labtech software Archives

Try Office365 For ConnectWise Automate For 1 Month Free

The team over at Plugins4Automate is offering a great value to try out their new Office365 for ConnectWise Automate plugin. Get the first month free and have a go at this great plugin. Here is just a few of the neat things you can mange.

Azure Active Directory

Need to add a new user, re-enable a user after lockout or just manage a password change, you can perform quick tasks in Office365 directly from your Labtech consoles.

MSOL Exchange

Need to add a forwarding address or maybe convert a users mailbox to shared, set a users Out Of Office replies or view their current mailbox stats, with our Exchange integration you have access to Exchange online with just a few clicks inside of LabTech

Sharepoint Cloud

Create new sites or manage users and groups for existing sites quickly and easily inside of LabTech.

For more information about this plugin and how to get started visit:

Get Office 365 For Free

Monitoring Your Clients VMWare Infrastructures.

Who manages your VMWare ESX Hardware Health?

If you are using ConnectWise Automate or LabTech RMM tool then this is a must have plugin for your environment. Plugins4Automate has a great plugin for managing ESXi Health monitoring in ConnectWise Automate and LabTech.

Visit them at www.plugins4automate.com

Free Chocolatey for ConnectWise Automate For A Limited Time

Get Chocolatey Version 3 Beta Through September 2017

Plugins4Automate is giving away Chocolatey for Automate through September 2017!

Come grab some Chocolate for your Connectwise Automate RMM Platform. 3rd Party Application Management made easy!

MSPs can install and update their complete environment of Windows systems in a very simple to use interface. In fact, managing software applications could not be easier when using the Chocolatey For Automate plugin for ConnectWise.

Plugins4Automate Announces – PowerShell Command Manager Goes Premium

Plugins4Automate announced yesterday that they are now releasing the Powershell Manager for LabTech / ConnectWise Automate as a premium plugin to the RMM platform formerly known as LabTech. Over 600+ users enjoy the efficiency of the PowerShell Command Manager for LabTech and the control they have over each of the MSPs client’s environment. This is a must have plugin for MSPs that have clients using Microsoft products and services.

To read more about Plugins4Automate’s new premium release and to get a special deal for acting quickly please visit the P4A’s announcement blog post. In this post you will find a discount code that you can use to permanently discount the subscription but you need to act fast, it’s for a limited time only.

Patch Remedy Pushes WUA Version 7.6.7601.23775 to Windows 7 and 2008 R2

Today Plugins4Automate released Build 1.0.3.62 for Patch Remedy for ConnectWise Automate / LabTech. In this new build they have re worked how they update the Windows 7 and 2008 R2 systems making it more streamline as they raise the level of WUA version between each rollup Microsoft has released.

To read more of what’s new with Patch Remedy and how it can help prevent worms like WannaCry visit the latest blog post on Patch Remedy here

Linux Patch Management for Automate, formerly LabTech

In most MSPs, Linux is a small if any footprint in their overall service offerings and this is reflected in the support given to these systems within the RMM tools they use. MSPs often pass on managing Linux agents as the RMM tool they have available to them does not lend itself to managing Linux patching and updates.

Demand drives the development of the tools we use and we all know that Windows OS reigns supreme in the managed businesses realm. With MSPs looking to save every dollar where they can, they are not hiring techs to man the helpdesk that are Linux hardened vets. If they are lucky to have 1 guy that knows his way around BASH, he tends to be closer to management. They also most often overlook these systems in any maintenance plans the RMM tool is providing. This tends to leave Linux systems that are widely considered the workhorses of the Internet grossly under patched and vulnerable to exploits.

Like any MSP we had similar issues with maintenance plans as techs came and left taking skill sets with them. It was hard to keep up with managing maintenance when the previous engineer was very Linux savvy and the incoming engineer is not. Where do they pick up and go with patch management of these systems?

In comes a patch manager for Linux that plugs into LabTech, Linux Update Manager.

Plugins4LabTech decided to jump in and help give MSPs the ability to have a standard method and interface inside LabTech that they could use to determine what systems they have. MSPs can know what updates are available for each system and the ability to automate the installs of patches and updates. MSPs can determine if they have systems that have pending updates or pending reboots due to updates. See what update versions of packages are available and the ability to manually run updates or update a single package. The first release has basic automation controls for unassisted updating but the P4L team assures us there is several big expansions they want to add to the plugin to include detailed scheduling of updates, ticketing and alerting.

What to try the new Linux Update Manager plugin for free, or visit http://www.plugins4labtech.com

VMWare ESX Hardware Health monitor for Labtech

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Plugins4LabTech has created a new plugin that will monitor the CIM data announced by the hardware running VMWare ESX software. We can report on any hardware that follows CIM standards and makes it’s hardware statuses known to VMWare. This simple to use plugin deploys in just minutes and can be setup by anyone with little or no knowledge of LabTech functions and processes. If you want to see in action the easiest ESX Hardware Health Monitor available for LabTech then have a peek at our video on our YouTube Channel.

Never be in the dark again over hardware health!

Get alerts and tickets when hardware failures are detected. Using the monitor agent supplied with the plugin get quick responses to failures and warnings directly from VMWare. When alarms happen get emails, tickets and messaging alerting you to the failure that is taking place on the hardware.

Plugins4LabTech’s VMWare Health Monitor plugin for Labtech uses an agent to talk to VMware ESX hosts and retrieves the CIM data for the hardware the ESX host is running on. The plugin processes this data and stores it in LabTech’s database to be used in the views and alarms the plugin issues when failures are seen. You will see data on your RAID arrays and SCSI controllers, Power Supplies failures and system overheats. If the hardware is reporting it to VMWare we can see it.

Main ESX Health Monitor Console

The main view lets you see all the ESX hosts under management sorted by Client. In this view you are able to turn on and off the collection of data, set the interval of how often the data is collected and enable alerting for any seen failures.

ViewMenu

ESX Health Monitor Client Console Tab

The Client Console tab is where you would add and delete the ESX Hosts you want to monitor. You are able to force the update of ESX CIM data by selecting to rescan ESX hosts and you can view the full CIM data list of any ESX Host.

Clienttab

ESX Health Monitor CIM Data

The CIM Data view shows all the collected CIM data on a given ESX host. If any data is in a state not considered ok then those lines will be represented with warning and alarming icons. You will also get the hardware manufactures data back and in the case of Dell that is the Hardware type and Service Tag.

CIMData

ESX Health Monitor Internal Agent

Under the main view you can select to enable alerts. When you do this agent is created in the internal monitors of LabTech. You can use this monitor to email, ticket, alert or message anyone when failures are picked up.

A simple plugin all self contained and easy to deploy. Just a few clicks to configure and you have data. So easy to use anyone can setup and have it working in just a few minutes.

The plugin is currently with the Squid Squad getting a final review before we release the new plugin. Follow our release notes at http://support.plugins4labtech.com

CCleaner for Labtech As A Security Tool

The recent announcement that LabTech Software is managing the the sale of CCleaner for Business licensing and providing free of charge the popular CCleaner for LabTech plugin developed by the Plugins4LabTech team is huge for the LabTech community. Every MSP knows the benefits of using CCleaner to maintain disk space and reduce junk on client PCs but most are unaware of the amazing security tool they have as well.

CCleaner a security tool? Absolutely, CCleaner is a great security tool to assist in maintaining password policies across the client and reducing the exposed footprint of the end users. Just have a look at another plugin provided freely by Plugins4LabTech called PassPort. This plugin scans the MSP’s client base for saved password and account info. It pulls this data directly out of the local windows PCs across the MSPs clients and brings all that data back to LabTech. This tool represents just how easy it is to get to this data and if you can get it, anyone can get it. CCleaner for Labtech can help prevent this data from reaching the wrong hands.

CCleaner for LabTech does this by automating the cleaning process across the entire MSP. By forcing a daily cleaning of all Browser Cache, Saved Passwords and Cookies will reduce the attack surface of each PC and trains the users to be more security minded by prevent them from getting value from saving passwords and allowing tracking and monitoring cookies to follow user’s browsing history.

For pennies a month a MSP can plugin to this powerful tool and really provide a value to their clients while helping to keep them safe! For more information on how to get CCleaner for LabTech please reach out to your LabTech Sales team. They will be glad to assist you and get you going with this great tool.

Also check out http://www.plugins4labtech.com for a complete list of free plugins for LabTech Software.

Magma for LabTech – Get your graph on!

Magma, a Monitoring And Graphing Management Archive is a very versatile platform to monitor just about anything you can come up with. If you can get a message or a counter from the device you should be able to monitor and graph that device in LabTech using Magma for LabTech.

Magma for LabTech integrates directly into the LabTech RMM tool providing quick and upfront views of the statues of your clients and the monitors beneath them.

Follow the yellow brick road

Magma for Labtech is all about the colors and the visuals are really easy to understand. By using common colors and icons to represent a visual heath spectrum, the monitors stand out where they may not be seen as easily in other solutions. For example, In the picture above we see “Green“, green is good but as you look further you can see both diamonds and smiley faces depicted for each client we have activate monitors for. This minor change in the visual spectrum lets you know that recent events have happened with the P4L client at some point in the last 24 hours, where diamonds depict the nothing has changed for this client for at least 24 hours. This varying degree of good helps you quickly determine where your time and review should be spent.

When we select that client we drill into all the monitors we have set up for that client. We can then see what items being monitored have changed in the last 24 hours.

Open up a monitor and see what it has been doing over time and what it is doing right now. From our graph we can see that this system’s disk stopped getting data for a period of time last night. The Windows system was in hibernation and was not sending data back during the night.

Using the History button you can see the history of health and wellbeing of the monitors you have deployed.

Multi Graph Timelines

Reach back in time to see data graphed over a 2 year period with just 1 click of your mouse. From the monitor’s view you can access years of metrics for any monitor, drill down into the graphs using a simple drawing tool provided by each graph to get up and close to your data.

Don’t be left out in the cold

With all the different event states a monitor can be in Magma makes it easy to see what events are taking place and in which state those monitors may be in at any given time. Get Daily , Weekly , Monthly and Yearly metrics on all your monitors.

Your data on the go

Need access to your MSP’s health on the go! Get all this great data just as you would in LabTech but right on your smartphones. Never be more that a thumb press away from the health of your clients and your MSP.

magma-IPhone

It’s all about the Uptime

When a client comes asking about the availability of their website, their servers or their line of business apps what do you tell them?

Availability reports are key to knowing how well a services is performing. Being able to pull up at will the availability of any system or monitor and project back over time for that data is priceless. Even export the data out to Excel with a click of a button for usable and reportable data.

Show me the nines

Ask any engineer about availability and they will tell you, “It’s all about the nines(9)”, like in %99.999 availability. Do you know what your availability is? Get it for any time period, at any time you like day or night, that is Magma for Labtech.

Magma for LabTech is comprised of a single MAG Server / Service and the LabTech Plugin Integration which allows full management of your environment. The MAG server deploys a custom version of Xymon that delivers the processing and storage of your archives and the stepping point for external testing monitors like web, dns and mail services that need to have reach from the outside real world. MAG does not only probe but accepts probes allowing a very fluid ability to collect data from just about any source that has access to the Internet. Whether you need to monitor a heat sensor in a server room or the QOS of a router Magma for LabTech can visualize it.

Magma for Labtech is still under development but from our screenshots you can see it has come quite far. A general beta may be available in the coming weeks so watch for our announcments on our support.plugins4labtech.com site. If you have any questions, feature requests or comments feel free to post up on our forums as well.

Get Magma at http://www.plugins4labtech.com

Are you left wanting more?

We thought you might be so we posted up a video preview of Magma for Labtech in action as we use it. This is just a limited view into the visual spectrum but should give you a taste of what is coming.

See us on our YouTube Channel

Squidworks launched Plugins 4 LabTech web services portal

A new one-stop-shop for LabTech plugins has arrived with the latest launch of plugins4Labtech.com, developed by Squidworks. The new user-friendly shop offers both free and paid plugin tools for the most popular remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool in the market place. It’s specifically designed for IT managed service providers (MSPs) and offers powerful tools all in one place.

The new plugins4Labtech.com site features some of the more popular premium plugins like Chocolatey for LabTech, CCleaner for LabTech, Patch Remedy and a new plugin released today—Backup Windows. It also features free plugins developed and honed quickly to meet the growing needs of IT professionals and MSPs like Office365 Manager, Agent Status, Flu Shot and PowerShell. What’s more is that the plugins are created by an experienced systems engineer with 20 years in managed services and a multi-system developer, Squidworks (a.k.a. Cubert), and tested by a user group made up of MSP engineers affectionately called the Squid Squad.

The site offers links for support as well, including helpful support forums where users contribute to the development of new plugins like the one hosted on plugins4LabTech.com.

For more information on the site or to find and provide feedback on the latest tools to help you with LabTech, visit the online forum at plugins4LabTech.com.