The 10 Most Popular Monitor Posts of 2017

The holiday season is upon us. That means it’s time to get hygge for the holidays—get cozy by the fire, drink a mug of hot cocoa, and curl up with a good book Monitor post.  

As 2017 winds down, we’re taking a look back and bringing you the 10 most-read posts from this year. We’re seeing the usual themes—security, productivity, and how to work better overall—but some new topics popped up this year, like GDPR. 

Here’s what you enjoyed reading the most in 2017.

Check out these posts if you’re wondering:

1. How to teach your end users to submit better tickets

“My computer isn’t working.” Er … we’re going to need a bit more information than that …

Here’s an excellent breakdown of what a great helpdesk ticket should include. This post is a great one to add to your company’s intranet and/or share with your employees.

READ NOW: Request Helpdesk Support the Right Way: The Elements of a Great IT Ticket

2. What connected apps are, and what they have to do with your Google account security

What are connected apps? Chrome extensions? G Suite add-ons? How many apps have access to your G Suite account? What permissions are they requesting? Find out here.

READ NOW: Improve Your Google Account Security: A Complete Guide to Connected Apps

3. How SaaS is changing the way we work (and what it means for IT)

SaaS is the system of record for many organizations now. For our annual research report, which we published in May, we surveyed 1,800+ IT professionals to get a deeper understanding of this new workplace. 

READ NOW: The 2017 State of the SaaS-Powered Workplace Report

SaaS is a runaway train that’s showing no signs of stopping. The report revealed that while SaaS creates incredible benefits, it also creates new challenges for IT. You’ll get a glimpse into the modern workplace—the good, bad, ugly of SaaS—and learn how IT must adapt to this new enterprise.

4. What resources IT leaders read and recommend

We turned to our awesome BetterIT community and asked: “What’s the best IT resource you’ve ever come across?”

Here are 16 sites to bookmark, newsletters to subscribe to, books to buy, etc.:

READ NOW: Here Are the 16 Best Resources Recommended By IT Leaders

5. How to keep your Google Groups safe (and not expose any data)

Yikes. A simple misconfiguration in the Google Admin console made headlines this year by exposing personally identifiable information (PII) and sensitive messages to the internet. To get a better understanding of your domain’s Groups, and to ensure you avoid data exposures because of misconfigured group settings, we recommend the following steps. (Note: To perform these steps as described, you’ll need to be a BetterCloud customer.)

READ NOW: Audit, Update, and Enforce: How to Avoid This Preventable Google Groups Data Exposure

6. Just what the hell BetterCloud does

“Is BetterCloud a CASB?” is a question we hear ALL the time. Answer: No. There are some overlapping features, but we’re in an entirely separate (and new) category. We’re a SaaS application management and security platform. Here’s what we do, broken down into 10 simple GIFs.

READ NOW: What Does BetterCloud Actually Do? 10 GIFs You Need to See.

7. How to become GDPR compliant

GDPR will come into force on May 25, 2018, but the legislation is confusing, vague, and dense. So with the help of a leading data privacy expert, we hosted a webinar that outlined the essentials of GDPR in a clear, easy-to-understand way. You’ll learn 10 actionable steps IT must take to be compliant. 

It ended up being our most popular webinar by far:

WATCH NOW: GDPR Compliance: “Explain Like I’m Five” with Data Privacy Expert

8. How to make change stick

Sometimes your users need to adopt new technology … but refuse to. It’s understandable. Nobody likes change. Here’s some actionable advice from experts who successfully implement new technology for a living.

READ NOW: Technology Adoption Done Right: These Are the Lessons Implementation Experts Live By

9. How to fight friction and be more productive

Another webinar made this year’s list. Our CEO, David Politis, hosted a webinar on how IT can fight all types of technology-related friction. Why? Because moving toward a frictionless workplace will drive revenue and increase productivity by getting people to work faster, without any blockers.

WATCH NOW: Friction: The #1 Killer of Workplace Productivity

10. If IT is coming full circle

In the 1990s, IT was in complete control of its environment. It was building, deploying, managing, and supporting on-premise software. But in recent decades, the SaaS explosion (and ensuing shadow IT) has caused a loss of control. Today, IT is finally beginning to come full circle in terms of regaining control over its environment.

But what did the loss of control mean for IT back then? And what will the retaking of control mean for IT in the future? An IT expert with 30+ years of experience shares his thoughts:

READ NOW: Is IT Coming Full Circle? Yes, Says One Technology Architect

Hope you enjoyed the most popular posts of 2017. We have lots of great content planned for 2018, so stay tuned! 

Happy New Year and happy reading, 

Christina Wang
Editor, BetterCloud Monitor