6.19.18
ConnectWise announced today that a MySlice proof of concept designed to automate the calculation and reporting of bonuses and commissions has been selected as the winning entry for ConnectWise’s Tech Tank at Automation Nation contest. MySlice will receive a first-place cash award of up to $100,000 to transform its idea into a working integration with ConnectWise Manage.
Craig Fulton, chief product officer at ConnectWise, said the creativity and practicality of the 16 Tech Tank submissions more than exceeded his expectations.
“We reviewed smart, innovative proofs of concept that touched on almost every part of the IT tech team ecosystem, but the one from MySlice clearly stood out with the ConnectWise judges as well as with the voters at Automation Nation,” Fulton said. “As most organizations know, a well-designed bonus program is one of the quickest ways to fix ongoing service problems such as missed SLAs and lingering open tickets. What MySlice is doing will help our partners solve the huge challenges that arise when trying to calculate those actual bonuses.”
MySlice is the result of the combined efforts of David Wilkeson, CEO of MSP Advisor, an MSP consultancy, and Jimmy Puckett, CEO of SPINEN, an MSP and application development shop. Wilkeson said that as a consultant to many MSPs and as a large MSP co-owner, he has found one of the best ways to motivate team members is to create a simple-to-understand bonus program built around metrics that measure individual contributions to the company.
“Unfortunately, the process of calculating bonuses is labor-intensive and often error-prone because calculations are based on many different performance metrics, parameters and data sources, including a number of ConnectWise reports. Even more difficult is the task of keeping employees abreast of where they stand during the bonus period so that they are constantly motivated to achieve their goals. Automating the process and providing metrics to employees in near real-time will make bonus programs even more effective and easier to adopt,” he said.
Wilkeson said he and Puckett are excited and honored to have been recognized for their hard work, and they are looking forward to using the prize money to complete the ConnectWise Manage integration. “On behalf of everyone at MySlice, thank you to ConnectWise, the judges and our Automation Nation peers who voted for our entry,” he said.
Tech Tank’s second place award was accepted by Manoj Jonna on behalf of YayPay for its cloud-based accounts receivable automation solution. YayPay accelerates collections by streamlining and even eliminating the massive manual effort often associated with following up on late invoices and reporting accounts receivable metrics.
Third place honors went to Ronny Tunfjord, product manager and developer of MySelfServicePortal.com, a ConnectWise Automate and ConnectWise Manage integration that will empower end users to solve common problems and service requests with the power of automaton.
Proofs of concept were evaluated on innovation, business potential, user experience, and best use of ConnectWise APIs and SDKs. Entries were assessed by a team of ConnectWise judges, and the teams with the three highest scores were invited to present their concepts at Automation Nation 2018 where conference attendees then cast votes for their favorite of the three. The winning entry and runners up were selected based on a combination of their initial ConnectWise judge scores and attendee votes.
After announcing the contest winner at Automation Nation, Fulton told attendees that ConnectWise will start accepting entries for Tech Tank IT Nation later this summer.
“The response to our inaugural Tech Tank contest was so positive that we knew it could not be a one-time event,” Fulton said.
He said the goal of helping innovative thinkers get the financial support they need to transform their ideas into working integrations that create a more connected ecosystem and benefit the entire ConnectWise community remains the same; however, the Tech Tank IT Nation contest will focus more on tools that fuel entrepreneurship and help IT tech teams grow their businesses.
