This was my first DattoCon. For the past 10 years, I have attended Autotask Community Live. This year, due to the merger of Datto and Autotask, the two events were combined into DattoCon.
Autotask played a very small part in DattoCon. If you didn’t know Autotask was included before attending, you wouldn’t have known once you got there. This was especially evident by the incredibly small break-out rooms for the PSA track. After the first day, when they realized people were getting locked out of sessions because they were full, they found larger rooms for the popular sessions. Also, Autotask Endpoint Management is now Datto RMM. Get used to the new name, it’s here to stay.
Every year after a conference like this, I go home with new goals for the rest of the year. We had a great time in Austin, the keynotes were entertaining and on-point. I made some great new connections and saw clients and friends that I do not get to see all year. I will continue to attend DattoCon. I’m already registered for 2019.
The most important thing we are taking home this year is documentation and standardization. You might be thinking that we’re a little late to this party, and you’re probably right. But, as IT Glue and IT Boost made their way onto the market, I thought this did not apply to my accounting firm, but a lightbulb went off this week where this is concerned.
We have been moving our work to hosted services, we have been creating checklists and procedures for working with our clients. We have sorted these into individual folders but there is no central location where we can go and pull everything we need for a client. Tax forms in one place, instruction letters somewhere else. Hubdoc, QBO, and Bill.com procedures in a third location. Information specific to a client is in their respective folders. Passwords are stored in Last Pass. If I need to review something and the person on the account is out of the office, it takes me 10 minutes to find everything I need, and I know where to look.
What if we standardized our procedures and documented everything like our clients do? It will make my employees’ experiences much more enjoyable and it helps us scale.
Just thinking about the efforts needed to implement such a system is a bit overwhelming, but after 13 years in business, it’s high time to do this. I also like the idea of using the same tool our clients use and customizing it for our needs. After all, that’s what we did with Autotask.
As usual, I am typing this on the plane ride home. Speaking of this plane ride, I should mention that the TSA agent was not at all amused by my attempt to smuggle the Stubbs BBQ sauce in my carry-on. I wonder how many bottles he confiscated before me.