Start your vCIO Process
Starting a vCIO process is one of the most important things modern MSPs need to do. Please refer to this guide on 8 ways to start your vCIO Process. Next follow these steps:
Onboarding
Many companies start using Strategy Overview rapidly by using this document and don't do any formal onboarding. Strategy Overview is intuitive. Just add a company, create a report using our Strategy Overview template and start doing assessments. Its that simple.
Here are some other onboarding options to learn more:Watch recorded onboarding webinar here
Register for a live onboarding webinar here
Starter Subscribers and above you can schedule a free 1on1 onboarding using this link
Integrations (Optional)
Using a PSA is optional and many SO users use the app without a PSA. Follow the PSA Guides here:
PSA integrations sync the following elements:Company Types
Markets
Company Statuses
Companies
Configurations
Contacts
Tickets (Only for Connectwise for now)
IT Glue
Warranty Service Integration (Optional)
Enable our warranty integration to update your configurations/assets warranty, purchase date and manufacturer information. Please follow this guide
General Settings
Go to Settings>General
Company Information - Update Company Information
Localization - Confirm Localization
Groups - Groups are used to group clients into segments such as locations, vCIOs/Account managers, territories, etc. Groups drive permissions, reports and mass editing for clients. Its ok to start with one group and adjust overtime as you need
Markets - Markets are verticals for your clients. You can add market specific groups/items on assessment. If you will integrate with a PSA please rename the built in markets to match your PSA. If you enabled the PSA integration its best to only edit Markets in your PSA.
Types - Types are ways to break up clients. (Clients, Prospects, Vendors, etc). Types with the "Prospect" box checked do not show up on the Schedule or Stack module. If you enabled the PSA integration its best to only edit types in your PSA.
Modules - This is where you can create custom modules for the left navigation. Example modules to add are New Onboarding forms, Billing portals like connect booster, Screenconnect, ITGlue, various strategic spreadsheets, etc
Company Statuses - Statuses are usually Active or inactive but could be others. If you enabled the PSA integration its best to only edit statuses in your PSA.
Branding
Go to Settings>BrandingApp Name - You can rename "Strategy Overview" to your MSP name to fully white label the experience
Company Logo - This is the logo that will accessible via Macros on the cover page of reports
App Logo - This is a square logo that is your MSP symbol that shows in the top left of the app.
Favicon - The favicon shows up in the browser and in bookmarks.
Primary Brand Color - The primary brand color affects many sections across the app.
Custom domain - This is what your branded tenant will be located at. We recommend app.yourdomain.com for the app and identity.yourdomain.com for the identity but you can also make it whatever you want.
Login wallpaper - This will show up on the login page. You should make it reflect your brand
Custom email - This is the email address that will send new account invitations and forget passwords. You should make it [email protected] but you can also make it whatever you want. You should make it a distribution list in your MSP and invite the admins/managers to the list.
Users
Invite users by going to Settings > UsersDefault Template - This drives the main view on the Strategy module. Leave this alone ideally.
Role
Admins - can edit all users and settings. This is ideal for executives.
Managers - can edit all users users and settings except admins. This is ideal for senior vCIOs and team leaders.
Editors - can edit reports and only their settings. This is ideal for junior vCIOs and project engineers that may fill out an assessment.
Read Only - can only read reports. This is ideal for most engineers in your company.
External Editor - This is for client primary contacts or IT directors who may log into the report. They wont see helper videos, receive any emails from strategy overview and will not see the support chat in the bottom right corner. We recommend created a distribution list like [email protected] and adding a user for that to test the client's experience
Groups - Groups drive permissions
Companies - Company restriction is for users invited from your clients. Set to Allow access for all companies for your internal users and control permissions via groups.
Templates - Pick which template to give access to. The golden template is called "Strategy Overview" and should be applicable for 99% of assessments.
Modules - Pick your modules carefully. External users should only get access
Strategy module
Tickets module
Custom modules for clients to see (New onboarding form, billing portal, etc)
Templates
We preload the most up to date template with all new accounts. We created these templates for our MSP and have used them for thousands of technology strategy meetings. It is best not to recreate the template but slowly modify it.
The templates will define your standards. They are flexible and will evolve over time with your process
Go to Settings>Templates to edit templates
You can edit template items right from the report by clicking the pencil icon next to items on assessment
The system is multi template based which allows you to run different style reports on every company
If you ever want to redownload a template or see our most recent versions of the templates please go here: https://kb.strategyoverview.com/templates
Companies
Add only your companies that will be clients in a vCIO process or serious prospects. You can add companies in the following ways
PSA Integration Import - Settings >Integrations > PSA > Companies
Companies Module Add > Add Companies
Strategy Module > Plus icon at top of company list
Companies Module Excel Import > Export to Excel and then import from Excel
Make sure the Territories, Markets and Types are are exactly the same as you just setup in the settings above.
For status, there are only two: "Active" or "Inactive"
To set user permissions in the spreadsheet use the semicolon to separate users. Example: [email protected];[email protected] (Admin users don't need to be added to the list of users since they have full permissions already.)
Strategy Overview Report
Create your first report:
New Report - Clicking the New file icon under company in the stategy module
Template - Pick your template and fill out (Strategy Overview should cover 99% of assessments for MSP clients)
Date - Set the date of your scheduled assessment or the first date of the month/quarter/year.
User - This is who did the bulk of the work for this individual report or whatever name you want to put in there.
Grade - This is just a general health status and up to your discretion. (For example, the client can have 99 out of 100 things healthy, but if the backups is failing then their whole report can fail)
Executive summary - The best practice here is to keep it short and sweet. It is something a CEO/CFO can read to get a quick glimpse on the health of their technology and strategy. But you can also make it longer with different sections if needed.
Assessment - Fill this out as best as you can. This is a living document and if you do not know something leave it as "Needs Review" or "Needs Discussion"
Technology Strategy Meeting (TSM)/Quarterly Business Review (QBR)
We do not call strategy meetings with clients QBRs but not every client is quarterly.TSM Guide - Please refer to this guide for more information on how to run a TSM/QBR
Presentation - Use presentation mode when running Technology Strategy Meeting (TSM)
PDF/Print/Email - User Display mode to save to PDF or print and then sent a copy to the client after the TSM.
Schedule Module
You can set the target frequency of strategic reviews on the schedule.
Small clients should be once a year, medium should be quarterly and larger clients may be monthly if they are engaged
Stack Module
This is where you can see a total picture of your stack and your Non Recurring Revenue pre opportunity.
Making opportunities for everything coming up adds clutter to your CRM and may not be a good use of time to create.
Strategy Overview allows you forecast your pipeline and only create opportunities in your CRM when the time is right and the client tentatively approves the budget from the roadmap.
Support/Feature Requests
For any questions and feature requests please use the chat widget in the bottom right on any page.
Spread the word
Please spread the word to atleast one MSP you know and to your peer groups/communities. The more MSPs we have using this app the faster we can develop more features.
