EcoStruxure™ IT SmartConnect makes life easier for customers, partners, and IT managers who want to remotely monitor their APC Smart-UPS. Driving the momentum for this cloud-monitoring and management product is Senior Global Offer Manager Heidi Sohlberg, who is the go-to expert for all things SmartConnect.
Since 2017, Sohlberg has been focused on Schneider Electric’s out-of-the box, cloud-enabled capacity for remote power monitoring for small- and medium-sized businesses. She represents the product’s voice of customer globally. She understands how and why SmartConnect has evolved over the years for partners and customers who need to understand their UPSs (uninterruptible power supplies) and get actionable advice.
I sat down with Sohlberg to discuss SmartConnect and her focus on simplifying daily life for IT managers who value benefits like secure remote power monitoring, pro-active notifications, and easy and cost-effective ways to monitor their UPSs.
Q: You know EcoStruxure IT SmartConnect customers and their needs better than anyone. Tell me about them.
A: We put a lot of effort in trying to understand their needs. I’m focused on small-and medium-sized business users as well as IT administrators who may be short staffed or manage on their own. They may have a number of distributed locations and need efficiency and actionable advice. A system can produce an incredible number of tickets – but our users want to avoid getting overwhelmed by a flood of information. That is where SmartConnect is different in the marketplace.
Q: Can you share an example of how SmartConnect provides insight?
A: Yes! What I’ve learned from talking to our fantastic SmartConnect customers is that when they manage several UPSs in an area, it’s nearly a proxy for knowing utility power status for the entire area. Frequently, our users are the ones contacted if there’s a connectivity or productivity issue, and the troubleshooting starts from establishing power availability. They ask questions like: Did you lose utility power? Were you able to maintain operations on battery power? And if a site wasn’t suffering from a power outage, that’s when they move on to ask: Was it a problem with the switches or the network? What sort of an outage was it?
Essentially, customers are looking for answers to all of these questions and SmartConnect provides both a starting point and insights for the investigation. After power outages, SmartConnect logs can help answer so many questions: When did you have utility power available? Did the outages occur during business hours, peak hours, or over the weekend? So, it provides discovery about those issues affecting operations. Customers learn that having more information can give them a better view of what’s happening on their sites.
Q: Cybersecurity and sustainability are important focus areas for the EcoStruxure IT portfolio. How does SmartConnect help customers with these demands?
A: In so many ways. When it comes to cybersecurity, we can distribute firmware upgrades all the way to the UPS directly with SmartConnect. We call this one-click firmware upgrade because we give IT administrators control of when they decide to run the installation. But imagine you have multiple UPSs installed in racks or the back of a closet. With cloud-distributed firmware from SmartConnect, you no longer need to access the rear of the UPS to attach to the serial port for the firmware upgrade via local (cable) connection. And if a manufacturer released hardware optimization features, those would be made available for the customer to choose when to remotely upgrade their installed base – again letting the IT administrator control the installation.
On the sustainability front, UPS asset registration means your inventory is optimized, right sized, and in the ideal location. Many users want to track their old and new devices, understand their location, and view serial numbers and renewal needs from one place. SmartConnect’s free, 6-month Standard Plan trial for newly registered devices includes older devices, if they were not registered previously. Therefore, when adding new Smart-UPS to an installation, it makes sense to take a moment to register any older compatible devices as these are in the remit of the free Standard Plan trial, automated firmware distribution, and quick configurations.
Keeping track of replacement and renewal dates leads to improved lifecycle management, as customers can pull a simple .csv report to show device serial numbers, device and battery age, and renewal needs. The smart remote reboot feature and load shedding on our Advanced Plan means customers are maximizing uptime of their equipment. I encourage everyone interested to compare our plans easily on our website.
Q: Are there any misconceptions about SmartConnect that you would like to address?
A: Initially, we believed the key use case was a single professional or office location without dedicated IT staff and we see many customers who fit this description. But we also see customers who have grown far beyond that initial case to span dozens of locations. Retail operations that rely on uninterrupted access to back-end systems for order intake, inventory processing, order picking and collection, and protecting their network and switches.
We’ve learned that customer needs drive adoption rather than the size of their operation. Even a very local operation can have distributed IT that must be accessible. We spoke to an IT manager of a school district. The primary schools may be relatively small, but the sites are all over the city or county, and there could be access restrictions in terms of time or distance. Each site may not be large but they are sprawling, and each one is essential.
Q: How does SmartConnect help with tracking uptime and downtime?
A: For some of our customers, SmartConnect actually starts the process of tracking uptime and downtime. They may want to standardize around a certain vendor or manufacturer and they had discovered thanks to cloud connectivity that they could remotely access the UPS device and all relevant information included detailed event logs. When I asked them how they had previously tracked their uptime and downtime, well, they really hadn’t. SmartConnect changes that dynamic.
Q: How does SmartConnect cater to our partners?
A: I love speaking to our partners about how SmartConnect helps their business model. Some solution providers and managed service providers have a deep customer engagement model where they use the UPS as a component in a solution. Our new ‘Shared Devices’ feature was designed to support this scenario. Other partners aren’t as involved in the customer operations and prefer to provide advice and help forecast renewal and modernization needs. Our downloadable Inventory and Renewals reports are tailored to this need, removing much of sensitive information and providing the reference and replacement information partners need to supply the customer with the appropriate hardware, accessories, and subscriptions. We tailor our approach to the needs of our end-users and partners who serve them.
Q: How has the evolution of SmartConnect helped simplify operations for customers?
A: SmartConnect is a true cloud offer, and we operate an agile development model. Some of our key moments have been listening to customers and rapidly releasing a requested feature. This is how we designed the remote power-cycling feature on our Advanced Plan. Customers told us their preferences and asked for one thing – if they could power-cycle connected equipment via a cloud-command. We decided to help users get the most out of UPSs independent outlet groups, let them give them ‘friendly names’ and, due to popular demand, we added a load-shedding option as well.
Experience SmartConnect and remote power monitoring
If you would like to explore the many benefits of EcoStruxure IT SmartConnect, please visit our demo site. If you have a Smart-UPS with a SmartConnect port, sign up for the free 6-month trial here.
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