From Remote Desktop Manager User to Devolutions Community Influencer

Whether you spend a lot of time In the Trenches or not, you’ve probably spotted one of our favorite power users, “Min Destens”, in the comment section. And if you’ve been to the Devolutions forum, you’ll find that he’s a frequent contributor there as well. Our beloved Min is almost always connected daily. He loves to participate, and we will never thank him enough for that.

Recently, he hit an incredible milestone with his 1,000th post! So I thought it would be a great idea to reach out to him and hear about his experience with the community. Here’s a look at our conversation:

How and when did you first heard about Devolutions?

That was around September 2015, when I started a new job as a consultant. I was looking for a tool that would make my job easier for my many different customers. It's one thing for a system administrator to use similar passwords every day in the same company, but a whole other experience to use them as a consultant with many different customers, passwords and hostnames.

I was looking for a way to centrally manage remote connections and passwords, while still using them together and adding in more features, such as linking an associated VPN with the non-plus Ultra.

What was the first product you used? What did you like about it at the time?

It was Remote Desktop Manager – I tried the 30-day trial and already after a couple of days it was clear that it was exactly the tool I was looking for! Honestly, it was the All-in-One feeling! The incredible number of different GUIs and program settings; the ability to centralize a whole host of customer details (VPNs, sessions, credentials, information, documentation…); the password inheritance; the ability to link VPNs to sessions or whole customer folders; the amazing multitude count of different session types; the easy and intuitive permission configuration; and of course the legendary customer support – and the ability to ask for new features.

When did you decide to become a Devolutions power user and why?

That’s a really good question! Honestly, there was never a point where I thought, “Now I'm going to become a power user.” I think it has just slowly developed over time.

True to the motto, “Learn by doing”, RDM’s online help tool https://help.remotedesktopmanager.com was one of my first browser favorites. Every time I discovered a new function (and in the beginning, it happened very often, and sometimes even several times a day), I would study the associated help page and then try it out in my own environment. The more I got into it, the more fun I had in the implementation. Over time, I accumulated a certain amount of knowledge about functions / settings / various other parameters.

Another factor is that from the beginning, I was very interested in how other users were using Devolutions' products, especially RDM. So, my second view is still the forum. Having acquired the knowledge base, I was able to answer one request or another, and I was having fun doing it, replying to inquiries and providing assistance.

It was also very important to me for other users to get the same positive experience with the products as I was having.

You recently hit your 1,000th post on our forum. How do you feel about that?

It's unbelievable how many contributions have accumulated over time – I did not quite believe it at first! But of course, this number of contributions makes me proud. I love helping and guiding other users. But I also think quality is more important than quantity, and so I hope that my contributions combine both.

Of course, the most beautiful thing is getting the confirmation or feedback from another user that due to my contribution, the problem or request was solved!

On the forum, what types of questions are your favorite to answer?

Questions or scenarios that I have not yet configured in that way, but that cause me to adjust my environment. The positive side effect here is that you are always discovering new ways of using the products by paying attention to the many ways other users are using them.

I also find inquiries that can be solved by Batch Edit – in the special Custom PowerShell command – very exciting. For a long time, I did not know about this feature until I stumbled upon it in a help article. Since then, it has been one of my favourite features.

Standard questions about the GUI, settings and functions can also be extremely useful; for this I recommend the online help – help.devolutions.net.

What are the main benefits of being active on the Devolutions forum?

You are always up to date on new features, feature requests from other users, or minor bugs that may occur. But most of all, you always learn new things. There are X number of possibilities for using the products, and everyone does it a bit differently. And so it happens that you come across other users or new features or functions that are either new to you or that you haven’t used yet. When a user shares their experience, the view of certain functions may become a bit clearer and you begin to think about how to implement them in your own environment. For me, the forum is always a win-win situation. Once for those who report problems or need help, and second for those who offer support.

As a Devolutions expert and power user, why would you recommend Devolutions to a fellow IT pro?

I’m pretty sure every IT pro can benefit from Devolutions’ products. Whether for admins privately, a small company, or as part of a complete team in larger environments, Devolutions manages to cover all these different scenarios. In addition, the products are constantly being updated, and an attempt is made to implement all feature requests from users (who can create requests via the Devolutions Forum).

Anyone interested in IT that I’ve showed the Devolutions products to was thrilled, and either they were already using them or they have since implemented them. I am sure that the products are an enrichment for any IT pro and can greatly facilitate daily IT work.

According to you, what is the coolest thing about Devolutions?

To be honest, it’s the amazing team and the collaboration. I had the great honour to visit the Devolutions headquarters, where I met the team personally. It was a pleasure and I was really surprised by the working flair and the genuine sense of collaboration.

On the other hand, I have never seen a company where customer satisfaction is such a big part of what they do. And how can I not mention the shared breaks on the foosball table or billiard table, which are the stuff of legend? And that’s not to mention the flipper machines and the sweets corner!!! To be honest, if these things are not cool, what is??

Honestly, are you sponsored by Manner™ or are you really that nice?

Hahahaha! I swear I have no partnership or endorsement deal with Manner. I wanted to give the team a little Austrian specialty. It was my way of saying "Thank you!!" for the year-round support and all the user feature requests (many of them from me!) that are almost always implemented in record time.

Our Users Are Awesome!

As you can see, Min Destens loves Devolutions and being part of the community. Obviously, this love is reciprocal! There’s just nothing more awesome than an active user for us. It just brings us so much feedback and a voice on the web that we can’t put out there ourselves. In this article, you learned a lot about one of our most active users, but let's not forget that he’s not alone! There are many very active users (not as much as Min though) and that’s what makes the Devolutions community so successful and fun. If you’ve never visited the forum, I invite you to join us at: forum.devolutions.net! Thank you Min and to everyone who is active in our different and diverse community. You are the best!