CRN Exclusive: Kaseya Beefs Up RMM Solution With Improved Microsoft PowerShell Support, Flexible Integration Platform

Kaseya is unveiling a powered-up version of its remote management and monitoring (RMM) solution on Tuesday with the general availability release of VSA 9.5, which promises a handful of enhancements and feature adds.

The IT service management vendor said the latest edition of its RMM platform would give managed service providers access to a broader array of vendor integrations, strengthened security, a bulked up professional services automation (PSA) integration with business management solution (BMS), streamlined Microsoft PowerShell scripting and Kaseya Cloud Backup integration. Mike Puglia, Kaseya's chief product officer, called VSA 9.5 a significant improvement in the platform's stability and robustness.

"(Our goal was) to make life even easier for the technician," Puglia said. "For instance, now within Live Connect technicians can use VSA’s unique remote PowerShell scripting capabilities to quickly solve problems without ever having to interrupt the end user. Also, our enhanced PSA integrations with BMS – automatic ticket de-duplication, ticket closing, and ticket re-opening – allows techs to streamline the ticket resolution process resulting in increased efficiencies that save both time and money."

[Related: Kaseya CEO Voccola On 2018 Priorities, 'Industry-Shattering' M&A Plans]

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That improved functionality with BMS can cut close times significantly by preventing work duplication, Kaseya said.

A key feature added to the RMM solution in the eyes of Nathan Hable, director of managed services at Troy, Mich.-based Blue Rock Technologies, was allowing MSPs to integrate preferred vendors into Kaseya's open Technology Alliance Partnerships platform by exposing its API as a flexible development base.

"We're not limited to the (vendors) Kaseya hand-selects for their partnerships," Hable told CRN. "We can utilize existing vendors that might not have a relationship with Kaseya provide a base to develop an integration so that our support staff can have a single pane of glass for managing the software applications we use to support our clients."

Among the vendors close to having finished integrations into VSA 9.5 is Warranty Master. The Canadian SaaS developer was the most requested third-party integration among customers, Puglia said, given its ability to automatically send hardware warranty expiration info into the RMM platform. Staying up to date on the warranties can potentially allow MSPs to snag into new sales opportunities, he said.

Drew Kew, Kaseya product manager at Sherwood, Ark.-based ABC Financial Services, said ABC develops its own software focused on billing services for fitness centers and, in some cases, IT management for shops that cannot afford an in-house employee. The company is in the middle of transitioning to Webroot via the new integration platform, and Kew found the process to be painless thus far.

"Very nice to be able to see how easy it was to do that," he said.

But for Kew, the notable feature add was VSA's Live Connect feature, which he said made running PowerShell scripts a faster process as large numbers of clients have moved to Windows 10. He tried it out during the beta stage and found it largely hassle-free.

"You can do a PowerShell command from Live Connect, and that way you don't have to access one person's machine just to run one PowerShell script," Kew told CRN. "Tested using LiveConnect to make sure the commands were running properly, then used Kaseya to deploy my script and kick off procedure to run it."