From RMM dashboards to Microsoft 365 admin centers, MSPs hold the keys to client operations, licensing and security but integration gaps squander their time and margins. In this Perspectives piece, Sherweb’s Senior Director of Platform Rick Stern unpacks the MSP integration gap: what’s driving it, what it costs, and how unified automation can close it.
MSPs didn’t get into this business to manage endless logins and reconcile disconnected systems. Yet that’s what too many of us face every day. We’ve seen firsthand how the lack of true integration between Microsoft 365, RMMs, PSAs and marketplace creates unnecessary complexity. We think/feel it doesn’t have to be that way. We want to start a conversation about the growing integration gap, what’s driving it, what it costs us and how we can close it together.
What’s really breaking MSP workflows is it the tools or the lack of integration?
Most MSPs have solid stacks: Microsoft 365 at the center, a reliable PSA, a trusted RMM. On their own, these tools do what they’re supposed to. The pain comes in the handoffs.
A technician opens a ticket in the PSA but can’t see if the tenant is compliant with MFA. They log into the RMM for device details, then switch to Microsoft 365 admin for permissions. None of those systems share context. Each action requires another login, another tab, another mental pivot.
The problem isn’t that the tools are broken. It’s that they don’t talk to each other in ways that reduce friction. That gap isn’t just frustrating, it drains productivity and erodes margins.
Why integration should be a baseline not a billable add-on
Too often, vendors treat interoperability as an “advanced feature.” If you want real APIs, write-back or event-driven workflows, you’re asked to buy into a higher tier. But integration isn’t a luxury. It’s what makes a platform usable.
When it’s locked behind paywalls, MSPs end up paying three times over:
- In licenses, just to unlock connections that should already exist.
- In engineering time, building or maintaining workarounds. Not to mention poor documentation or sudden breaking changes.
- In risk, when staff invent shadow automations or skip steps to get the job done faster.
Charging extra for interoperability is like selling a car and pricing the steering wheel separately.
Looking ahead, integration should be the norm, not an optional extra. That’s exactly the philosophy behind Sherweb’s Self Service Portal: it was built to make integration standard—more on that later.
Where Microsoft 365 makes life harder for MSPs
No environment highlights the integration gap more than Microsoft 365. It’s the backbone of most MSP services, and it’s where cracks in the stack are felt most.
- Onboarding and offboarding: A single employee departure means disabling accounts, reassigning licenses, updating retention, and adjusting groups. One process can eat up an hour if handled manually.
- Intune at scale: Deploying compliance policies tenant by tenant isn’t sustainable, and it opens security inconsistencies across clients.
- Baseline enforcement: MFA, legacy auth, conditional access—all critical, but easy to miss or let slide without central enforcement.
- Reporting without action: Security scores and license dashboards provide visibility but don’t resolve risks or close tickets.
Microsoft 365 isn’t the problem. The problem is managing it across dozens of tenants without the right integration layer.
What good integration really looks like
Integration isn’t about logos on a slide, it’s about what happens in the workflow.
- A PSA ticket that not only pulls license counts but also flags when a tenant drifts from your set baseline.
- An RMM alert that can trigger a Microsoft 365 policy check without another login.
- A Tier 1 technician who can complete an offboarding across tenants with confidence, without touching PowerShell.
When integration works this way, MSPs don’t just save clicks. They gain trust in their systems. Identity is enforced by least privilege, data moves with context and actions flow automatically across the stack. That’s the standard MSPs should hold vendors to.
How the community raised expectations
Some of the strongest examples haven’t come from vendors at all, but from the MSP community itself.
The open-source project CIPP, for example, was born out of frustration with portal sprawl and permissions chaos. It proved multi-tenant Microsoft administration could live in one portal, with automated offboarding, baseline enforcement, and integrations into RMMs, PSAs, and documentation platforms.
You don’t have to leverage CIPP to see the bigger point. What it demonstrated is that MSPs expect integration to be open, automatable, and practical. Community innovation has set the bar. Vendors can no longer ignore it.
What role should marketplaces play in closing the gap?
Marketplaces were once catalogs. That isn’t enough anymore. Partners don’t need more services, they need smarter services that work together. Marketplaces have to evolve into integration layers, where interoperability is the default, not the exception.
That means exposing strong APIs, enabling automation, normalizing data models across vendors and providing connectors that reduce complexity instead of adding another portal.
At Sherweb, our philosophy is clear: partners deserve control without complexity through purposeful integration. That’s the principle behind our Self Service Portal, and it’s how we’ll continue to evolve our platform.
A practical starting point for MSPs
Closing the integration gap doesn’t have to wait. MSPs can take steps today to reclaim time and control:
- Audit for integration debt: Map the workflows where you lose the most hours such as: offboarding, Intune, billing.
- Focus on quick wins: Standardize Microsoft baselines, automate repetitive low-risk processes and connect PSA tickets directly to Microsoft tenant data.
- Ask your vendors the right questions: Small improvements compound quickly. The MSPs who take integration seriously now will be in a stronger position to scale securely.
My stake in this as a platform leader
As Sherweb’s Platform team, we think about these challenges daily. Our test for any new feature is straightforward: if it doesn’t reduce tickets, shrink permission footprints, or improve partner margins, we don’t ship it.
Integration isn’t just a convenience issue. It’s about giving partners control without creating complexity. That’s the kind of connected platform we believe in, and the standard we should expect as an industry.
Where we go from here
The next phase of MSP growth won’t be defined by who offers the widest catalog. It will be defined by who integrates best. Community projects have shown us what’s possible. Vendors and marketplaces need to follow their lead.
Integration isn’t just about making tools talk to each other, it’s about empowering MSPs to run stronger, more secure, more profitable businesses. That’s the standard we should all expect from the platforms we choose. My commitment, and Sherweb’s, is to help partners get there. Because in the end, closing the integration gap isn’t about the technology. It’s about making sure MSPs can do what they do best: support their clients and grow their business with confidence.
Do their APIs allow you to both read and write data (not just read‑only)? How do they enforce least privilege? Which events can trigger automations across the stack?
