Switching IT providers is one of those decisions that companies delay for years longer than they should. Not because the current situation is good — usually it's not — but because the transition feels like too much risk. What if something breaks? What if we lose access to something critical? What if we spend three weeks getting the new provider up to speed, and nothing actually improves?

Those are fair concerns. They're also solvable if the onboarding process is structured. Here's exactly how IPCONNEX runs the first 30 days with a new managed IT client.

Week 1: Discovery and Documentation

The first week is pure information gathering. We schedule a 90-minute discovery call — usually with the business owner or office manager and whoever handles IT day-to-day (even if that's "nobody, it's chaos"). The goal is to build a complete picture of your environment before we touch anything.

What we document in Week 1:

All hardware: workstations, servers, network equipment, printers, anything with a network connection
Software and SaaS subscriptions, including licenses and renewal dates
Internet service providers and circuit details
Cloud services: Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace tenant, backup tools, line-of-business applications
Existing vendor relationships and support contracts
Any known issues or recurring problems

We also collect credentials at this stage — admin accounts for your Microsoft 365 tenant, your router, your server if you have one, any third-party tools with admin portals. This is usually where the first friction appears. Many businesses have no documentation and no shared password manager. Credentials are in someone's email, in someone's head, or worse, forgotten entirely.

If that's your situation, say so upfront. We've dealt with it before. We'll work through it methodically rather than pretending the problem doesn't exist.

Week 2: Technical Baseline

Once we have access, we deploy our RMM (remote monitoring and management) agent — we use NinjaRMM — across all managed workstations and servers. This is what lets us monitor device health, push patches, and respond to issues remotely without needing you to call us first.

In parallel, we run a backup audit. If you already have backups in place, we verify they're actually working — which means testing a restore, not just confirming the backup job shows green. Backup systems that haven't been tested are decoration. If there's no backup in place, we set one up before moving on to anything else.

We also establish a security baseline: we check that Windows Defender (or whatever endpoint protection is running) is active and current, that disk encryption is enabled on laptops, that admin accounts are separated from day-to-day user accounts, and that MFA is turned on for your Microsoft 365 logins.

At the end of Week 2, we produce a gap assessment — a short written document listing what we found, what's already in good shape, and what needs to be addressed. We go through it with you before acting on anything.

Week 3: Users and Process

Week 3 is about getting your team connected to how managed IT actually works. We set up your helpdesk portal (we use HaloPSA for ticketing), walk through how to submit a ticket, what the escalation paths look like, and what falls inside vs. outside your agreement.

Every client gets defined escalation tiers:

Tier 1: Standard helpdesk — password resets, software issues, how-to questions
Tier 2: Technical issues requiring deeper investigation — network problems, application errors, server-side issues
Tier 3: Critical incidents — outages, ransomware, data loss scenarios

We also set up after-hours emergency contact for clients on full managed plans. "Emergency" means the business cannot operate — not that the printer is slow.

This is also the week we tend to discover shadow IT: applications people installed themselves, personal Dropbox accounts being used for company files, someone using their Gmail for client correspondence. We document it. We don't immediately turn anything off — but we have a conversation about what needs to migrate and what timeline is realistic.

Week 4: First Monthly Review

At the 30-day mark, we deliver the first monthly report. It covers device health, patching status, backup verification, any tickets opened and resolved, and any open items from the gap assessment.

We walk through it together on a call — not because the report is complicated, but because the first review sets the pattern for the relationship. We want you to understand what we're monitoring and why. We also use this call to finalize the SLA terms, confirm the support hours that match your business schedule, and set expectations for response times by incident severity.

What We Need From You

Onboarding goes smoothly when clients come in with a few things ready:

A point of contact who can make decisions and has authority to provide us admin credentials
Vendor contact information for your ISP, any software vendors with support contracts
A rough inventory of locations and the number of devices at each — even a rough count is useful
Honest answers about what's broken, what's been "good enough for now," and what worries you

What slows things down: nobody has admin credentials, there's a prior IT provider who's unresponsive, or there's a server running an application that nobody knows how to document because the person who set it up left three years ago. These aren't dealbreakers — they're just problems that take longer to unpack.

What a Managed Services Agreement Actually Covers

A standard managed services agreement with IPCONNEX includes:

Unlimited helpdesk support during business hours (with optional after-hours coverage)
Remote monitoring of all managed devices
Patch management — OS and third-party applications
Backup management and monthly restore tests
Security baseline maintenance (endpoint protection, MFA enforcement, disk encryption)
Monthly reporting
Vendor liaison for ISP, software, and hardware issues

It does not include: new hardware procurement (billed separately), major infrastructure projects like server migrations or new network installations, or after-hours emergency response unless that's added to the plan.

The onboarding period — the first 30 days — is included in the agreement. It's not a separate engagement or a billed project. It's how we get to a baseline fast enough to start providing value.

If you're evaluating managed IT providers and want to understand what the transition actually looks like, reach out. We'll walk through it in plain language.

How IPCONNEX Onboards a New Managed IT Client