Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

Managed Service Providers (MSPs) live and die by their data. Externally, clients expect clear reporting, fast responses, and visible proof of value. Internally, smooth operations and low overheads are essential to business success. But with so many tools, key data is scattered across multiple systems – PSA, RMM, cloud services, ticketing, monitoring, finance – and that causes blind spots. Dashboards fix this problem by consolidating data into a single view.

As engineering organizations scale, project visibility becomes a real challenge. Engineering managers lose track of what's actually happening across multiple teams. Executives ask "are we on track?" and get conflicting answers. Status meetings multiply but clarity doesn't improve. The root problem isn't lack of data, modern engineering teams generate tons of project information across JIRA, GitHub, CI/CD pipelines, and project management tools.

SquaredUp Dashboard Server (DS) and SquaredUp Cloud both deliver cutting-edge data visualization for IT and engineering teams. The two products can be used independently, or together for complete operational visibility. This article explores how SquaredUp DS and Cloud differ, when to use each, and how they work together.

A recent survey revealed that developers and engineering teams waste 8+ hours a week on inefficiencies in their role. Poor reporting tools are a main contributor, with Jira being regarded as a frequent source of friction. But since Jira is so deeply embedded in most organizations' infrastructure and processes, replacing it is not really an option. Rather, the solution lies in optimizing how users interact with it rather than abandoning it altogether.

Jira is an industry favorite when it comes to managing software projects, yet its native dashboards can sometimes leave teams wanting more insight. The default views give a general update, but often lack the connection to the day-to-day activity happening in other parts of your workflow. As organizations use a wide mix of modern tools – from code repositories and cloud services to spreadsheets and reporting apps, it’s easy for critical details to get scattered or overlooked.

DORA Metrics are widely regarded as the gold standard for measuring the performance of software development teams. The metrics themselves though are generic, high-level pointers – they are not an instruction manual. Adopting the DORA approach is the first step down the path to continuous improvement. The next steps are deciding how the measures should be defined in the context of your own organisations processes and then figuring out how to retrieve (and present) the relevant data.

Freshdesk is a popular incident management system known for its ease of use, robust ticketing system, and powerful automation capabilities as part of the Freshworks suite of tools. While Freshdesk comes with native reporting and dashboards, they can be limited in terms of customization and data correlation across different sources. Additionally, building complex visualizations in Freshdesk often requires more advanced knowledge of their reporting tools. This is where SquaredUp comes in!

MongoDB is a popular NoSQL database used by many modern web applications. Once your web application is up and running, you might find you need to monitor the application data for operational purposes. For example, you may need to report on user sign-ups, or monitor for problems like invalid data. SquaredUp is an easy-to-use dashboard that plugs directly into your MongoDB database to visualize and monitor your data.

The idea of having a SquaredUp plugin for Grafana might seem a little bit unnecessary at first. They are both dashboarding products, so why would you want to create a dashboard about dashboards? The answer to this conundrum is that the SquaredUp Grafana plugin isn’t quite a matter of taking Grafana dashboards and recreating them on the SquaredUp canvas.

As the unsung hero of modern endpoint management, Microsoft Intune quietly ensures security, compliance, and seamless user experiences across a range of devices and platforms. Where many organisations go wrong, however, is not having the right tool to monitor and leverage Intune’s full potential. But for an organization relying on Intune, what tool should you use?