ConnectWise Automate Reviews

Connectwise Automate

Comments: We are using Connectwise Automate for taking care of customers on a managed service contract.

Pros:

There are many, many features in Connectwise Automate that will help you help your customers with their computer needs.

Cons:

Although the software is very feature rich, it seems very cumbersome and not easy to use from day one. In almost every step, we have had to take classes to figure out how to do things.

Alternatives Considered: N-sight

Reasons for Choosing ConnectWise Automate: We were already using Connectwise Connect and Manage so wanted one general product instead of some of this and some of that.

Switched From: N-sight

Reasons for Switching to ConnectWise Automate: As mentioned before, we switched because we wanted to have all our products on one platform and not a piece there and a piece here.

If you have the money to spend, spend it.. if not.. there is other options`

Comments: Overall, I am very happy with Connectwise Automate and would continue to use the product. If you work in a critical industry, I wouldn't recommend this as being your only source of remote access since support is very slow and very unhelpful in most situations.

Pros:

The best part of this software is how robust the software is. When you purchase this software, you receive control and "WSUS" as part of your package. The software contains reports, pulls data on each computer, provides some integration and overall is a great automation and remote access tool.

Cons:

Support is very slow to respond. Getting credits for downtime on their hosted web server is like pulling teeth. When you get into the chat queue, you may be waiting an hour or more for someone overseas who doesn't know how to fix the issue anyway. Then you have to wait until someone gets back with you when they "open a ticket." Honestly.... the only reason I WOULDN'T buy this software is their support system lacks ability for true support!

Alternatives Considered: TeamViewer

Reasons for Choosing ConnectWise Automate: The ability to do more than just remote access the PC was the main reason for the switch. Cost was a close second reason.

Switched From: TeamViewer

Reasons for Switching to ConnectWise Automate: Overall cost is the main reason.

Unreliable

Comments: It was given as a remote tool and to show how many systems the outsourced IT group could charge us for, but totally unreliable as a tool.

Pros:

It was included in the costs of outsourced IT

Cons:

It hardly would connect and allow me to work with systems when it was most ciritical

Favorite RMM platform

Comments: Very good product, probably our most important tool in our stack.

Pros:

Very customizable, we create a lot of our own scripts to do custom things for clients.

Cons:

Uses MySQL DB, would prefer MS SQL. MySQL can be a beast to manage.

Alternatives Considered: Kaseya VSA

Reasons for Switching to ConnectWise Automate: Much better functionality and customization capabilities

Connectwise Automate

Comments: Connectwise Automate is a critical part of my business that I use. I could not work without it and I really enjoy working with this tool!

Pros:

I really like the features that Connectwise Automate offers. The ability to remotely patch servers and endpoint devices is excellent.

Cons:

The only issue we have with this software is the customer support and occasional instability of the software.

Alternatives Considered: TeamViewer, LastPass, GoTo Meeting, Central and Join.Me

Reasons for Switching to ConnectWise Automate: Connectwise offers what all of these tools do with many other additional options!

Powerful but inexpensive IT service and control platform.

Comments: It's been positive. It is essential for supporting remote workes and in the times that are in it it's gotten more important. There is good functionality around software installs and we actually use it to build up our SOE when we have new machines. Ot deosnlt do anything other similar systems can;t do but it is very fit for purpose for a small IT team.

Pros:

There is a lot that it can do for a quite reasonable cost. IT is more suited for small or medium businesses as I don;t think it;s quite enterprise level but for control, scripting, monitoring and the like it is very good at what it does. It is also cloud based so can be accessed on any device with a browser.

Cons:

It is not very good at monitoring. I can easily find out if computers have issues by selecting them but not really being notified that there may be a probelm. Scripting works well when it works but it's difficult to figure out if it's not worked and why.

Great tool for an MSP

Comments: We have been able to become much more efficient and organize our work much better.

Pros:

Allows for management of a wide view of devices across a variety of ecosystems. Easy to use and get up and running. Partner community is great.

Cons:

Support leaves a lot to be desired. When can get in touch, takes several attempts to resolve issue.

Alternatives Considered: Datto RMM

Reasons for Switching to ConnectWise Automate: Pricing and trust in the Connectwise system

Manage multiple environments with ease

Comments: Companies I have been working for have been leveraging this application for machine management for years.

Pros:

This software provides multiple connectivity options. It can show a lot of information (see least favorite list below) Great organization! Easy integration with Connectwise Control and Manage Lots of option for Scripting and API connectivity to outside applications

Cons:

The interface was changed to a much less intuitive environment about a year ago. I use it and have started to get used to it somewhat, but it still is not what I would call good. There's problems if you don't run the Control Center as an Admin, but it doesn't want to run as admin by default The uninstaller for the client can sometimes not uninstall.

Automate - Good but feeling outdated.

Comments: We've been using Automate for over a decade, and are currently in the process of migrating to Connectwise's replacement product. It has served us well, and given us tons of info to proactively resolve problems. It's remote access Software, Screen Connect, is also a God send.

Pros:

The reporting and amount of data in the program is insanely big. Through PowerBI, I've been able to display a lot of this data to show our customers just how much we know.

Cons:

The GUI hasn't had an update for so long and it does now fee very dated. It also slows down, he more clients you add.

The most advanced MSP RMM to grow your business off of.

Comments: Exceptional insight into thousands of machines in an aggregate fashion. It would be impossible to offer some of the services that we do, without this product.

Pros:

This product has a uniquely limitless capacity for growing the operational process of managing computer systems. Great out of the box monitors and functionality. Unparalleled remote control. Large user community and expansive plugin ecosystem.

Cons:

QA is is lacking on new releases. Support takes a long time, with the exception of down situations. Slow release cycles. Lots of legacy functionality that is deprecated litters the product. Exceptionally slow at times.

Beware of working with Conectwise Automate

Comments: Terrible. Your RMM tool is really important and you want a company that is trying to help your business grow by having great additions for the platform and services that you can then offer your clients and perspective clients. Connectwise has wanted to exact as many dollars out of my pocket and have no intention of having a business relationship what so ever. In my 24 years in the industry I have never had a company treat me this way but they did and continue to. I have heard from 30+ other companies ceo's saying similar things that there is not partnership just a money grab.

Pros:

The remote program is really good. Very simple and quick when a caller has called in.

Cons:

First year was good. At the beginning of the second year they doubled the cost saying "its in the contract" I said I want to cancel or fix the price and for a year we went around in circles. "ok we will do at the same price you just need to double your agents" I don't need more agents. Then I had a new person over and over. I then send a formal letter to cancel service and they say we won't except this. I have now asked twice to move to 25 agents and again the same thing is happening.

Automate is just another piece of software written once and not really maintained

Pros:

Patch management is way easier than using WSUS.

Cons:

User interface is not intuitive. Lots of training required. Very little useful documentation. Connectwise support will not help you understand the scripting features at all. The documentation for scripting is litterally 4 pages of what you can see in the user interface. The scripts debug process is horrid. It takes 50x longer to do a script in automate over doing a powershell and bash script to do the same thing. Change requests, and features are not being answered or added in a timely manor. This software is stale.

Alternatives Considered: N-sight and Atera

Fantastic system for remote management, scripting and much more

Comments: Used Kaseya before switching and love the overall layout, features and in-depth information you can retrieve very easily. Wish I could set a few things with some customization, which might be possible by working with connectwise engineers but that would be above my paygrade.

Pros:

Set up monitoring alerts, script automated processes, control end user and servers remotely with a couple clicks. Ad-hoc sessions allow admin access remotely, even if the user does not have rights. Fantastic experience overall and only have minor pieces I wish I could see

Cons:

Wish there was some more customization is some of the views. Would like to see some more basic information on the main screens, as opposed to having to dive into the properties to find. Seems that it can get a bit slow and unresponsive with certain actions. Not sure if this is our server or the software though.

ConnectWise Automate - box of LEGO with no instructions

Pros:

ConnectWise Automate empowers users to perform generally complex tasks such as patching and monitoring with ease. The scripting engine is extremely powerful and allows anyone with zero to little programming knowledge to perform automation tasks.

Cons:

ConnectWise has yet to realized the world is moving to the cloud. Monitoring servers is no longer important, cloud services are. There is no cloud awareness in the system, which is going to force partners to pilot to other systems.

Best Thing Ever

Comments: We've been using Labtech to manage our 70+ computers across multiple clients for a couple years now and it's been very worth the price to have a remote management software to take care of windows updates and be alerted on hardware issues from the event logs. The integration to other software is pretty flawless as well, such as webroot AV and ScreenConnect. It's cut down management time by 80%!

Pros:

I like that the management of a lot of computers

Cons:

Not really much to not like about it, but sometimes the windows updates aren't always working correctly, and sometimes it reports disk space critically low when there's is 50+GBs left on the system

The worst technical support in the world

Comments: A nightmare every time you have to interface with the support.

Pros:

Nothing. The only thing that works well is a product, Control, which they didn't develop themselves.

Cons:

Stay away from this product. You will always need technical support, but the support is very very poor. Look for products with less functionality, but more stable and with better support.

I have been using this for about 5 years, since it was Labtech.

Comments: I run my company on it.

Pros:

Very powerfull management software. They continue to add value to the product by incorporating new features.

Cons:

I much prefer the old interface to the new one. It seems that the company is not listening to the users and trying to make the software pretty at the expense of functional. Support is so, so, and often tells me that my "problem" needs to be sent to their custom programming department at additional cost.

MSP Supporting 50 Client Networks

Comments: Would recommend to my friends. Very useful and catches a lot of failures before things get out of control

Pros:

Seamless PSA Integration, Scripting and automation. Pricing is moderate. Can provide customers with valued reporting and upgrade recommendations based on built-in reporting capabilities.

Cons:

A lot of bells and whistles that I don't use. You have to pay for it as well. Uses MYSQL in the on premises implementation.

Connectwise Automate : AKA, Labtech

Comments: Extremely negative

Pros:

The UI isn't the worst. The pricing isn't terrible

Cons:

This software is terrible, we have it running in a DC on high end hardware, and we constantly have issues with the software crashing. Additionally, the alerts will kick off randomly, claiming a server is offline, when it's not. The software is extremely slow and rather clunky. I would highly recommend avoiding it.

LabTech is a great program but they want extra for every feature so it can cost a lot.

Pros:

I love the reports and information it gives me about each PC. It is also much faster to install SOME programs though LabTech because it will push it to every PC.

Cons:

The lack of things actually working. Many items are setup and do not work or do not work the way that Labtech says they will. The software doesn't really work on Mac's even though they say it does.

RMM

Comments: This program helps us bring together all of our management abilities without the guessing game. Update and scripts works like a charm, ability to audit end user.

Pros:

This RMM Toll will integrate with nearly every tool available. One pane of glass for management. Great support through implementation and afterward.

Cons:

This can be costly and I would not suggest it for a small company. It takes a 2 to 6 months to be fully deployed depending on what your needs are.

Automate has helped us to manage multiple endpoints for multiple clients from a single console.

Pros:

One of the best features of the software is the ability to create and quickly deploy custom scripts and receive accurate reporting.

Cons:

Navigation in the console could be improved. There is a slight learning curve, but once you discover where all of the features are it becomes easy to use.

we use internally labtech

Comments: ease connectivity for my cloud environment

Pros:

LT has big amount of great functionalities right out of the box. Lots of custom alerting and monitoring sets. It will allow you to completely automate patches and updates from Microsoft. A great built-in remote support tool with screen connect.

Cons:

normally to make the complete setup takes a while due all the custom options of alerting and patching but I think is normally in this kind of tools

Full featured program that allows technicians to complete full system administration remotely

Pros:

Feature set is large and allows a lot of system administration tasks to be done without needing to remotely control the computer.

Cons:

Inferface can be clunky Updates often break more things than they fix Support can take days to resolve issues when the issue is a work stopage

ConnectWise Review

Pros:

I am not sure I can identify any Pros with ConnectWise. It may be because of my limited use with this product. It does what I need to do, but I feel like I doing too many clicks and going through too many windows/tabs to get to where I want to go.

Cons:

As previously said, to me it's not very user-friendly. I feel like I am having to go to different tab in the navigation bar to get to certain information.