Add and manage clients

A client is one organization whose endpoints you manage. Each client gets its own workspace in the console and its own database. This page shows how to add a client, what its record holds, how to move between client workspaces, and how to change a client’s status. For how clients fit into the MSP plan, see Outpost for MSPs.

Before you begin

• You are on the MSP plan.
• Adding a client and changing it needs client:manage. Reading the roster needs client:read.

Add a client

1. Select Clients, then New client.

2. In Name, enter the client’s organization name.

3. Under Database, leave Create the database for me selected. On the Outpost-hosted service, Outpost creates the client’s database for you and prepares it.

   Note

   I will supply a connection string applies only to self-hosted deployments, where the Depot server cannot create the database itself. There you enter the connection string in Client database DSN. The database must already exist, and Outpost creates its schema when you save.

4. To have this client’s agents list the other devices on their networks, select Turn on network discovery. Outpost then suggests the computers that could take an agent. You can turn it on later instead. See Network discovery.

5. Select Create client.

The console opens the new client’s record. If network discovery could not be turned on, the client is still created and the console says so. Turn it on later under the client’s Profiles.

A client is also created for you when a prospect accepts a quote addressed to them. See Sales pipeline and quotes.

Enroll the client’s endpoints

Endpoints join a client through an installer downloaded inside that client’s workspace. Open the client’s workspace, then follow Install and enroll the agent.

Find a client

Clients lists every client. Select a client’s name to open its workspace, or select Record to open the client’s record.

The search box matches the client name and the hostnames that client’s agents connect to. The list opens on the Current clients view, which leaves out offboarded clients. The other built-in views are Active only, Largest first, Being provisioned, and Offboarded.

Read a client’s record

The record shows:

Card	What it holds
Details	Status and Database engine.
Storage	This client’s own storage destinations. When none is the default, the client’s files use your practice-wide destinations in Settings. See Storage destinations.
Billing	A read-only usage rollup for the current period: Billable endpoints and Metered endpoint hours.
Documentation	Open their documentation opens the client’s articles, assets, credentials, domains, and licenses in their workspace. See Documentation.
Email domains	The email domains that file mail to your support mailboxes under this client. See Client email domains. Shown to technicians with mailbox:manage.
AI	Whether Pioneer AI can work with this client’s data. Shown only when your practice’s AI policy allows a per-client choice.

Open workspace opens the client’s workspace. Edit changes the name or the status.

The Primary contact card on the Overview tab names the client’s main contact. Contacts and Sites open the client’s people and sites in its workspace, and Client portal opens its portal settings. See Client contacts, sites, and contact tags and Client portal.

Set Pioneer AI for one client

In the AI card, choose Pioneer AI:

• Use MSP default follows the practice setting in Settings > AI.
• Force off keeps Pioneer AI away from this client’s data.
• Force on allows it for this client.

Select Save. In effect now shows the result. Changing it needs ai:manage. See Pioneer AI.

Work inside a client

Open a client’s workspace in any of these ways:

• Select the client’s name in Clients.
• Pick the client in the Client switcher in the header.
• Select Open workspace on the client’s record.

Inside the workspace, a bar above each page names the client and shows its status, with a Clients link back to the roster. The navigation shows that client’s sections. A suspended client’s status is shown as a warning, so you can see you are working in a paused client.

To leave the workspace, select Return home at the top of the navigation. It takes you back to the practice level.

Change a client’s status

1. On the client’s record, select Edit.
2. In Status, choose the new status.
3. Select Save changes.

Status	Meaning
provisioning	The client is being set up.
active	The client is live.
suspended	The client is paused. Its workspace shows the status as a warning.
offboarded	You no longer work for the client.

The status also changes what reaches the client’s endpoints and MDM devices:

• Suspended. Endpoints and devices keep checking in and reporting, so inventory and monitoring stay current, but nothing is sent to them: no scripts, commands, remote sessions, wakes, software or patch installs, policy changes, or MDM commands. Scheduled scripts are recorded as skipped. Scripting is turned off on the endpoints, so script schedules they hold stop too, including while they are offline. An action you try is refused with This client is suspended, so nothing can be sent to its devices. Agent self-updates and the patch windows an agent runs on its own keep running. Setting the client back to active resumes delivery and turns scripting back on.
• Offboarded. The client’s agents are refused and disconnected at once, new endpoints cannot enroll, and its MDM devices are refused when they check in. Its active Android devices are disabled and show This device’s organization is no longer managed by Outpost. Moving the client out of offboarded re-enables them. Outpost re-enables only the devices it disabled, so a device that was already disabled or in lost mode stays as it was.

When you suspend a client, or offboard an active one, work already queued for its devices is dropped, so reactivating the client does not deliver it:

• Agent commands that have not run yet expire. Endpoint transfers to another client are kept.
• MDM commands still on their way are canceled, including wipes and locks, and each one’s timeline shows it canceled. Inventory and verification queries stay, because the devices still answer them.

The client.update entry in the audit log counts the commands that expired and the MDM commands that were canceled.

An offboarded client is never deleted. Its invoices, tickets, and audit trail still name it, so its row stays on Clients under the Offboarded view.

Move endpoints between clients

To move an endpoint that was enrolled under the wrong client, use Transfer to another client in the endpoint’s Actions menu. To move several at once, select them in Endpoints > All endpoints and use Transfer to another client on the selection bar. Your practice’s own workspace can be the source or the target, and an offline endpoint moves the next time it connects. Only active clients are offered as targets. See Transfer an endpoint to another client.

Verify

• The new client is on Clients under Current clients.
• Selecting its name opens its workspace, and the bar above the page names the client.

Next steps

• Install and enroll the agent
• Client contacts, sites, and contact tags
• Client agreements
• Practice home, Inbox, and estate status