Author Archives: Tori Pazda

The Week Ending Oct. 9

Next-Generation MSP Thrive Expands Application Services Capabilities With Timlin Acquisition

Thrive, a Massachusetts-based managed services provider that has focused heavily on next-generation IT infrastructure and cloud services, is expanding its applications services offerings with a strategic acquisition.

This week Thrive said it has acquired Timlin Enterprises, a provider of applications and services around the Microsoft 365 platform. Timlin brings to Thrive a delivery platform for the entire Microsoft stack including Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint and Power BI.

Timlin, also based in Massachusetts, brings expertise in application development, customization and integration.

FOXBOROUGH, MA – October 7, 2020 – Thrive, a premier provider of NextGen Managed Services, announces today that it has acquired Timlin Enterprises, an information technology services provider and long-time collaboration partner focusing on the Microsoft 365 platform, Teams and SharePoint. This transaction is Thrive’s first non-MSP, product-capability acquisition, greatly enhancing its existing technology portfolio by adding a proven team with expertise on Microsoft tools.

Timlin, headquartered in Massachusetts, has a deep bench of engineers, consultants, and business analysts spread out geographically across the United States. The company is predominantly focused upon the Life Sciences and Biotech industries, boasting an impressive clientele list, along with additional proficiency in Banking & Financial Services.

The acquisition of Timlin significantly expands Thrive’s Microsoft Collaboration and Digital Transformation efforts to help companies unlock the hidden value they are paying for and not utilizing within the Microsoft 365 platform, increasing employee adoption and driving productivity increases. Additional benefits include enterprise-wide governance, training, management, development, support; Teams integration and collaboration; SharePoint architecture management; SQL hosting and management; Power BI and Power Platform business process automation; and other Microsoft application management.

“We’re very excited to welcome Timlin to the Thrive family and create a separate Microsoft Collaboration Unit,” said Rob Stephenson, CEO of Thrive. “Timlin’s tremendous team of expert technical and consultative employees will provide a huge benefit to Thrive’s Microsoft 365 customers, enabling them to accelerate their digital transformation efforts and enhance employee productivity.”

“Timlin has more than 10 years of experience guiding our valued clients with Microsoft platform adoption efforts, especially in the Life Sciences sector, and we’re proud to combine our highly-skilled team, tools and insights with Thrive to enhance its industry-leading NextGen Managed Services Platform,” said Ryan Thomas, CEO of Timlin Enterprises. “Our whole team is excited to embark upon this journey and spur additional growth for Thrive, as well as to allow Timlin customers access to Thrive’s Cyber Security and Public, Private & Hybrid Cloud-focused services.”

Mr. Thomas, Jeff Johnson, and Joe Piccirilli will continue to oversee the management of Timlin as the Microsoft Collaboration Division of Thrive, along with their existing employees. Timlin engaged BellMark Partners as an exclusive advisor on the deal.

The Timlin transaction is now the eighth acquisition for Thrive since the M/C Partners investment back in 2016.

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About Thrive

Thrive is a leading provider of NextGen managed services designed to drive business outcomes through application enablement and optimization. The company’s Thrive5 Methodology utilizes a unique combination of its Application Performance Platform and strategic services to ensure each business application takes advantage of technology that enables peak performance, scale, and the highest level of security. For more information, visit thrivenextgen.com

Thrive: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram 

MEDIA CONTACT:

Stephanie Farrell

Director of Corporate Marketing

617.952.0289 | sfarrell@thrivenextgen.com

About Timlin Enterprises

Founded in 2010, Timlin Enterprises helps clients operate as digital organizations by enabling and continuing to advance their Office 365 and SharePoint capabilities. Timlin harnesses each organization’s unique definition of digital transformation, focuses on end users as the key to adoption, leverages a proven methodology, and maintains a commitment to exceptional service delivery using only US-based resources, as proven by a 100% service retention rate.  From targeted professional services to Center of Excellence managed services they have the solutions to help organizations adopt the tools available in the Office 365 platform to keep pace with the new speed of business. For more information, visit timlinenterprises.com

About M/C Partners

Based in Boston, M/C Partners is a private equity firm focused on small and mid-sized businesses in the communications and technology services sectors. For more than three decades M/C Partners has invested $2.2 billion of capital in over 130 companies, leveraging its deep industry expertise to understand long-term secular trends and identify growth opportunities. The firm is currently investing its eighth fund, partnering with promising companies and empowering strong leaders to accelerate growth, optimize operations, and build long-term value. For more information, visit mcpartners.com

About BellMark Partners

BellMark Partners, LLC is a boutique investment banking firm providing M&A, capital raising, restructuring, and strategic advisory services to middle market companies with a particular emphasis on the Consumer, Industrial, Healthcare, and Business Services markets. Headquartered in Boston, MA with an additional office in Cleveland, OH. For more information, visit bellmarkpartners.com

What does it mean exactly when a vendor stops supporting software and declares it end of life?  Effectively the vendor is telling the world to stop using that software because if it breaks they won’t fix it.  Most importantly this applies to newly discovered security vulnerabilities.  The risk created by vulnerabilities within an Operating System do not cease to exist the day the vendor stops supporting it.   What does cease to exist is the ability to mitigate those risks through vendor released patches.

Consider the Zerologon vulnerability recently discovered within Microsoft Windows Server.  If exploited this vulnerability would allow an attacker access to the highest-level privileges within an organization’s Windows infrastructure.  From there the damage an attacker can inflict is limited only by his or her imagination.  The vulnerability is serious enough that the Department of Homeland Security released a directive to take immediate and emergency action to patch servers.

Fortunately, Microsoft released a patch in August to address this vulnerability within Windows 2012, 2016 and 2019.  Unfortunately, the vulnerability exists within Windows 2008 which reached end of life on 1/14/20.  Microsoft is not releasing a Windows 2008 patch unless an organization purchases a yearly subscription for extended support.  The bad news doesn’t stop there.  The vulnerability is only truly addressed when all legacy authentication protocols within older Operating Systems are blocked.  Microsoft has stated that it will end support for these older protocols on patched systems as of February 2021.  This will effectively prevent any unpatched Operating System from interacting with patched systems.  That leaves organizations with 3 options:

1. Retire all systems running end of life Operating Systems and migrate to a modern OS or NextGen Platform
2. Purchase extended support for all end of life Operating Systems
3. Override the changes made by the patch and allow end of life Operating Systems to continue operating within the network.

Contact Thrive so we can assist your organization with option 1 (…and please don’t choose option 3).

Interested in learning more? CONTACT US TODAY!

During this year of changes and challenges, we have been forced to evaluate and pivot in almost every aspect of life.  The list is endless and includes everything from grocery shopping to education.  At the same time most of us can say our cars are parked and we are living the “work from home” life.  We’ve talked previously about the importance of maintaining a robust cyber security strategy, but as more than 60% of the US workforce is now operating from home due to COVID-19 it is important to evaluate the best approach to enable end users with scalable and supportable compute capabilities that also align with cyber security best practices.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions have seen increased use over the years but the significant capital costs associated with establishing a VDI environment, combined with additional costs to modify that environment as business and security requirements change have limited the growth of VDI infrastructure, especially with medium sized businesses.  This has opened the door for the increased use of hosted Desktop as a Service (DaaS) solutions particularly from private, multi-tenant cloud environments like ThriveCloud.

Regardless of your solution provider, DaaS solutions can be spun up quickly, are extremely scalable, integrate company security and compliance requirements, and also provide ease of access from low cost devices across just about any internet connection.  From a solution support perspective, each of your workforce members now has a similar desktop that can be easily accessed by support personnel for quick problem resolution.  Further, ease of system maintenance and application deployment are among the many advantages of DaaS solutions.

Now is the time to consider reducing costs for data center infrastructure and end user hardware while realizing workforce and support efficiencies by evaluating DaaS for your organization.  As the remote workforce continues to evolve how will you maintain position from an infrastructure and security perspective while meeting the needs of your team members?

Interested in learning more? CONTACT US TODAY!

Massachusetts (No. 6 overall) ranked No. 1 in workforce education and experience in this year’s Best States analysis. That’s important to Rob Stephenson, CEO of Thrive Networks (No. 278 on the CRN Solution Provider 500), a Foxborough, Mass.-based IT solutions and managed services provider that prides itself on what Stephenson calls the company’s “white glove service.” That requires employees who are not only proficient in engineering and technical skills, but people skills as well.

“We have some of the most talented engineers and dedicated employees in the industry,” Stephenson said. “We have a very, very strong group of individuals here.” Thrive has multiple offices in Massachusetts, offices in Manhatten, Dallas, San Francisco, Chicago, Charleston, S.C. and Columbia, Md. The company also operates a security operations center in Portland, Maine.

CHALLENGE

Crippled by outdated servers, ENT Specialists faced daily operational problems, making it difficult for physicians to service their patients. At times when electronic medical records were completely inaccessible to providers, the practice would have to close and the business lost revenue. ENT Specialists turned to Thrive to create a solution that would stabilize their infrastructure quickly, allowing them to keep their business running consistently and efficiently.

SOLUTION

Thrive stabilized the foundation of the network and updated the switches in ENT’s environment to all new Meraki equipment, managed by Thrive’s top-tier engineers. Additionally, Thrive installed managed firewalls to replace legacy firewalls and improve security and visibility. ENT Specialists’ outdated servers were virtualized, and their medical records moved off premises into the eClinicalWorks SaaS offering. The company has continued to migrate more business-critical applications into Thrive’s private Cloud solution, ThriveCloud, as well as an Office 365 environment. As a cybersecurity measure, ENT Specialists adopted Thrive’s end user security services. Utilizing Thrive’s Security Team, the company gets monthly phishing tests and mandated quarterly cybersecurity awareness training for their employees.

RESULT

With the infrastructure built by Thrive’s team, ENT Specialists no longer face daily technological interruptions. Physicians continue to service their patients without the fear of losing access to their medical records. The increased capabilities have allowed ENT Specialists to grow in new directions. The company has onboarded new physicians, launched its FYSICAL® Dizziness & Fall Prevention Center, and is adding more locations.

“Thrive’s NextGen Cloud and Cyber Security solutions are critical to our business and patients. Every minute counts in healthcare, and that’s why we turned to Thrive to provide a swift, secure and innovative update to our IT infrastructure to ensure patient care isn’t compromised.” ~ Debbie Joyce, Operations Manager, ENT Specialists

How can Thrive help your business?

Thrive is a leading provider of outsourced IT Infrastructure designed to drive successful business outcomes with our talented engineering teams and suite of Cloud-First, NextGen Managed Services.

To learn more about our services, CONTACT US

Organizations face constant cybersecurity threats and the numbers are staggering. The NextGen cybersecurity experts at Thrive offer a Security Information and Event Management solution that delivers comprehensive investigation, analysis and remediation. Secure your organization 24×7.

If you’re ready to experience NextGen managed security, talk to a Thrive expert today. CONTACT US

Microsoft Bookings, an app included in Microsoft 365, is a scheduling tool that allows customers to easily book appointments with a company. The app incorporates a web-based calendar that integrates with Outlook, ensuring availability always stays up-to-date. Customers can easily schedule appointments during available time slots with the team member of their choice, cancel and reschedule bookings, and enjoy auto-generated emails to keep all parties notified.

The following Microsoft licenses include Bookings:

• Microsoft 365 Business Standard
• Microsoft 365 A3
• Microsoft A5 subscriptions
• Office 365 E3 and E5 subscriptions

Components of Microsoft Bookings

Business Information

All details about your business are configured in the Business Information section. These details, such as your business name, address, phone number, logo, and hours of operations, are visible to your customers.

Services

Business offerings are configured in the Services section. You can specify details such as:

• Service location (virtual or physical)
• Service description
• Pricing
• Staff member assignments
• Maximum number of attendees per service

Staff

The Staff section is where you can specify all items relating to the members of your team relating to the services they provide. This can include:

• Assign to specific services
• Services the business provides
• Hours of availability for each staff member

Customers

When users schedule an appointment or book a service, they are automatically added as a customer in your Bookings app. 

Customers can be added manually or imported from a .csv file.

Bookings Page

The Bookings Page is where major app details are configured and where the app is published. These details include:

• Selecting a color scheme/theme of the Bookings app
• Setting the time zone
• Setting email notifications
• Requiring customers to have an Office 365 account to use the app

Calendar

The Calendar is for internal use only — it is only accessible by staff members. All Bookings made by customers will populate in the Calendar. The Calendar view can be switched around to display bookings by Day, Work Week, Week, Month, or Today. Clicking on each booking will display all the information regarding that specific booking.

Home

The Home dashboard displays an overview of the number of bookings made, the estimated revenue from all bookings, and the number of unique customers that have booked.

The Problem

The COVID-19 pandemic forced companies to quickly transition to working remotely. As the pandemic settles and work-from-home mandates are lifted, businesses will have to adjust, once again, to ensure a safe return to the workplace. One of the main priorities during return to work operations is limiting capacities to ensure social distancing is possible.

The Solution

At Thrive, we pride ourselves on discovering ways to leverage existing tools in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem to fulfill even more business needs than they were originally intended for. Why not utilize Microsoft Bookings to ensure a safe and socially-distanced return to the workplace?

By utilizing the Services section for your office building, room, floor, or workspace, you can automate monitoring and limiting capacity with ease. The Staff section can be used for reservations and the Customer section can be used by employees who would like to come into the office.

The Fine Print

The ‘Maximum Attendees’ feature in the Services component doesn’t always work as seamlessly as we would like.

The key to successfully limiting the number of people that can book on a specific day is to add the exact amount of staff members, listed below as “reservations,” as a guideline for the maximum capacity for the office. In other words, make the total number of staff members equal the maximum capacity of people allowed in the office at once to restrict any more appointments.

Bookings require at least one staff member per booking. With three added staff member reservations and myself as an Administrator (by necessity), the app will allow four bookings per day—and nothing more. Even if ‘Maximum Attendees’ was set to one or two, the app would still allow four users to book—which is why this workaround is necessary to get the app to behave how it is intended to.

For this to work, the Availability for the Services must be set to “Bookable when staff are free.”

Takeaways

We encourage you to try customizing your Microsoft features to best fit your needs. Microsoft Bookings’ capabilities reach far beyond simply scheduling and can be a great way to assist with keeping your team safe while returning to work.

As always, Thrive is here to help you keep up with these quick transitions. If you would like assistance to get the most out of your Microsoft 365 investment, please contact us today.