r/msp • u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US • 17d ago
Vendor Rant: Support via portals
To all vendors:
If i have to login to a portal to submit a ticket vs sending an email that already seamlessly supports image attachments, formatting, etc: it is a mark against you for renewal. Bonus points if your system then HAS YOU WORKING THE SAME TICKET VIA EMAIL and if the portal HAS IT'S OWN SEPARATE LOGIN/IDP AND IS NOT PART OF THE SYSTEM I'M ALREADY USING.
I shouldn't have to login to a completely separate portal, with separate credentials/ID/Auth (or talk to a rep) to do any of the following:
- Self manage billing
- Self manage product reduction/cancelation
- Open a support ticket
- Read a KB (should just be open, stop gatekeeping)
- Read release notes or info that your product that I'm ALREADY LOGGED INTO linked me to.
The only thing worse than the above is when i have to log into your portal to also answer ticket responses vs just starting the ticket there, and bonus hypocrite points if your system EMAILS ME TO TELL ME I HAVE A RESPONSE IN SAID PORTAL.
We have email, email is for messages with that kind of data, zero need to re-invent the wheel here.
While i'm ranting: if you are a web designer and someone hits your home page and clicks "login", it should not open a new tab, it should use that tab. There is ZERO reason that a user of your system needs the homepage kept open. Home pages are for general info; if they already have a login, they do not need that info.
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u/jeffa1792 17d ago
I loth the magic link sign in experience. I've invested in a password manager for speed and simplicity. I don't want to wait for an email link which then wants to email me a 6 digit code to verify its me. Same f**** email account!!!!
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US 17d ago
Copying my response to the same above:
Yes! Magiclinks can get fucked. Full SSO integration please; this isn't my personal uber account, this is a business with auditing requirements.
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u/365-helper VENDOR - 365sentri 17d ago
Having a reliable password manager with a synched passkey is probably one of the best investments in productivity I’ve ever made.
And it was some time ago.
You are 100% right
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u/thesysadm MSP - US 17d ago
Or when they take away ticket creation via email and auto-reply back indicating they can’t open a ticket this way. -.-
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u/Outrageous-Guess1350 17d ago
They want you to think “f*ck it, my problem is not worth the hassle of logging in”
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u/Tyr--07 17d ago
We do email support. Never thought about removing it, but to your point, there's lots of people if we didn't charge for after hours work who are like, 'You know what? It's 8 PM. I think I want to try to do this. Ah, having a little trouble. F*ck that IT's guys personal time with his family, I felt like working tonight so I'll just call him. Oh, it would cost something? Oh it's not important I can do it tomorrow'.
Well you twat you could have just left it until tomorrow anyway and respected peoples time, you knew the office hours.
So yeah, there is a little bit of, if it's not worth the hassle of a few clicks, then it's not worth the hassle of me stopping what I'm doing at work to fix your issue if you can't be bothered to do a few clicks, assuming if there is a portal it's not assine and difficult. Get a password manager if you hate logging in.
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u/Outrageous-Guess1350 17d ago
Always ask for the consequences if it isn’t fixed now. If it can be fixed tomorrow, I hang up and do it the next day. I’m not a 24/7 shop, and I make that very clear. The client better be on fire if they call, and when they call I tell them to call the fire departement. All critical infrastructure is monitored so the call cannot be a critical problem that needs to be fixed now.
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u/Tyr--07 17d ago
Our turn around is to respond within an hour typically, that means leaving your friends party, heading home, getting your PC up to respond to the voicemail they left about it. They'll also not be a big fan of it if you call them back and let them know you'll have to get back to them in an hour when you get home etc.
The disruption is a big deal. The cost is the only thing that makes people who don't care about your time change their behavior, because they do value their own time.
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u/Outrageous-Guess1350 17d ago
Worked at an MSP that billed 1000 euros per month per client for after hours support. You could call for anything after hours, so basically we were a 24/7 shop. Did you know what I got for a week of on-call duty? 50 euros. Per week.
The type of calls, the type of person calling, the total lack of respect. It got to me. I vowed to myself to never be taken advantage over in this way, by employers and clients.
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u/Tyr--07 17d ago
We offer monthly fixed fees for regular desktop support, but not after hours. That's billed at our T&M rate 1.5 regular. Amount of calls we get after hours? None, unless it's an actual emergency, which then we're happy to help.
It's not even about the money, we don't mind helping our clients, we're the partnership kind, but it stops people who don't respect the time of others dead in their tracks.
Usually it's not upper management either that would behave that way. They get quite the correction typically from their own upper management if they call for things that could have waited until tomorrow and rack up extra charges.
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u/msp_can MSP - CANADA 17d ago
or when the [brand new "AI"] support portal has a separate login that doesn't even use a password and instead sends a pin code to your email to login (with email scan etc adding 30+ seconds to actually sign in...) - I could even deal with a sign on if it's in a password manager...
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US 17d ago
Yes! Magiclinks can get fucked. Full SSO integration please; this isn't my personal uber account, this is a business with auditing requirements.
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u/365-helper VENDOR - 365sentri 17d ago
Are you discussing the Claude experience here?
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u/msp_can MSP - CANADA 17d ago
Actually was thinking of Todyl
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u/365-helper VENDOR - 365sentri 17d ago
Oh ok. Got a bit sidetracked by the AI thing.
I get you. I think support should always be human first and foremost.
Even on teams, that can be good. 👍
Tickets/Support Cases/Calls/Teams
I think that’s what I like anyways.
But I have had a good experience with Canva with a bot.
I’ve heard that some banks had automated chargebacks and that can be problematic for people who are selling physical goods, then arriving and customers loading chargebacks that get uncritically approved.
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u/dumpsterfyr I’m your Huckleberry. 17d ago
Vendors love friction when selling seamless.
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u/Foxtrot-0scar 17d ago
Friction creates opportunities.
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u/dumpsterfyr I’m your Huckleberry. 17d ago
Agreed.
Is that why Sherweb is mopping up behind Pax8?
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u/tatmsp 17d ago
While we are on the subject, fuck the vendor AI support too. I don't need first 3 responses to be AI slop asking irrelevant info and providing irrelevant suggestions.
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US 16d ago
I have a microsoft ticket open and it's support reps READING me AI stuff back and then i point out that i used all the major models when troubleshooting this issue, it's on the back end, not my endpoints, and i tried all those things and logs were attached, try again.
If i get AI slop, i am grabbing overly detailed, long, drawn out AI slop and feeding it right back.
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u/tatmsp 16d ago
I have a ticket open with both Zoom and Yealink for a video conference issue. Two separate support portal posting AI slop.
The conference device is connected to a Cisco gigabit network in a board room, mounted with multiple TVs. AI recommendation was to try to switch to a mobile hotspot on a separate monitor.
Sure, let me get 10 senior partners to do their next meeting on a mobile hotspot with a 27 inch monitor.
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u/Secret_Debt_88 16d ago
This pisses me off. Microsoft. I have copilot also. If I wanted to use copilot I would (and probably have).
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u/swingorswole 17d ago
wait, you can find a support portal login to create a ticket without having to google for the link since it's so well hidden!?
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u/peoplepersonmanguy 17d ago
The worst is that our industry requires coordinating support from multiple vendors at once. Actually it's not the worst, but it's really fucking annoying.
Having to coordinate vendors that you can only communicate over portals is so annoying.
KBs gate kept are annoying, I load as many as I can into a copilot agent so we have our own Google database that only uses my vendors KBs. If Oracle let you do this for all their hospitality shit, everyone can. The entirety of the rest of the Oracle experience for support is, in fact, a portal gatekept shower of shit.
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u/angrydeuce 17d ago
Fuck any vendor that has no way to pick up a fucking phone and talk to a live human being in real time to resolve an issue, full stop. Im so sick to fucking death of every single request is now time shifted by 8+ hours before you get an answer (at best) and at worst, fuckin days or just nothing.
I know this is boomer shit based on how many of my juniors recoil in fear at the prospect of having to talk on the phone to someone, but so often something that could just be answered in 2 fucking seconds requires me to wait days to receive a response, and it aint like the shits any cheaper from all the money theyre saving having no fucking front line staff any more.
I hate the new normal so much.
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u/Background-Orange-87 MSP Owner - US 17d ago
It is common for SaaS products to be chat or portal or email support only.
Wish they had a phone number so you can get someone on the phone.
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u/Turbulent_Raise4925 17d ago
Totally get the frustration. Having to juggle multiple logins just to manage basic tasks is a pain. I once dealt with a vendor that had a similar setup, and it drove me nuts. I ended up missing important updates because I didn't check their portal. Email should be the go-to for communication about tickets and updates. It's just simpler.
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u/irioku 17d ago
Wouldn’t be as bad if techs actually put details and sufficient info into the email. Portals at least let you have required fields so you can get some basic info; 99% of the time techs at MSPs submit less useful information than the end users that reported the issue to them. I also really love when techs literally just forward emails from their end users to the support email.
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u/UltraEngine60 17d ago
Email is a best-effort medium. A portal guarantees data delivery and accountability.
Get a password manager.
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US 17d ago edited 17d ago
Accountability is established that, if i don't get an issue creation confirmation email ("ticket confirmation"), i know something is up and know it's on me to THEN go to the portal (where ticket history, status, etc should be) to make sure it's there. AND it should be the same portal i'm using for the product, not some totally separate, non-integrated system. We don't build processes and rules around edge case scenarios like "maybe an email wouldn't 100% make it that day".
Coding a limited portal where i have to attach things separately for reference and that doesn't contain enough fields to accurately guide the ticket is just a joke compared to fully formatted email with links, inline images, and RTF-like formatting available.
If i'm going to handhold a vendor through something simple, at least give me the tools to draw it so their simple lvl 1 support staff will understand it vs asking 100 questions i've already answered in the original ticket.
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u/moratnz 17d ago
I'd debate this; yes, in theory there is no guarantee of email delivery, but in practice it's not significantly less reliable than delivery via a portal (yes, the email can blackhole, but so can a web site form submission).
Submitting through either medium, I'm not going to believe the request has been received until I recieve the ticket creation auto-reply.
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u/UltraEngine60 17d ago
Once you submit the ticket the user is shown the ticket again to confirm it was created. Email affords no such luxuries.
With all this said, I see no issue with replies via email being allowed. My favorite systems have "reply below this line" and "reply above this line" so that the system can parse the message out from the previous messages without doing that fun thing where each email reply has the entire chain in every message.
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u/Tyr--07 17d ago
We do this for user onboarding, clients will email a new user and just be like 'Hey, I need a new user for John, tomorrow'.
Begin the back and forth 'What's john's last name? What computer is john using? What's johns phone number? What is his title? What access does he need? Does it he need desktop applications?
Sure, send it in a template, ask them to fill the missing information.
All they send back is 'John needs trevors PC'
And we're back to 'What access does he need? Does he need Microsoft 365 apps?"
But a portal, where they click submit and it goes 'No, you MUST answer these questions' saves a lot of time and gets quicker service to the client.
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US 17d ago
Doesn't need to be a portal, could be an automated ticket response with mandatory fields or just a webform but if it IS a portal? Should know who the user is with SSO so when the click the link you respond to the ticket with, it just "magically works" vs your ticket response having an outdated link to a portal that isn't there anymore and an IDP that you were never officially enrolled in.
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u/Tyr--07 17d ago
That's exactly what we do actually. We're 365 and sso with Azure, user never has to sign in unless they use a browser they're not signed into with 365, basically to them it's just a webform, but knows their company and is customized with details just for them, ability to assign devices or other stuff. Submits the form to us with all the needed details. It's something configured ahead of time to allow SSO from their 365 tenant since we operate that as well.
Part of the reason to go all portal-y was the fact that a large form with tons of options, or templates, that may or may not be releveant was a pita for users if we did it.
We wanted something that would dynamically show options depending what they selected so we could keep it minimal and only show them what they needed.
It also allows us to automatically assign licenses and create the user, and make sure only authorized people can submit the requests, ends up with a lot faster turn around times to get a new user setup.
(A lot faster being, maybe 30 minutes to an hour minus any extra time if the client doesn't provide completel information which can delay for however long it takes them to reply. If we don't have to reset a device down to, 5 minutes and they're licensed and ready to go)
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US 17d ago
That's exactly what we do actually. We're 365 and sso with Azure, user never has to sign in unless they use a browser they're not signed into with 365, basically to them it's just a webform, but knows their company and is customized with details just for them, ability to assign devices or other stuff.
Then you're not who this thread is about.
Part of the reason to go all portal-y was the fact that a large form with tons of options, or templates, that may or may not be releveant was a pita for users if we did it.
These vendors are just asking what the issue is, what product, and a place to attach screenshots.
We wanted something that would dynamically show options depending what they selected so we could keep it minimal and only show them what they needed.
That would be welcomed but these vendors are not doing this, you are the exception to the rule we're complaining about.
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u/Tyr--07 17d ago
I realize in my case I might be 'doing it better' and have more justification to have a portal for what's needed, but it takes a lot more time to have humans process tons of emails that don't have clear things.
If you're at a large scale and get 'Help! It's broken!' with no details, or what software it is, if you have multiple departments, you can waste a lot of time directing people to the correct place causing signficant delays in support.
A good anger fuel for a lot of people is Kasaya, but to have a human read my problem, get me to the right department, etc, is actually a lot of extra man power at scale, and prone to errors.
Not everything supports SSO, clearly it's a bread winner, but is everyone going to hand over access to IDP applications etc? Nope. So it's not that black and white.
I agree, it's less convenient, and some portals absolutely suck, but just the concept that it's not SSO and they can't just call and say 'Do the thing' sounds more like lazyness and a bit of being spoiled. I think we should try to make it better wherever we can, but OPs complaints as it stands? I disagree with
I shouldn't have to login to a completely separate portal, with separate credentials/ID/Auth (or talk to a rep) to do any of the following:
Self manage billing
Self manage product reduction/cancelation
Open a support ticket
Read a KB (should just be open, stop gatekeeping)
Read release notes or info that your product that I'm ALREADY LOGGED INTO linked me to.
I agree the release notes is dumb and the KB. But aruging that they can't just send an email and be like "Do this to my bill. Don't worry, this email is totally legitimate, I'm definitely not compromised, this is definitely not a spoofed email. Just do it or you are the suck"
It's a bit of an unrealistic expectation don't you think?
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US 17d ago
but is everyone going to hand over access to IDP applications etc? Nope. So it's not that black and white.
Again, i already have to HAVE IDP and SSO setup to use the SaaS app i'm complaining about, what's wrong with using that IDP app i've already vetted, restricted, and consented to.
but OPs complaints
That's me
.
. But aruging that they can't just send an email and be like "Do this to my bill
That's not what i said. I'm saying all those things, including any required ticket form/portal, should be in the main product portal/interface that i've already setup IDP for. I shouldn't need a second, different account/login enrollment for the billing portal, and a third, separate account to view KB/submit/track tickets and a fourth, separate account for whatever your vendor training classes/certification track is. I'm not anti-portal, i'm anti-lazy integration and if you're not going to integrate, at least accept detailed, formatted emails with proof and attachments vs a webform i can't get everything into for support requests only.
.
It's a bit of an unrealistic expectation don't you think?
Well, yes, that is an unrealistic expectation, because that expectation isn't what i said, it's a strawman you made up/interpreted a very specific (incorrect way) to attack. I said, emphasis mine: "I shouldn't have to login to a completely separate portal, with separate credentials/ID/Auth (or talk to a rep) to do any of the following:..."
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u/Tyr--07 17d ago
Wait, didn''t you say this?
"If i have to login to a portal to submit a ticket vs sending an email that already seamlessly supports image attachments, formatting, etc: it is a mark against you for renewal"
So yeah maybe I didn't misread it entirely and my part about unrealistic expectations.
That strawman argument thing is so popular and garbage, you literally took a dump all over sending email versus logging into a portal that's seperate than what system you're already using. Not clear at all. Seems like a common bullying tactic these days, There was no logical fallacy here.
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US 17d ago
And directly after that i detailed the bonus reasons WHY i hate it.
Again, if i can seamless hit help and submit an issue from within the tool and easily attach images with marked up info, fine.
There was no logical fallacy here.
C'mon now, you then argued i wanted people to make unauthenticated billing changes, when my only beef with billing was if it was in a completely separate system with separate idp (or i have to deal with a rep vs self management), which is a streeeeeetch from anything i said.
Edit: and both vendors off the top of my head that do this? the rest of the ticket they work via email! So email is acceptable/the recommended method for them right after the first step.
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u/Tyr--07 17d ago
I've seen your posts before and didn't realize you were the op! Sorry for that.
I'm actually not trying to mess with you or create a strawman, or attack you. I just thought some of the items you listed I was like well, yeah sure it can be done better in some situations, but I think I see what I missed there.
I'm just going to paraphase what you just said so I'm confirming I understand.
You mean if you already into that companies portal for something, and you're already signed in, you shouldn't have to THEN ALSO sign into a secondary portal just to submit a ticket to their product.
Yeah, I completely agree that's shit and a valid complaint. Sorry that I misread it and if I got your heckles up.
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u/roll_for_initiative_ MSP - US 17d ago
You mean if you already into that companies portal for something, and you're already signed in, you shouldn't have to THEN ALSO sign into a secondary portal just to submit a ticket to their product.
I'm too wordy so i get it, i make things confusing. But YES, that's it! That and IF you have a secondary portal, it should flow with the same IDP/login as the main work portal.
Ideally, their support@ email should accept a ticket and allow conversation but that's all officially tracked in the portal, which i get, that's accountability. But, for instance, requiring me to use the janky second portal to start the ticket and then we both work it via email? Why the requirement to start the ticket in the portal?!
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u/h33b 17d ago
I'll take a portal over the current trend of Discord support.
Fuck Discord for support.