Ingram Micro Services Network, distributor Ingram Micro's labor service provider community, will use Autotask to manage and automate the group's partnering and dispatching programs, both companies announced Aug. 14.

Beginning Oct. 1, IMSN will use a specially designed version of Autotask called IMOnsite as its project management application to administer and dispatch across the 700-member organization. Members will also gain access to Autotask to use internally as the CRM (customer relationship management), customer service, service dispatch, time tracking and billing, and recurring managed service contract management platform within their practices, Ingram officials said.

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IMOnsite's automated dispatch and approval removes labor and time from the process, making IMSN a more efficient service delivery organization, said Jason Beal, group manager of IMSN.

"A VAR in Denver has a customer in Boston with a specific scope of work, but no bodies," said Justin Crotty, vice president of Ingram's new Services Division, announced Aug. 14. "I can go into IMOnsite, identify a partner in Boston, dispatch them, have them go in, do the work, exit, close the ticket and bill both the end-user and the VAR for work done."

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The Web-based application will now be available to Ingram Micro's entire partner community, allowing partners to search, identify and dispatch IMSN members directly for the first time.

The platform will also integrate with IMSN partners' own service management platforms, such as their own version of Autotask, or competitors such as ConnectWise and TigerPaw.

In June, N-able announced it had integrated and re-branded Autotask as N-Power to automatically capture network activity and services, and to kick out alerts and reports for its partners.