big complaints (and this was more than a decade ago, so it could have changed) was no process to patch machines and keep them current.

4

HUDU will give you a free trial, you should look into it, they should see how efficient it will make you, not to mention more secure. We have been self hosting it for over 5 years. It is easily the fastest portal we use! I tested IT Glue, IT Portal and a couple others before settling on it. What impressed me most early on was features I suggested actually made it into the product on subsequent updates.