Datto Inc. has updated its Autotask Endpoint Management RMM solution and introduced a program that rewards partners for referring their peers to the company.
The new edition of Autotask Endpoint Management (AEM), which Norwalk, Conn.-based Datto is calling “the reporting release,” includes enhanced reporting, patch management, anti-virus management, and ticketing functionality.
AEM is part of the managed services software portfolio that Datto inherited last year through its merger with Autotask Corp., of East Greenbush, N.Y.
The latest AEM release, which was on Autotask’s roadmap before the Datto merger, provides more granular options for filtering reports by date range and device group, and allows technicians to schedule reports in advance.
“As an MSP, the last thing you want to do is have to go in and click the button to generate that report,” says Matt Richards, vice president of product marketing at Datto.
The system’s new patch management capabilities let technicians control the sequence in which patches are applied, and provides more detailed information on which devices are and aren’t up to date.
“You can see the overall status of those patches on your devices throughout the network,” Richards says.
AEM’s updated anti-virus management module similarly lets users audit device status to see which endpoints have the latest virus definitions and which have or haven’t been scanned recently.
New ticketing functionality in AEM lets end users add tickets to Autotask’s PSA solution on a self-serve basis simply by right-clicking the RMM icon in their system tray.
“[That] allows both the MSP to react faster and the end customer to get a response faster,” Richards observes.
The new referral program combines an existing offer from Autotask with a similar program that Datto had been working on previously. It allows partners to receive a $1,000 bounty for pointing Datto’s sales team to net new MSPs who go on to buy something within six months. Reward checks mail 60 days after that first purchase.
Richards describes the referral program as an early example of Datto’s longer-term plan to combine overlapping elements of the two partner programs it manages at present rather than cancel one or the other, in an effort to help partners enjoy the best of both worlds.
“Our intent isn’t to do away with these things,” he says. “Our intent is to bring them together.”
The next milestone in that process will be the unification of Autotask’s partner marketing automation platform with the marketing automation tool Datto rolled out last June. Both systems are based on technology from Pittsburgh-based sales enablement software maker Mindmatrix Inc., which simplifies the integration process.
“They’re both on the same back end platform, so it’s just really about migrating data among instances of the same tool,” Richards says.
Datto will share details on its larger, longer-term effort to combine its own partner program with Autotask’s in June at the U.S. edition of the company’s DattoCon partner conference in Austin, Texas. Datto revealed in January that it has canceled the Autotask Community Live partner event originally scheduled for September and rolled its content into DattoCon.
According to Richards, Datto will provide new specifics about the combined company’s product roadmap and the fate of the Autotask brand at that event.
“There is tremendous brand equity in both sides,” he says. “We want to take careful consideration with the input and help of some of our partners to help us make the right decisions as we bring these two together.”
Datto reported today that the post-merger company now supports more than 13,000 MSPs with over 500,000 SMB customers in 125 countries. The company expects to hire more than 100 new software developers, product engineers, and other employees in North America and the U.K. this year.
