IT Nation Connect 2023 recap: ConnectWise Business Management

IT Nation Connect™ 2023 showcased many exciting product announcements from the ConnectWise Business Management team. These innovations reimagine and modernize our Business Management solutions, covering the entire business lifecycle from marketing and sales to getting paid and running data analysis.  

All product announcements are designed and built with key benefits in mind: drive more efficiency, reduce internal costs, and improve customer retention, all with the end benefit of driving more profitability. This blog will provide a comprehensive recap of the key announcements made during the event. 

ConnectWise CPQ 

• Dark mode: ConnectWise CPQ™ now offers a dark mode feature, enhancing the user experience and providing a visually appealing interface for users—making your sales reps more comfortable and productive.  
• Guided selling: A brand-new guided selling capability for ConnectWise CPQ was announced to assist sales representatives in capturing the right information for accurate quotes in the least amount of time. This feature streamlines and standardizes the process, making it easy and fast for accurate quotes to be generated, especially for non-technical or new sales reps who are hoping to hit the ground running.  
• Quote editor enhancements: The quote editor was completely reimagined, allowing users to easily modify the quote document while building it with drag-and-drop components, and helping them compare quote documents and proposals with our new side-by-side view. These features enable faster and more accurate quote creation, giving your sales team time back to close even more deals.   
• WisePay integration enhancements: Enhancements were made to the integration between WisePay™, a ConnectWise solution, and ConnectWise CPQ, enabling the creation of “fully restricted” down payment invoices from payments collected on CPQ quotes. These payments can be applied to the right invoices without intervention, freeing up your resources and streamlining the payment process. This ensures funds are correctly allocated as progress or completion invoices are generated, which your clients will thank you for. 

ConnectWise PSA 

• ConnectWise Sidekick™ for PSA:  ConnectWise Sidekick is a powerful AI solution created to enhance productivity and efficiency. It equips ConnectWise PSA™ partners with recommendations for everyday tasks, ticket summarization, email responses, ticket categorization, sentiment analysis, and translation capabilities within a service ticket. The ConnectWise Sidekick for PSA Teams bot makes ConnectWise PSA records easily accessible, so your entire organization can quickly review and update records from the Teams app on their phone or desktop. Additionally, machine learning elements automate ticket triage, easing up your dispatcher’s role and helping customer issues get resolved quicker.  
• Project reimagination: ConnectWise PSA projects are reimagined on the ConnectWise Asio™ platform, offering a modern and visually appealing interface. With a reimagined work plan and Gantt chart, as well as a brand-new Kanban board, ConnectWise PSA projects are designed to improve project management and execution.   
• Procurement reimagination: The change order process is being streamlined, making it easier to handle client requests and modifications. This used to be a manual process, but through reimagination, it’s now straightforward and easy to manage. While this specific feature is being highlighted, the ConnectWise team is in the process of reimagining procurement as a whole, so be sure to stay tuned! 
• ConnectWise View™ and PSA integration: By bringing ConnectWise View into ConnectWise PSA, technicians can provide remote service by seeing through your customers’ eyes. Your team will be able to access ConnectWise View right from the service ticket, making it easy for them to see what your customer sees through their phone’s camera, capture screenshots and time entries automatically, ensure adherence to process, and deliver a smooth customer experience. 

BrightGauge 

We’ve revamped the data sync architecture of BrightGauge™, a ConnectWise solution, to enable faster syncs and critical data point surfacing, starting with ConnectWise PSA cloud and ConnectWise RMM™ data sets—but with plenty more on the way. Visualizations of longer periods of historical data are being introduced, allowing year-over-year analysis, with ConnectWise PSA time entries going first into early access. Proactive notifications are also being developed to support faster decision-making and action-taking based on data insights. 

Other Business Management solution announcements 

• ITBoost™, a ConnectWise solution: Generate and securely share time-based one-time passwords right from ITBoost, streamlining and centralizing the way your teams serve customers.  
• SmileBack™, a ConnectWise solution: Collect feedback throughout a project’s lifecycle with SmileBack project surveys, a new capability that enables project teams to consistently wow your customers and keep projects on track. Integrate SmileBack into your ScreenConnect instance to prompt end users for feedback at the end of remote sessions and easily capture it with SmileBack’s one-click approach.   
• Service Leadership, Inc.®, a ConnectWise solution: The reimagined Service Leadership Index has modernized the way you access real data and analysis, helping to improve the financial and operational performance of your business. Enjoy a simplified and streamlined process of entering your data each quarter and reviewing the details. 

Conclusion 

The Business Management product announcements at IT Nation Connect showcased a range of innovative features and enhancements across our different solutions. Data visualization and analysis tools, along with ConnectWise Sidekick for PSA, offer valuable insights and automation capabilities, and these advancements empower businesses to optimize their operations and deliver exceptional customer service.  

From guided selling and quote editor improvements to procurement and project management enhancements, these updates aim to streamline processes and improve user experience for increased profitability and client retention.  

If you’re interested in learning more about the Early Access program for ConnectWise Business Management or connecting with like-minded peers and ConnectWise colleagues, please check out our Virtual Community. We hope to see you there!