Move it on up! Migration to more

OK, last year you successfully moved that stubborn break-fix client one step toward a managed contract.  At that time they had a contract with an old version of  SomeUnTech End-your-Point anti-virus.  The contract was expired and the new version was such a resource hog it couldn’t even be installed on some of their machines. All they want is anti-virus, so that made a "MAV-Only" deployment of your MAXfocus Managed Anti-Virus a perfect fit.

A year later and it’s time to revisit their agreement. It's a perfect time to move them up a notch in managed services.  So you walk in armed with an Asset Tracking report and a new contract that provides them the added security of MAXfocus Patch Management and the convenience of Remote Desktop technical support all for a fraction of the cost of on-site support, but raises their monthly cost by less than 50%.  In turn, it doubles your margin.  

What do you know, they’re ALL IN!  And now the fun begins.

 

NOTE: After checking out this article, see how it's been improved in Move it on Over.

With the MAV-Only deployment process none of the machines have any checks at all.  Along the way, however, the CEO asked for this or that, so a couple machines had checks added.  Oh, and don't forget the one site had Automated Tasks issued to clean up and uninstall that peer-to-peer software the bookkeeper kept spreading to get her music files playing at work.  So there are a few checks that need to be removed.  

Wait? Do you really have to uninstall and reinstall all these agents from the computers?  Half of them are laptops that rarely come into the office! Not to mention you want to keep what notes have been written about them and their Asset Modifications.

Time for a T3-Two-Step.

Happily, MAXfocus has an agent that can re-scan the device to add the checks to monitor this stuff without you having to go to each machine.  But according to the Help file, the machine has to have NOTHING on it.  You remember that you can delete all of the checks at once; that's no problem.  But don’t forget the Site-Managed Automated Tasks that need to be kept.  So how does that work today?  Let’s clean house.

Move out

If you don’t already have one, create a client-site (Generic-Generic) combination that has NOTHING enabled on it. *Perhaps in this situation, we want to turn on MAV to avoid the reboots that go along with uninstalling & installing anti-virus software. Take the devices and move them from their current location to the Generic Site.

You’ll see the removal of everything before it actually happens

Example only - does NOT reflect what's written in the story.

The little-known tip here is the Site-Managed Tasks will be removed from the device, while the Site remains populated with them for the return trip.

Don’t forget about the CEO’s machine, with the check monitoring a 3^rd-party Windows Service he needs to be sure is running.  And the assistant, who you put a Disk Space Change check on to be sure nothing large & extraordinary was downloaded to it.  Delete ALL those checks from each machine all at one time by using Shift-click/Control-Click.

Checks that are added with a feature are removed when the feature is removed, not by deletion.

Impatient? Select all the devices in the Generic Site and Re-run Checks so that they immediately ‘phone home’ and get everything removed.

Move in

While you’re awaiting the results of re-run, enable the policies for the new contract:

• Patch Management: ON.   
• Take Control: ON.   
• Remote Background Management: ON.   
• One of the old desktops gets re-tasked as a “server” to use the new Site Concentrator.  
• MAV policy: updated because the some folder locations changed from XP to Windows 8.  
• Web Protection? Maybe for that assistant who keeps downloading stuff – create her own site for that configuration. 
• MOB? Not now.  Let’s talk about flat-rate pricing next month … after all, most of these laptops don’t talk to the server that’s being backed up currently – they’re going to need something.

OK – after finishing all those steps, looking back now the machines have all got NOTHING on them back at Generic-Generic, so let’s make this happen!  Shift-click them all, then select:

We’ll just let it FIND everything on the machines,

so MAX will catch the Windows Service on the CEO’s machine automatically and we'll see any added hard drives or other stuff that people have been playing with over the last year of no monitoring.  Jeesh! This CEO has NO IDEA what they’ve been doing!  

Re-run the checks and - BOOM. All new checks listed.  Was it really that easy?

Now move the machines back to the site with the policies enabled, and all the new features get installed automatically.

Example showing the reverse of above.

Wait, we’re done?

Oh, yeah – we’re done. 

Remember: see how it's been improved in Move it on Over.

OK, maybe it’s not a literal two-step; but T3-Four or Five Step just sounds silly.