How to Move Up the Automation Maturity Model

In a recent blog, Upgrading PowerShell and Automation in 2019, I talked about how automation has evolved and how I see our partners fitting into four different categories with respect to their automation maturity. These categories include: partners who are not interested in automating; partners who are interested but not sure how to start; partners who have started the journey towards automation; and partners who automate anything they can.

In this article, I’ll focus on the first category: partners who are not interested in automating.

If you’re not interested in automating, I recommend you watch the Maximizing your MSP Services Margin course on the MSP Institute (see link below). It goes in-depth about why automation is vital to increasing profit margins. Additionally, the MSP market is driving toward commoditization—requiring higher efficiency and the ability to sell reliable, predictive services—all of which require automation.

If you want to access the course, follow these simple steps:

1. Click the course link here to access the MSP Institute home page
2. If you’re not already logged in, click the customer login button and log in
3. After you’ve logged in, you should see the MSP Institute dashboard
4. From the dashboard, click the link again to access the course

I suspect some MSPs say they’re not interested in automating because they find it intimidating and don’t know where to start. If that sounds like you, you’re likely in the second category—not the first. You should join me for the automation bootcamp we run regularly. In these webinars, we cover why partners should automate, how to automate, and give concrete examples of what to do.

Check out Marc’s video on this subject…

While you’re waiting for the next bootcamp to start, check out my previous blog post detailing where to start with automation. In my next post I’ll look at the resources available to you so you can get started with confidence.

Automation of the Week

This week’s automation policy is a two-part set.

A partner recently asked me to build an automation policy to create Windows restore points to assist in cases where an update or maintenance causes failure on a client’s computer. After we built it, another partner came to us and asked us to create a policy to enable Windows restore points if it isn’t enabled. It seems some customers were disabling Windows restore points because they thought it would increase performance (but impact is minimal—if it’s noticeable at all). So we built and published a policy for that too. You can run the policy to enable restore points weekly in case a customer turns it off. If Windows restore point is already enabled, it won’t cause an error. You can run the policy to create restore points weekly, monthly, or on demand, depending on your needs.

You can find the policies here:

• Enabling windows restore point
• Creating periodic restore points

As always, don’t forget to go check our automation cookbook for more automation policies, script checks, and custom services.

Marc-Andre Tanguay is Head Automation Nerd. You can follow him on Twitter at @automation_nerd