Why MSPs Are Switching to Halo PSA? 2024
Today’s article will look into why so many service providers are making the decision to move from class leading PSAs such as Connectwise, Atera and Autotask over to a relative newcomer called Halo PSA.
It is a highly customizable professional services automation tool that is able to be integrated into other areas of your MSP stack. That is where its strength lies, if it cannot be integrated out of the box then it has the ability through its API to have a customized configuration setup so that it will integrate with whatever application you need it to.
I will take a look at its features including areas such as contract terms and compare them to other professional services automation options currently available. I will also look at any negatives that service providers have found after having made the move across.
I am going to list some of the negatives first because then it saves you reading the entire article only to find one of the negative points prevents it being considered. Make no mistake, Halo PSA is a complex piece of software however with complexity comes power and it is in many ways far more powerful than the likes of Connectwise.
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HaloPSA Disadvantages
As mentioned, I thought it best to list the disadvantages first because if they are deal breakers, then it saves a bit of reading. I want to make it clear though that HaloPSA is the best PSA on the market today if you can get past the disadvantages.
I like to think of an MSP stack as a hub and spoke type of arrangement where the PSA sits in the center as the hub and all other MSP applications sit out on the edge of each spoke. While some of those applications talk to each other directly, in basically all circumstances, the PSA will be the fortress of solitude with which the rest of the applications will interface with.
This means that integration is the single most important function of any PSA. As far as integration goes, no other PSA comes close, they are not even playing the same game. So it is important to have that in mind when reading through its disadvantages.
Minimum License Count
While a 3 user count is the minimum, because they have grown significantly in the recent past, last time I checked, the minimum license count that a new customer could purchase was 11 seats to enable access to mandatory onboarding consulting.
This effectively means there is a 11 seat minimum going directly with HaloPSA but there is an authorized HaloPSA partner called EZPC who offers single HaloPSA licenses. I have not actually used them, however they have a really good name amongst the MSP community.
There is also a minimum of 10 hours onboarding support required which may seem unreasonable however due to its complexity, in my mind, this is an excellent initiative that is worth every cent.
Because of the complexity of HaloPSA, you can complete a task seven different ways. Personally, I really like it when I am not restricted to doing something one way, however you need to accept that when something is highly customizable that it will be more complex especially at the onboarding stage.
Also to note, when compared to Connectwise Manage or Autotask, it is quite a bit more expensive.
Steep Learning Curve
Halo PSA has a very steep learning curve when compared to PSA’s such as Connectwise and Autotask. Moving from one major component of your MSP stack to another is already a massive undertaking. The cost is almost always far greater than the outright measurable cost.
Most MSPs do not factor in the handicap your entire organization faces as they grapple with a new piece of software. They do not count the problems with integration or the training costs required. The reason most service providers do not count these intangibles is because if they did, nobody would ever move to another PSA.
Now take the above and understand that Halo PSA has an even steeper learning curve.
Halo PSA Documentation Is Poor
The tech documentation for Halo PSA seems to be about 50% complete at the time of writing this. It has appeared to be in an unacceptable state for many years leading me to the view that this is intentional so that onboard consulting is always in demand.
It can be very frustrating to onboard even a simple application when it is missing key information on how or why to set up components a certain way. However when you have a highly complex PSA that could be very powerful if you just knew the right path to take if it was written down, it can be very frustrating.
We have all at some point sat there for 10 hours trying to solve a problem that would have taken minutes if it had been documented properly.
Connectwise Manage To HaloPSA Import
While difficult, it has in the past been possible to migrate all old service tickets from Connectwise Manage across to HaloPSA. Recently Connectwise changed their terms so that exporting your information using their API to another platform is no longer allowed.
My view is this is a short term disadvantage but demonstrates the attitude that Connectwise have towards their customers and actually demonstrates why moving away from a company that behaves in this way is a smart move.
To be clear this means either continuing to pay for at least one CW Manage license so that old tickets can be referenced or you can set up some type of reference source using the flat file export you get out of CW Manage. It is not ideal of course but in my view, the anger of CW engaging in ransom tactics outweighs the pain of having to set up some type of ticket archive.
HaloPSA Email Polling Intervals
When HaloPSA was first released, it had a 5 minute polling minimum which was a disadvantage some found hard to overcome.
Since this point however, HaloPSA have completely overhauled the email processing functionality to a set of micro-services allowing for webhook-based immediate email processing.
You may be wondering why it is under disadvantages, it is nothing to do with me being too lazy to move it to the advantages, I think I am going to leave it here as an example of where HaloPSA had an issue with their product, they listened to the feedback of their customers and applied an update to overcome the limitation.
HaloPSA Vendor Organizations
HaloPSA cannot relate tickets to Suppliers or Vendors meaning you need to add them as clients so that tickets can be applied. For many this is not a big deal but certainly the way I have always worked is that I have a clear delineation between clients and vendors especially for information syncing to Hudu or IT Glue so this would mean a significant change.
Currently if you have the Vendor setup in HaloPSA with the right name and the exact email address for them and an email comes in from them it will be assigned to the “Unknown” company.
HaloPSA Advantages
Now we can look at the advantages that moving to HaloPSA offers and why so many service providers are moving away from the old favorites like Connectwise Manage and Autotask.
To me it is a little sad considering my first PSA was a server based version of Connectwise. To watch it go from an application created with a huge amount of love and dedication by Arnie Bellini where if you did the training courses, he would be in the room teaching to where it is now which is a soulless wasteland who’s sole existence is to generate money for a faceless private equity firm.
Anyway, onto the advantages.
10 Year Sale Guarantee
How many of us have been bitten by Kaseya or large private equity firms that go around buying our favorite MSP application companies only to have them either strip and destroy them so as to eliminate competition for their existing product or eliminate the development, decimate the support team and jack the prices up while modifying contracts so they are incredibly unfair?
Many have been burnt numerous times with this. HaloPSA have recently stated that they promise not to sell the company for 10 years which is a lifetime in the MSP world. I know what you are thinking “Companies lie all the time, I know I am a Kaseya client”
They are adding this to their contracts as of 13th June 2024 and what is even better is that it is a rolling 10 year period meaning that if they ever stop putting this in their contract, the day they remove it means you will still have a 10 year countdown from that date.
Now all we need is Hudu to do the same thing and we can all rest easy.
HaloPSA Included Modules
Who else has woken up one morning and come to the realization that the number of MSP applications you are paying for has reached a level of absurdity that cannot be ignored?
I preface this by saying that usually the internal and included modules with any PSA are usually a far cry from the paid 3rd party options and I do think that if you are used to using something like Zomentum then it is unlikely the included functionality is going to satisfy your requirements.
Below are just a few of the the current tools that you can potentially eliminate and that have a functional replacement within HaloMSP:
- Zomentum
- Cloud Radial
- Cognito Forms
- Zapier
- Third Party Accounting Sync Tools
- Teams/Slack Bots
- Third Party SMS Tools
HaloPSA Rapid Development
Lets face it, regular development cycles with products like ITGlue and across the board have become a joke.
The most requested features area of many MSP applications seems to be more about finding out what new standalone product the organization can create and sell than a constant improvement towards the product you are paying for.
HaloPSA has major updates quarterly however there is a constant cycle of minor updates to the application that appear to occur daily. If you are a thrill seeker you can also turn on the beta cycle of updates as well.
What is impressive here is that the updates that are done quarterly are always substantial as in a good number of updates that include substantial features instead of the abysmal excuse for an update that IT Glue comes out with and while I realize Kaseya owns them, they were actually pretty dreadful prior to that occurring.
This feels like a company that is enthusiastic about their product and they most certainly appear to have enough developers to attack the day to day bugs but are also able to create significant improvements on the base platform. What is even better is unlike Kaseya, they do not try to invoice you for a feature by calling it a different product.
HaloPSA Interface Speed
The interface for HaloPSA for both the self hosted and hosted versions are significantly faster than both Connectwise Manage or Autotask. Not only in the response speed of the interface but someone has sat down and planned out the most effective way to do many of the tasks we do day to day in our PSA.
This means instead of having to go through 20 clicks and have 7 windows open to get something done, it will take 3 clicks and it is all within one browser window.
HaloPSA Integration Capabilities
This is up there as far as qualities that sets it apart from other PSAs. The issue I have always found with Professional services automation software is that they tend to attempt to focus on too many things and the end result is that the actual PSA itself just ends up being very average.
What HaloPSA does better than any other PSA that I can think of is that they seem to invest more time in the core product while allowing other applications that are specialist in their area to integrate. For example they do not have a built in RMM however they do integrate pretty well with most leading RMM tools.
It seems that NinjaOne has the best integration according to the majority of the MSP community.
Here is their integrations page although just be aware that some integrations such as Acronis can be half baked and not what most of us would consider a full integration.
Conclusion
MSPs are moving across from the more traditional PSAs to HaloPSA because it wipes the floor with them due its ability to allow for infinite customization and its power to integrate with other MSP applications.
Not just that, for some time now there has been a stink emanating from the larger vendors such as Connectwise and Kaseya where they are not trying to hide how little they spend on product development or the tactics they use to obtain and keep MSPs with them.
MSPs really have had enough of being treated in this way especially considering we tend to be a pretty loyal bunch and helped many of these vendors to get where they are today. If you can look past the lack of documentation and the vastly more complex onboarding learning curve then it really is worth the effort to make the move.
The fact they provide a rolling 10 year guarantee not to sell the company is a refreshing acknowledgement to the pain previous vendors have put us through.
Couple that with regular substantial feature releases and I am finding it difficult to find any reason not to move to HaloPSA when the appropriate time arrives where your organization is looking to make a change to their PSA.
We have a number of other IT Contract Services articles listed below that will provide you with more detailed information on a number of related topics:
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