Level Platforms Adds NOC, Help Desk Services To Managed Workplace

Level Platforms plans to launch a portfolio of NOC and help desk services with the upcoming release of its Managed Workplace 2012 platform upgrade for MSPs.

The new services can augment MSPs' existing remote monitoring, remediation and support offerings and help them become more valuable partners to customers, said Peter Sandiford, CEO.

Level Platforms plans to officially kick off the services during its February road show schedule, which kicks off in Irvine, Calif., on Feb. 6 and continues on to Toronto, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, Boston, Nashville, Chicago, Columbus, Newark, Tampa, Dallas and Denver before the end of February.

"If I look at the future of the MSP business, many MSPs will be turning to selective outsourcing for either 24x7 routine PC/tablet/server maintenance as well as specialized services," Sandiford said. "It's a value play and a cost reduction play. We look at this as a requirement that people will need to have and where there are shortcomings in how it's being delivered today."

In many cases, NOC or help desk services are not integrated into a service platform, which has led to limited adoption of those services by MSPs, Sandiford said.

"There's also integration with all the PSA [professional service automation tools] like ConnectWise, Autoatsk, TigerPaw and Microsoft CRM. You need to be able to record that activity and have it show up in the PSA. This is a gap we've had. We've completely automated and synchronized ticketing," Sandiford said.

The help desk is staffed by Level Platform employees, who for a flat fee will handle unlimited end user inquiries as mundane as how to un-italicize something in Word. Pricing for the services will not be released until next month, Sandiford said.

"Certainly [service will cover] all the PC issues, or Mac. All the end user devices. As we've hinted, we're introducing [management of] mobile devices very soon so mobile devices will be part of the service," he said.

Gaeltek, a Manassas Park. Va.-based MSPis already using the NOC services and plans to add the help desk services soon, said Andy Harper, CIO. "We were using another [NOC provider] for a while, but I'm much happier using [Level Platforms]. It's completely integrated, it's being managed by people that know the product really well," he said. "That to me is a fantastic feature of it. Knowing the quality of people they've got and they're North America based. Having good quality techs is absolutely key to the whole operation. It's going to be my front line connection to clients other than business type connections. It will allow us to focus on business level connections."

Gaeltek currently uses its own staff for help desk, submitting tickets to Autotask to track them, but it's not a business Harper feels he can scale internally. "There's no way I could hire the number of people to do round-the-clock service and that capability. It's more than 9 to 5 now but if someone called at 3 o'clock in the morning to ask how to sort an excel spreadsheet, I wouldn't be too pleased."