ConnectWise Automate Erfahrungen

Vorteile

The feature set has been astounding from day one.
With the big rebrand and integration with ConnectWise Manage the duo are now all that much better, complementing each others previous, non-focused features.

Nachteile

Truly forward progress was the main issue. During the time we actively used LabTech/Automate was during the transition years of the name and aesthetic. Things are definitely driving into the right, unified direction for all of their tools and that is exciting to see!
Learning the tool, like most ConnectWise products, can be daunting but there are lots of resources to pull from and well worth the investment.

Again, I suspect due to the years of bringing the tools together, Automate seemed to somewhat stall/lag on added features for awhile. They certainly had the most initially so it wasn't a drastic fall-behind, but new tools were taking the slow moving to catch up and the market is certainly competitive again.

Vorteile

You can access it anywhere. If I am on vacation in Mexico and the office back in the states needs support, I just open up chrome and go to my custom made website that CW gave me and I am in. I can see everything about a persons computer by just scrolling side to side or double clicking. Their customer service is also 24/7 AND they assign you technicians to help with implementation along with connectwise university to ensure you are ready to use their product to the fullest extent!

Nachteile

Its sort of difficult to learn. They have the university that helps with that, but some of their classes are outdated and some just sprint through the lesson in the hopes that you might have caught a thing or two that they just taught you. Also, their scripting language is their own(proprietary) and you have to learn it. So if you already know Java, C++, Python, etc, it doesn't matter.

Vorteile

The software has its pros (connectwise screenconnect is the only good thing). The automation will automatically restart services or auto-approve and apply windows update on a schedule. When it isn't crashing or causing servers to crash that is.

Nachteile

It CONSTANTLY crashes. It will cause servers to crash. Only some automation features work. No support is ever avaaible to resolve issues. The ones that do respond don't know their own product.

In Betracht gezogene Alternativen

Atera, Splashtop Remote Support und Pulseway

Warum ConnectWise Automate gewählt wurde

Kaskersky partnership forced via DoD Contracts

Gründe für den Wechsel zu ConnectWise Automate

The sales pitch promised support, working automation, and a cost reduction. All of it was a lie. This product costs more money than it saves and is a terrible investment.

Vorteile

If you can imagine it, you can do it. It really does have all the tools to do whatever you desire remotely. You can access almost any aspect of a managed machine without even interrupting the end user. The built-in ignite monitors are pretty amazing on their own.

Nachteile

It can be incredibly slow at times, you have to have a lot of patience. The script editor being object and mouse based is very clunky, I'd prefer to learn the syntax and just type it all out, but that option isn't readily available in the GUI you have to dig into the guts to do that. If you use ignite monitors you'll need to parse out the noise they create for items you don't want to be notified about. Integration with Connectwise Manage is still a bit quirky but it works.

Vorteile

The ease of setup and installation for customers is substantial when considering this tool for MSP. New customers can be setup with ease, configured and once agents are installed Automate can significantly reduce information gathering for system resources, and discovery of behind the scenes issues. Scripting and Automating are easy to do with the built in examples and wizards, which makes customizing alerts and monitors a breeze.

Nachteile

The monitoring will come with lots of defaults right out of the box, so there will be a lot of "noise" to sort through and remove/adjust after initial installation.

Vorteile

Pushing out the remote agent is very simple and you have an executable for machines that are not connecting under group policy. Monitor your clients whole network from one location.

Nachteile

Every now and then you may come across an issue, calling into support you need to get past the level 1 tech and go right to the level 2 tech.

Vorteile

It is a very powerful tool to manage our clients machines. It can run custom scripts and do a lot of proactive maintenance.

It is very fast when remote controlling other computers

The scripting engine is very powerful

It pulls a huge amount of data

It is very customizable

Nachteile

It can be a little complex for new users

The integration with Connectwise: Manage can cause some issues with ticket entries

Customizing it for your needs can be time consuming

I

Vorteile

It packs a bunch of features and it's integration with ConnectWise manage is nice. The scripting is powerful.

Nachteile

Tool is very complex and even simple tasks can be tricky. Support for Automate is not nearly as good as with Manage. The product is expensive.

Vorteile

Once setup it does what it does well.
Very few issue after setup and config.
Gives a wealth of information on devices managed.

Nachteile

Can be a burden to setup and config
Takes a good amount of training to really use it well
Being good a scripting is a must

Vorteile

It does a lot of things and helps us keep tabs on hundreds of clients. Remote access, patch management, remote diagnostics, integration with ConnectWise PSA and a host of other third party products.

Nachteile

Setup time can be cumbersome and some of the advanced features you really need to work with a lot in order to become a master at it.

Vorteile

Automate allows you to pretty much do anything you need for an RMM. It allows tons of customization and enhancement to increase its power. There are also tons of free and paid integrations that even make it work better. You can also script pretty much anything throughout the product.

Nachteile

In order to get the full power you really need to dedicate the time and resources to add what you want to it. Reporting is abhorant and got even worse with the new reporting engine. There seems to be more increasing bugs in later releases and all new patches focus on bug fixes rather than any enhancements so the functionality of the product really isn't improving.

The quality of first level support has also slipped. They used to be able to address most issues, now it tends to be limited what they can help with.

Vorteile

I like that when it works, some of its features like remote connectivity, accessing cmd without controlling the user's screen, and scripts make my job easier.

Nachteile

Once every other week I have to uninstall and reinstall the control center app to get it to load on my screen. I can log in, it will hang on "Building Searches" and disappear. The only fix I've been able to find is uninstall and reinstall, and I have to do that at least twice a month. The rest happen often despite multiple uninstall and reinstalls: Locks up in the middle of a job. Crashes in the middle of a job. Sometimes hitting control does nothing and I have to reboot to get it to work. Scripts also will work when they feel like working. 75% of my time, I have to use the online version because the desktop version is just way too buggy.

Vorteile

This software's scripting engine is hands down the best. I recently saw the new interface that is coming to align the product more with Connectwise's main product is really nice looking.

Nachteile

Many of the terms do not make sense (blacklist software, means you want to know if it gets installed, meanwhile blacklisted services mean you want to be alerted if it's not working). The old interface was dated but it had the functionality and details all in one place. The current version 11 interface is horrible. Getting support on the product is awful; slow response and frequently being told that whatever you ask about is out-of-scope.

Vorteile

Intergration with so many services, multiple service boards, permissions and project management. BILLING and managing agreements? I've yet to find a replacement for the sheer amount of features Automate brings to our business. There is even a web interface that can be dispatched to users!

Nachteile

It can be a little fiddly when it comes to custom applications and processes - there are often changes that completely change the way the software looks and feels.

Vorteile

Community (LabTechGeek) assistance,
The ability to do anything you want with powershell, internal scripting and plugin access

Nachteile

Horrible support. Bad UI Design, Bad Releases, horrible support staff willing to assist with issues, constant support problems as they always send a KB article that has nothing to do with your issue

Vorteile

I really like the remote control portion of the program. The ability to remotely patch servers and client devices is excellent.

Nachteile

The customer support for connectwise is their largest downfall. The software is excellent but the support is not always what it should be.

Vorteile

Once setup and configured properly does a great job of monitoring devices and alerting of potential or real-time issues.

Tons of options that can be configured.

Nachteile

Very difficult to set up and tweak all of the settings to meet your needs. Sometimes common things that should be setup out of the box are not and need to be manually configured

Vorteile

Ability to remotely monitor client sites. This lets us run scripts and install patches remotely. The integration with connectwise control improves our process.

Nachteile

The product is poorly designed for the user experience. The UI is not intuitive, so finding what you can do makes developing solutions difficult.

Vorteile

The automation that can be performed is amazing. This was deployed primarily on Windows machines. It does an incredible job at managing updates. The recent integration of Third Wall, though rough in the beginning, has made this the most powerful MSP software.

Nachteile

The desktop software can be sluggish. Rolling out Third Wall was very rough. After working out all of the kinks it's makes some fantastic improvements and adds some much needed solutions. Physical machines need a display connected. This can be annoying.

Vorteile

What I really like the is the granularity of alerts that can be set up for customers systems. Also being able to group similar systems together makes it easy once you do the initial setup.

Nachteile

Omce the software is great overall The main issue we had is the learning curve curve for employees.

Vorteile

The software is fairly easy to navigate. The system keeps Finance and Sales in touch with each other.

Nachteile

Sometimes I have issues with the setup of Invoices and how to change the template.

Vorteile

It has SO MANY options and can do pretty much everything that you would need maintenance-wise. Powerful scripts, lots of dashboards. You can see everything that's going on with that device and avoid costly on-site visits. The automatic remediation is great once you get it set up.

Nachteile

It has SO MANY options (yes, I know I also listed it as a pro), therefore it's not very user-friendly and easy to lose yourself among the plethora of tabs and buttons and doo-dads. It HAS come a long way from when it was still LabTech, but still. User interface needs a facelift.

Vorteile

The top-down overall management give one pane of glass to all the client's machines.

Nachteile

Since ConnectWise was recently sold the support service has gone downhill.
The overall program is outdated compared to other alternatives.

Vorteile

This is a good product to deploy for Manage Service Providers that need remote monitoring and some self-healing capabilities.

Nachteile

The learning curve is very step. While initial training is provided, its takes a lot of time investment to get the most out of the software

Vorteile

It was easy to deploy. Very customizable. A ton of features out of the box. Simple to maintain.

Nachteile

IT does take quite a bit of work to setup up the initial configurations and patches.