By
El Copeland
June 9, 2026
•
20 min read
By the [run]Book

In Episode 23 of By the [run]Book, Connor Fagan and Jason Parsons walk through HaloPSA v2.216, covering a mix of quality-of-life improvements, automation enhancements, reporting updates, and billing controls. Highlights include new ticket-level charge rate restrictions, report audit timestamps, Microsoft CSP subscription import improvements, AI-generated acknowledgment emails, and several Runbook enhancements. The discussion also covers important industry updates, including Microsoft’s July 1st pricing changes, limitations introduced to haloreleases.Remmy.dev due to Halo API changes, and Renada’s Teams-based "Ticket Swarm" approach for urgent ticket collaboration.
Watch Now: By the [run]Book: Episode 23
There are limitations affecting haloreleases.remmy.dev caused by changes to the Halo API
Microsoft’s July 1st pricing Changes
Check out Renada's instructional video - Ticket Swarm into Microsoft Teams
This gives administrators the ability to remove the Task event type from appointment creation screens.
The hosts recommended enabling this for most environments because Task event types do not synchronize with Microsoft 365 calendars, while Appointment types do.
A collection of enhancements focused on Halo's ITSM change management functionality.
The discussion noted that this will likely be most valuable for organizations using formal maintenance windows and change approval processes rather than traditional MSP service desks.
Criteria Groups continue to expand throughout Halo and are now available within Ticket Rules.
This allows administrators to build more advanced AND/OR logic inside a single rule rather than creating multiple rules to achieve the same outcome.
CRM Note custom fields can now be limited to specific entity types.
This helps keep note forms cleaner by ensuring fields only appear where they are actually relevant.
A new safeguard prevents multiple technicians from accidentally joining the same chat session.
For teams using Halo Chat, this can help reduce duplicate responses and ownership confusion.
Chat Flows can now make decisions based on the current time and day of the week.
This opens up more options for business-hours routing and after-hours automation.
Administrators can now separately filter against Response SLA breaches and Resolution SLA breaches.
The hosts felt this provides greater reporting flexibility and allows teams to focus on the SLA metrics that matter most to their business.
Field lists now display the override name rather than only the original field name.
A small but useful quality-of-life improvement when working with heavily customized environments.
Improves user matching behaviour within the Tanium integration.
The hosts did not spend much time on this feature but noted it should improve synchronization accuracy.
Dashboard widgets can now have their own refresh intervals.
Administrators can balance dashboard responsiveness against system performance by selecting refresh periods between 30 seconds and 1 hour.
A new API parameter allows integrations to retrieve all custom fields when querying assets.
Useful for developers and anyone building integrations around Halo asset data.
Provides additional control over how information flows between parent and child tickets.
The hosts discussed several possible use cases but agreed this will require additional testing to fully understand its impact.
Administrators can now define the default layout used by the rich text editor toolbar.
A simple quality-of-life improvement for organizations that prefer a cleaner editor experience.
Appointment booking links can now direct users to specific booking types.
This provides more flexibility when building self-service appointment workflows.
AI-generated acknowledgement emails can now be configured at the Ticket Type level.
The feature allows custom prompts and automated responses tailored to specific ticket categories. The hosts felt this could be useful for gathering additional information from end users before an engineer begins working the ticket, but recommended careful testing before broad adoption.
One of the most practical automation improvements discussed during the episode.
When a Runbook repeatedly fails, Halo can now automatically create a ticket.
The hosts strongly recommended enabling this for Runbook deployments to improve visibility into automation failures and reduce troubleshooting time.
Adds an option to filter out catalog items that do not contain pricing information.
A small but useful improvement for teams relying on Etilize product searches.
One of the hosts' favourite additions in this release.
Reports now display who last modified them and when the modification occurred, making report management significantly easier in larger environments.
Modal popup notes now require acknowledgement before dismissal.
This helps ensure important information is actually seen by technicians.
Provides additional control over Knowledge Base article link behaviour.
The feature was only briefly discussed during the episode.
Improves Microsoft CSP product import functionality.
The hosts highlighted this alongside Microsoft's upcoming pricing changes and discussed how it may simplify subscription management.
Adds additional file handling capabilities to Runbooks.
Useful for workflows involving document processing, attachments, and API-driven automation.
This generated one of the longest discussions of the episode.
The feature allows charge rate controls to be configured directly against tickets and projects. While it provides significant flexibility, the hosts cautioned that excessive customization could make billing troubleshooting considerably more difficult.
Resource Booking Types can now define their own scheduling limits rather than relying entirely on global settings.
Allows Bills to be created without requiring an associated Purchase Order.
A useful addition for organizations with more flexible purchasing processes.
Invoice pricing fields now display the current item price or cost as a reference.
The hosts questioned some of the terminology used but agreed the additional visibility could be helpful.
Halo now includes a Sophos integration.
The discussion focused primarily on alert synchronization and early integration improvements since its initial release.

In Episode 23 of By the [run]Book, Connor Fagan and Jason Parsons walk through HaloPSA v2.216, covering a mix of quality-of-life improvements, automation enhancements, reporting updates, and billing controls. Highlights include new ticket-level charge rate restrictions, report audit timestamps, Microsoft CSP subscription import improvements, AI-generated acknowledgment emails, and several Runbook enhancements. The discussion also covers important industry updates, including Microsoft’s July 1st pricing changes, limitations introduced to haloreleases.Remmy.dev due to Halo API changes, and Renada’s Teams-based "Ticket Swarm" approach for urgent ticket collaboration.
Watch Now: By the [run]Book: Episode 23
There are limitations affecting haloreleases.remmy.dev caused by changes to the Halo API
Microsoft’s July 1st pricing Changes
Check out Renada's instructional video - Ticket Swarm into Microsoft Teams
This gives administrators the ability to remove the Task event type from appointment creation screens.
The hosts recommended enabling this for most environments because Task event types do not synchronize with Microsoft 365 calendars, while Appointment types do.
A collection of enhancements focused on Halo's ITSM change management functionality.
The discussion noted that this will likely be most valuable for organizations using formal maintenance windows and change approval processes rather than traditional MSP service desks.
Criteria Groups continue to expand throughout Halo and are now available within Ticket Rules.
This allows administrators to build more advanced AND/OR logic inside a single rule rather than creating multiple rules to achieve the same outcome.
CRM Note custom fields can now be limited to specific entity types.
This helps keep note forms cleaner by ensuring fields only appear where they are actually relevant.
A new safeguard prevents multiple technicians from accidentally joining the same chat session.
For teams using Halo Chat, this can help reduce duplicate responses and ownership confusion.
Chat Flows can now make decisions based on the current time and day of the week.
This opens up more options for business-hours routing and after-hours automation.
Administrators can now separately filter against Response SLA breaches and Resolution SLA breaches.
The hosts felt this provides greater reporting flexibility and allows teams to focus on the SLA metrics that matter most to their business.
Field lists now display the override name rather than only the original field name.
A small but useful quality-of-life improvement when working with heavily customized environments.
Improves user matching behaviour within the Tanium integration.
The hosts did not spend much time on this feature but noted it should improve synchronization accuracy.
Dashboard widgets can now have their own refresh intervals.
Administrators can balance dashboard responsiveness against system performance by selecting refresh periods between 30 seconds and 1 hour.
A new API parameter allows integrations to retrieve all custom fields when querying assets.
Useful for developers and anyone building integrations around Halo asset data.
Provides additional control over how information flows between parent and child tickets.
The hosts discussed several possible use cases but agreed this will require additional testing to fully understand its impact.
Administrators can now define the default layout used by the rich text editor toolbar.
A simple quality-of-life improvement for organizations that prefer a cleaner editor experience.
Appointment booking links can now direct users to specific booking types.
This provides more flexibility when building self-service appointment workflows.
AI-generated acknowledgement emails can now be configured at the Ticket Type level.
The feature allows custom prompts and automated responses tailored to specific ticket categories. The hosts felt this could be useful for gathering additional information from end users before an engineer begins working the ticket, but recommended careful testing before broad adoption.
One of the most practical automation improvements discussed during the episode.
When a Runbook repeatedly fails, Halo can now automatically create a ticket.
The hosts strongly recommended enabling this for Runbook deployments to improve visibility into automation failures and reduce troubleshooting time.
Adds an option to filter out catalog items that do not contain pricing information.
A small but useful improvement for teams relying on Etilize product searches.
One of the hosts' favourite additions in this release.
Reports now display who last modified them and when the modification occurred, making report management significantly easier in larger environments.
Modal popup notes now require acknowledgement before dismissal.
This helps ensure important information is actually seen by technicians.
Provides additional control over Knowledge Base article link behaviour.
The feature was only briefly discussed during the episode.
Improves Microsoft CSP product import functionality.
The hosts highlighted this alongside Microsoft's upcoming pricing changes and discussed how it may simplify subscription management.
Adds additional file handling capabilities to Runbooks.
Useful for workflows involving document processing, attachments, and API-driven automation.
This generated one of the longest discussions of the episode.
The feature allows charge rate controls to be configured directly against tickets and projects. While it provides significant flexibility, the hosts cautioned that excessive customization could make billing troubleshooting considerably more difficult.
Resource Booking Types can now define their own scheduling limits rather than relying entirely on global settings.
Allows Bills to be created without requiring an associated Purchase Order.
A useful addition for organizations with more flexible purchasing processes.
Invoice pricing fields now display the current item price or cost as a reference.
The hosts questioned some of the terminology used but agreed the additional visibility could be helpful.
Halo now includes a Sophos integration.
The discussion focused primarily on alert synchronization and early integration improvements since its initial release.

Episode 22 of By the [run]Book dives deep into HaloPSA v2.216, covering a wide range of enhancements across reporting, integrations, invoicing, ticketing, assets, and automation. Connor and Mendy spend extra time unpacking new SLA-aware database functions, improved integrator troubleshooting, OAuth token management, sensitive ticket controls, and several quality-of-life improvements that make Halo easier to administer and automate. This episode is particularly valuable for MSPs looking to improve reporting accuracy, streamline integrations, and gain better visibility into backend processes.
Watch Now: By the [run]Book: Episode 22
For easier tracking, check out haloreleases.remmy.dev to filter and search HaloPSA updates by ID, version, and keyword.
One of the most impactful features discussed in this episode introduces new database functions designed to calculate working time between dates using Halo's own business logic.
Why it matters: MSPs building advanced reporting can now calculate true business time rather than relying on raw SQL date math.
Sensitive tickets gain more granular visibility controls.
Why it matters: MSPs supporting executive teams or handling confidential projects gain stronger access controls.
Connor and Mendy highlighted this as one of the most valuable operational improvements in the release.
Why it matters: Faster troubleshooting means less downtime and quicker resolution when integrations fail.
This feature received strong praise from both hosts.
Why it matters: Anyone building custom integrations or working with APIs will immediately appreciate the time savings.
This feature introduces new database functions that calculate time between dates while respecting Halo's working hours, holidays, and SLA schedules. The hosts highlighted this as one of the most impactful additions in the release for reporting and analytics.
For MSPs building custom reports, this removes much of the complexity previously required to calculate true SLA working time instead of relying on standard SQL date calculations.
Text custom fields created using the newer storage method can now support up to 1000 characters instead of the previous 255-character limitation.
The team discussed real-world examples where long URLs, call recording links, and integration data would previously be truncated. This change reduces the need to switch fields to Memo types simply to accommodate longer values.
Action Group configuration is now surfaced more prominently throughout the Halo interface.
This doesn't introduce new functionality but makes Action Groups easier to discover and manage by exposing configuration options in more logical locations.
Previously, accepted or closed quotes could still transition to an expired status once their expiry date was reached.
This fix prevents completed quote statuses from being overwritten later, resulting in cleaner sales reporting and a more accurate quote lifecycle.
Scheduled nurture campaigns can now periodically re-evaluate recipient lists rather than only processing the list when the campaign initially launches.
This makes nurture campaigns much more practical for dynamic marketing lists where recipients may qualify after the campaign has already started.
The Chat Transcript variable can now be referenced whenever a linked chat exists for a ticket.
This provides more flexibility when building templates, notifications, automations, and workflows that need access to chat history.
A new variable has been added to support invoice long descriptions during pro-rata calculations.
The hosts spent time discussing how this improves consistency between invoice line descriptions and prorated billing entries, helping produce clearer invoices for customers.
Date validation can now be restricted to the creation process only.
This allows administrators to make changes to records later without triggering the same validation requirements that applied when the entity was originally created.
A new permission allows the recorded user associated with device change tracking records to be overridden.
The hosts noted this introduces additional flexibility but also raises questions around auditing and accountability, so it should be used carefully.
Asset system fields can now be configured as visible while remaining read-only.
This helps expose important information to users without allowing accidental edits.
Agreement reference numbers can now be generated on a customer-specific basis.
Organizations with structured naming conventions may find this useful when managing multiple agreements across different customers.
Asset custom fields can now be configured to require unique values.
This is particularly useful for:
It helps improve data quality and prevents duplicate asset records.
Sage Intacct mapping capabilities have been expanded to additional entities.
This improves flexibility for organizations integrating HaloPSA with Sage Intacct accounting workflows.
Custom field mapping support has been extended within the Sage Intacct integration.
This allows more business-specific data to flow between HaloPSA and Sage Intacct.
This setting helps determine how duplicate usernames are handled when new users are created.
The hosts generally felt most organizations would likely continue using traditional username formats rather than switching to email addresses automatically.
This was one of the more significant ticketing enhancements discussed during the episode.
Sensitive tickets now support additional visibility controls for both end users and agents.
This helps organizations handle:
Treeviews can now group agents by their availability status.
Dispatchers and service coordinators may find this particularly useful when reviewing ticket assignments and resource availability.
Asset custom buttons can now suppress the runbook queue confirmation message.
A small but useful quality-of-life improvement for heavily automated workflows.
Chat flows can now retrieve information stored within the user's browser and map that data into Halo records.
The hosts discussed potential use cases while also noting the broader security considerations associated with browser-side data access.
Multi-select custom fields are no longer restricted to integer-based identifiers.
This improves compatibility with external systems that use GUIDs and other non-numeric identifiers.
Additional variables have been added for Client Mention notifications.
This supports richer notification templates and more contextual messaging.
Ticket types can now define a default mailbox during ticket creation.
This provides additional control over ticket routing and mailbox selection.
One of the standout features from the episode, this enhancement makes Halo Integrator troubleshooting significantly easier.
Administrators can now filter logs by configuration ID, making it much simpler to locate and investigate integration runs.
For MSPs managing multiple integrations, this can dramatically reduce troubleshooting time.
Runbook variables can now be JSON-escaped before being passed to external systems.
This helps avoid formatting issues when sending structured data through APIs and automation workflows.
Configuration commit history will now display stored agent names consistently across linked instances.
A small but welcome improvement for organizations managing multiple Halo environments.
A new invoice merging method introduces additional customization options for invoice generation.
The hosts noted that this feature introduces significant complexity and should be thoroughly tested before being adopted in production billing processes.
The Self Service Portal now includes improvements for displaying service status information.
Organizations maintaining customer-facing status pages may benefit from improved visibility during outages and service disruptions.
Another major highlight from the episode.
Administrators can now clear stored OAuth tokens without recreating integrations.
Benefits include:
For anyone building custom integrations, this feature alone can save a significant amount of time.
Ticket column profiles can now display End User and Site-level custom fields.
This allows additional business data to be surfaced directly within ticket lists and views.
Runbook IDs can now be used as a filterable column within integration runbook views.
A small administrative improvement that makes locating specific runbooks easier.
New notification triggers can alert teams when tickets have been inactive for a specified period.
This may help identify tickets that have fallen through the cracks and improve follow-up processes.
Invoice creation now generates trace records that can be used for troubleshooting and diagnostics.
The hosts highlighted the importance of additional visibility into billing processes and invoice generation logic.
Software licence records can now display an end date column.
A straightforward improvement that provides better visibility into licence lifecycle information.
Ticket type groups can now be leveraged within change tracking functionality.
This complements broader improvements around ticket grouping and permissions management.
Automatic invoice reminders can now be configured directly within Halo.
This helps reduce manual collections work and provides a more consistent accounts receivable process.
Approval requests can now be automatically delegated when a user is marked out of office.
While relatively simple today, the hosts discussed how this may become increasingly valuable as Halo continues expanding its out-of-office functionality and approval workflows.

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.