By
El Copeland
October 13, 2025
•
20 min read
Professional Development
Book Club

Like many MSPs, Rising Tide invests in our people through access to books, trainings, conferences, and certifications. At its core, this is not education for education’s sake: rather, we believe the best technical work starts with curiosity, and we consistently seek ways to foster curiosity as a skill. You see, we think the best solutions come not just from curiosity about technology, but curiosity about each other, about our clients, and about our community. We want to be known as people who ask better questions, understand others' perspectives with clarity, and are always hungry for more. We believe that personal growth will always drive technical and professional success for our team, and as a result, our clients.
So how does a business foster curiosity? Curiosity is not something you learn from an SOP, a certification, or a conference. It’s something you develop by creating the time and space for yourself and your people to feel safe to speak up, to ideate, to build, and to iterate.
We are doing our best to build a culture of curiosity and progress in as many ways as possible, not just through structured education, but in choosing tools, conversations, and activities where we can intentionally seek to learn from and about each other and the world around us. The last part is very important at a core level: we believe every person brings a different background, toolkit, and perspective that strengthens and deepens our own, even — or especially! — when we disagree.
As a fully remote team of 6, this can be pretty difficult to do since we can’t go out for lunch or have regular physical touchpoints other brick-and-mortar businesses may enjoy. So, one of the standard ways we cultivate this is through scheduled daily and weekly team conversations where we review customer issues, books or videos, conferences attended, or other interesting things we’ve seen that we want to share.
Most recently, we chose to essentially start a book club where we would read The Go-Giver by Bob Burg, together, and to invite clients and friends to review it with us on a weekly call. It was important to us that as a team expectation, we should make sure no one felt the demand too great on top of weekly work expectations. Thus, we decided on reading one chapter (7-10 pages) a week, to make sure that it felt accessible to everyone. (Reading ahead is absolutely allowed and encouraged, but we will only discuss one chapter a week!)
The next question for a book club is: how do you facilitate conversation in a way that allows for people to share what was meaningful to them, or to join in the conversation even if they didn’t get a chance to read? In preparing for our book meetings, I sought out online resources with simple chapter-by-chapter discussion questions. However, as a very easy read, it seemed that most questions online covered concepts that spanned multiple chapters, which encouraged reading ahead and missing perhaps some smaller ideas worth savoring in each chapter.
Honestly, we figure we’re not alone in this desire to have simple questions and to walk carefully through conversations, so we've decided to share our own discussion questions, chapter-by-chapter! These questions are written without consideration for future chapters of the book and are meant to help bring in conversation about the topics and themes specifically covered in the given chapter. These questions are open-ended and if you’re facilitating, we encourage you to take the stance of no-wrong-answers, just as an impartial listener. You never know what perspectives or fresh ideas may come out of conversation.
Check out The Go-Getter Chapter One Discussion Questions here.
We’ll continue to add discussion questions and commentary on the book club as we move forward. Next things I’d like to try is to offer facilitation to a team member who has read ahead, to help them stretch their muscles of asking questions and building conversations. What other ideas should we tie in?
Want to hang out in these conversations with the Rising Tide team? We meet Fridays at 9:30 AM ET to talk through important business, technological, and communal developments, and for the next 14ish weeks, The Go-Giver! If you’re an MSP owner, consultant, or service professional who wants to grow your team’s emotional intelligence alongside your technical skill, you’re welcome here.
Reach out to partners@risingtidegroup.net for the Rising Tide Fridays Teams link. Bring your coffee and curiosity: no prep required.

Episode 21 of By the [run]Book dives into the tail end of HaloPSA v2.214 and the first round of v2.216 updates, with Mendy and Connor unpacking practical MSP use cases, hidden configuration gotchas, and workflow improvements. Highlights include forecasting enhancements, category group restrictions, Datto RMM multi-tenancy, auditing improvements, ticket timer widgets, and advanced email handling settings that can dramatically impact service desk operations. This episode is especially useful for Halo administrators refining automation, billing accuracy, integrations, and technician workflows.
Watch Now: By the [run]Book: Episode 21
For easier tracking, check out haloreleases.remmy.dev to filter and search HaloPSA updates by ID, version, and keyword.
Forecasting in HaloPSA received a major usability improvement by automatically calculating forecasted hours from estimated project task time.
Category restrictions can now be controlled using Category Groups instead of manually configuring every category individually.
Agent Roles now support assigning cost values directly at the role level.
HaloPSA can now ignore “Unknown” scan status networks during Auvik imports.
X-Auto-Response-Suppress header to emails” can now be overridden using Action level configuration to enforce the headers when the global setting is not enabled | v2.216 #1085470 | 49:41Halo now allows email suppression headers to be configured at the Action level rather than only globally.
This setting keeps tickets selected after completing a bulk edit, allowing technicians to chain multiple bulk updates together without re-selecting tickets.
Mail Campaigns can now be grouped for organizational purposes.
Halo will now match imported Intune software records using software names instead of IDs.
Multiple Datto RMM integrations can now coexist within HaloPSA.
Halo can now automatically assign the mailbox used during outbound communication as the ticket’s default mailbox.
Snow imports now support dynamic asset type assignment.
Services can now have a separate portal-facing display name.
Asset booking functionality received multiple improvements.
The ticket timer can now be displayed as a dedicated widget on the ticket screen.
Agent Roles now support a cost field.
Ticket cloning can now be restricted to administrators.
Halo’s newer SSO framework continues to evolve.
Category restrictions can now be managed through Category Groups.
Forecasting received major usability improvements.
Audit tracking now includes Quotes and Purchase Orders.
Reporting Datasources can now display which reports rely on them.
HaloPSA now supports integration with Kaseya VSA X.
HaloPSA now integrates with SailPoint IdentityIQ.
Auvik imports can now exclude unknown scan results.
Changes to Customer Trading Names are now tracked in audit history.
Cost update logic now also supports markup calculations.
Quote approvals now support customizable messaging before signatures.
Time entry edits can now automatically rebalance contract and billed hours.
Halo introduced a safer device ID generation method.
bulkresponse=true can now be used when POSTs are made to the /fieldinfo endpoint to return a separate response for each object | v2.216 #1085574 | 47:46The /fieldinfo endpoint now supports bulk response handling.
Additional JWT validation can now be enforced for API authentication.
ConnectWise Automate alert closures can now map to configurable statuses.
X-Auto-Response-Suppress header to emails” can now be overridden using Action level configuration to enforce the headers when the global setting is not enabled | v2.216 #1085470 | 49:41Halo now supports overriding email suppression headers at the Action level.

Episode 20 of By the [run]Book dives into HaloPSA v2.214 with a mix of practical improvements and some quirky additions. Connor and Mendy walk through everything from new dollar variables and asset controls to Avalara fixes and portal enhancements—highlighting what actually matters for day-to-day MSP operations. This episode is especially useful for MSPs refining workflows, automation, and reporting accuracy in Halo.
Watch Now: By the [run]Book: Episode 20
For easier tracking, check out haloreleases.remmy.dev to filter and search HaloPSA updates by ID, version, and keyword.
Mendy and Connor noted this was very useful.
Highlighted during the user action demo as a practical workflow improvement.
Called out as a genuinely useful UI improvement.
Allows more flexibility in how incoming emails are matched to tickets.
Enables automation of asset configuration through API usage.
Introduces a new variable to output custom fields in Q&A format.
Improves visibility into asset changes over time.
Returns the email address of the user associated with a purchase order.
Enhances usability and visibility of search results in the portal.
Provides control over configuration synchronization.
Ensures correct popup behavior when multiple rules trigger.
Makes ticket source available for reporting and filtering.
Adds safeguards when configuring email matching tags.
Allows distribution lists to target all email addresses tied to a user.
Improves clarity in Avalara transaction records.
Adds control over visibility of user actions in the portal.
Improves flexibility when using Accounts and Prospects.
Enables dynamic fields based on asset lifecycle status.
Ensures asset tagging consistency during stock processes.
Adds control over Avalara synchronization scope.
Allows a predefined score for surveys.
Improves visibility when prorating billing items.
Automatically generates a ticket alongside sales orders.
Allows column width customization in list views.
Changes ordering of lists in the team view.
Adds asset status as a usable variable in buttons.
Improves flexibility when viewing lists.
Allows visual customization of buttons.
Enables distribution lists based on ticket criteria.
Adds control over forecast data ranges.
Enhances performance of Azure/Entra sync.
Improves visibility of ticket closure information.
Optimizes webhook performance and payload handling.
Refines permissions for asset management.

Episode 19 walks through HaloPSA v2.212 and v2.214, covering a wide range of quality-of-life improvements, admin controls, and workflow enhancements. Connor and Robbie highlight updates around ticket forms, invoicing, templates, and automation, making this especially useful for MSPs looking to tighten processes and improve day-to-day efficiency.
Watch Now: By the [run]Book: Episode 19
For easier tracking, check out haloreleases.remmy.dev to filter and search HaloPSA updates by ID, version, and keyword.
Allows assets to be linked directly to a client instead of only via a site.
Improves tracking of report usage across dashboards.
Adds control over end-user assignment in templates.
Prevents actions on tickets for stopped clients or sites.
Allows updating custom fields directly via actions.
Prevents approval of expired quotes.
Adds variables for original customer addresses.
Ensures hidden fields do not retain values.
Adds advanced relative date filtering.
Adds preview functionality for templates.
Allows editing of existing meter readings.
Improves grouping of invoice items.
Enables merging duplicate assets.
Displays number of related tickets.
Enhances monitoring integration mapping.
Adds more control to purchase order lifecycle.
Enables workflows triggered by agent emails.
Adds mapping and geolocation features.
Introduces guided project setup.
Allows updating ticket fields post-creation in chat.
Prevents deletion of populated top-level structures.
Improves timesheet usability.
Fixes inconsistent quote PDF behavior.
Aligns quote email behavior with configuration.
Adds access to billing profiles from invoice screen.
Allows use of quote data in actions.
Adds new automation trigger.
Adds rich text support for asset fields.
Prevents closure when tasks remain open.
Adds approvals to activity feed.
Removes agent login option from portal.
Adds ordering control to lookup codes.
Adds planning field to releases.
Enables guided onboarding tools.
Adds note field to consignment lines.
Expands team visibility.
Extends accessibility tools to main app.
Displays previous invoice values.
Exposes billing data to API.
Adds search to selection fields.
Aligns call screen logic with ticket settings.
Links credit lines to original sales orders.
Improves invoice ID handling.
Introduces role-based API identity.