Frequently Asked Questions

Managed Services was a term adopted by the IT support industry to describe Flat Rate support services. These services are comprised of a collection of the most common IT tasks and are bundled together to provide clients the greatest value for their dollar.  Many tasks that use to be completed manually onsite are now mostly completed offsite using sophisticated remote management software built specifically for the IT industry.

Whether you have an internal IT Support staff or you use an external third party for support you are most likely operating on a “reactive” basis. What this means is that your IT support staff are “reacting” to the needs of your IT environment.  They are responding to user requests for help, they are responding to service outages and server errors or crashes.  With Managed Services you are entering the world of “Proactive IT Support”. Though the use 24x7 monitoring and the latest in technology tools your Managed Services staff can now anticipate and prevent future IT support events, as well as respond to immediate support needs usually before the end user has even attempted to contact support.

We provide unlimited remote support as a benefit to our MasterIT Managed Services clients. As with all of our agreements, the included hours encompass the tasks, services, and support outlined in the agreement.  Some examples of typical items not covered by our standard agreements are; (1) Upgrades to IT infrastructure; this includes server or desktop Operating system upgrades, third party application upgrades, network or telecom changes or upgrades.  (2) IT Infrastructure server additions or companywide software additions – This could be the purchase, setup, installation, and configuration of a new server. It could be the installation of a new server based application for your users. Keep in mind this rule only applies to remote support hours.  If your plan includes onsite hours you may use those hours for whatever IT Support activities you desire.

Depending on the size of your organization the transition period can take anywhere from two weeks to two months.  There are a number of variables to consider and in most cases several organizations and/or departments  must work together to smoothly transition your support without interruption.  Upon signing a managed services contract the first activity we perform is a detailed network assessment.  This assessment is non-invasive and will provide a more thorough overview of your entire IT infrastructure than can be gained during the interview process.  The results of this assessment will be a “punch list” of items that must be remediated prior to the ultimate “Go Live” date.  Your “Go Live” date is the date at which you are fully running under our Managed Services Program. This signifies the end of the transition period, during which Mosaic will “triage” the existing problems, perform required upgrades and get the network/technology in an efficient and productive capacity.  At that point, we “Go Live” with proactive, normal support period.

Unlike other firms that may limit you to a specific set of technicians and charge you extra for engineers, we believe in making our entire team available to every client.  You of course will be assigned a dedicated account team that consists of 1-2 technicians and at least 1 engineer. We do this so you can become accustomed to seeing and working with the same individuals day in and day out. This however does not limit your access to the rest of our highly trained and energetic staff.  Out entire staff is available and ready to assist you.

Managed Services is much more than just fixing computer and server problems.

See if you can answer the following questions:

• How many computers in your company are running a version of Windows that are three to five years old or older?
• Which computers in your company have warranties expiring in the next six months or are already expired?
• How many of your licensed copies of Microsoft Office were purchased with a computer, purchased in a retail store, or purchased though a Microsoft open license program?
• What versions of Microsoft Licensing are currently in use in your company, and are they legal for use in a corporate environment?
• How many support incidents a month does your current IT staff receive?
• Of those requests how many do they complete, and in what amount of time do they take to complete them? 
• What are the top three most common support issues in your company?

We can go on and on with questions like these and many others. With Managed Services you get the satisfaction of knowing your IT support needs are being taken care of and you would have the resources on hand to be able to to answer all of the previous questions. Managed services gives you back control of your Information Technology investment.  The Monthly Executive Report Summaries, Annual Technology Roadmap Planning, and up to date real-time IT asset and support data giove you total control and understanding of where your technology dollars are spent.