Liaising with SaaS Users and Vendors
By Sonia Cuff
Course info
Course info
Description
While IT Operations may not directly support Software-as-a-Service applications, they are still the contact point for end users and the application vendor. In this course, Liaising with SaaS Users and Vendors, you will gain the ability to effectively manage those relationships. First, you will learn how to effectively support SaaS users. Next, you will discover how to work with a SaaS vendor. Finally, you will explore your role in managing SaaS changes. When you’re finished with this course, you will have the skills and knowledge of supporting SaaS applications needed to manage expectations with the key internal and external stakeholders.
About the author
Sonia Cuff is a systems administrator & architect with over 20 years experience in Microsoft and IBM software platforms. With a solid Enterprise background, Sonia now runs a Managed Services Provider in the Small & Medium Business market in Australia, servicing both Cloud and on premise environments.
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Section Introduction Transcripts
Course Overview
Hi everyone. My name is Sonia Cuff, and welcome to my course, Liaising with SaaS Users and Vendors. I'm a Microsoft MVP and technology consultant at my own company, The Missing Chair. Software-as-a-Service applications can feel outside of your normal IT operations. In this course, we are going to look at how you manage your user's expectations of SaaS and build a strong relationship between your IT team and the SaaS vendor. Some of the major topics that we will cover include supporting your end users and easing their frustrations, staying connected to your SaaS vendor, and managing upcoming SaaS changes. By the end of this course, you'll understand the communication skills and processes needed to successfully manage SaaS expectations in your own organization. Before beginning the course, you should have a basic knowledge of IT support and change management processes. I hope you'll join me on this journey to learn about effective communication with Software-as-a-Service stakeholders, with the Liaising with SaaS Users and Vendors course, at Pluralsight.
Keeping Ahead of SaaS Changes
Welcome back to Liaising with SaaS Users and Vendors. I'm Sonia Cuff, a technical consultant and Microsoft MVP, and in this module, we'll talk about one of the scariest aspects of bringing a Software-as-a-Service application in your environment, and that's the changes that the vendor might make to the application, which you have no control over. You think you understand the situation, but what you don't understand is the situation just changed, and I think that's how a lot of IT pros feel about Software-as-a-Service applications. Not only are software developers expected to be more agile and to release updates more frequently, but when you have no control over that software development team and you're on the receiving end of the changes from the vendor, that's a whole different story. Remember Sarah? She's our IT Operations Manager at the Wired Brain Coffee Company. This is certainly one of the areas that her and her team would like to feel more comfortable with, so let's explore how they can embrace SaaS changes within the organization. In this module, we'll look at how you can actually find out about those SaaS changes that are coming out, and what actions we need to take when we're aware of an upcoming change. You'll learn about best practices for testing SaaS application changes, and how you can give feedback both to the vendor and to the stakeholders within your organization.