ConnectWise Automate Reviews

RMM to the stars

Comments: We used this tool when it was LabTech - and even in those days there was no comparing this to any other RMM platform. For years it had the edge in so many ways. To those willing to learn it this tool was capable of being the entirety of your platform for doing business!

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

Alternatives Considered: N-Able Projects Portal

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

Large MSP View

Comments: My complaints aside, Automate has been a good investment for us. Although I must point out that support, while never the best, seems to have gotten worse over the past two years. This is a significant disappointment. Calling in a ticket seems to have vanished. Chat support rarely is able to resolve an issue on the first attempt. Indeed, it's pretty much a given that opening a case in chat will usually end up with the case being escalated.

Pros:

The inclusion of ConnectWise Control is the single greatest part of using ConnectWise Automate. It is amazing. The scripting features are very good. The ability to create custom processes is exceptional.

Cons:

The ability to monitor and manage network devices is not good at all. Automate struggles to manage devices across subnets that other platforms seem to be able to do with ease. So bad that we had to bring in Auvik to do this task. It was money we would have rather just spent with ConnectWise. Reporting is also a disappointment. The included reports are very simple and not geared toward a C level. They are also not easy to build or manipulate.

Infrastructure review to perfection

Comments: I think it has been an average work experience with conect wise, for this reason we lowered the level of work, we believe that it gives us ideas, it gives us a look from outside the company, we like this since it is not always good to get involved alone In solutions from the same company such as those offered by Google, you have to look at new horizons, in the same way the generation of infrastructure has its strengths and being able to monitor development remotely has had good results.

Pros:

We like to use this program with the team to be able to do a thorough review of our network and IT environments in general, it is always good to have an external look at our products and in their development it is crucial to be able to obtain good development ideas.

Cons:

Security compliance in this sense is due, we believe that we have our own solutions that far exceed the capacity of Conect Wise, in this sense it does it wrong, we have obtained gaps and it is not compatible enough to be linked to another separate security system.

All-in-one suite of tools to support your fleet of machines

Comments: Out of the various Remote Monitoring and Management tools I have used this product seems to get most aspects of RMM tools right. And implementing it to your systems and to your clients can be mainly an easy experience.

Pros:

ConnectWise Automate offers a lot of remote support and maintenance options for workstations without needing to interrupt the end-user experience but kicking them off for support.You can administer many tasks like Vulnerability Patching, silently deploying new software, checking the hardware details

Cons:

The Desktop tool can be slow at times to load. Needing to clear the local cache to even load past the first splash screen.Navigating the ConnectWise portal to find the latest release to update Automate hasn't been the most seamless experience either.

I utilize this software daily to perform my job duties, managing all aspects of over 6,000 endpoints

Pros:

Clients and Locations are organized in an easy-to-view tree, which allows easy access to a customer's inventory. Several dataviews are available from a Client or Location to quickly gather information of an environment. For example, a list of 'scheduled tasks' configured on every system can be gathered from all systems to determine why a particular event occurs every Saturday at 4am. Remote Control of a system can be envoked with standard tools such as VNC or RDP, as well as ConnectWise Control (formerly Screen Connect). Reports of client environments are just a click away, whether a question regarding system health is of issue, or if all systems have the latest patches and Anti-Virus updated.

Cons:

Software runs on a MySQL backend, but only on Windows. Keeping MySQL tuned properly for environment size can be chore, whereas DB Engines such as MSSQL are a bit more automated and forgiving. As you bring more agents into the system, it's a good idea to run performance metrics on the MySQL server to see if any adjustments are necessary to maintain best performance of the system. Telephone Support for the MySQL backend tends to yield different answers from each representative you talk to, and in my experience it was best to use general MySQL tuning documents that are available from Oracle.

Automate ( formerly Labtech) is a great RMM tool for MSP customers.

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

I used this product all the time

Comments: It makes managing thousands of machines easy.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Improved ROI on Manged services by 35% in first 3 years.

Comments: We have changed our business model based on this software and increased ROI on all services by 35 % in less then 3 years.

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

Super popular in the MSP world

Comments: Used connectwise for tier 1 support at an MSP in Michigan. Worked on it personally from both support and sales roles. Your IT people will love it. Your sales people will hate it.

Pros:

Screens are configurable to fit business needs. Automation inside for regular processes is stellar. Well designed for MSP-style setups, with multiple networks/customers and multiple configs.

Cons:

Database needs careful manicuring to make sure it doesn't get filled with garbage. Quoting tools need improvement. Built for IT people yes, built for sales people no.

Automate - IT automation software for IT Service Providers

Comments: I work for an MSP, and we have the luxury of having a full time guy that is our Automate administrator. He's amazing, and has made this software do some really incredible stuff for us. It had good functionality out of the box, but we've been adding scripts and automation to it for 5 years at this point. The sky is the limit on what you can do, but you will need to invest the time and energy into doing it.

Pros:

We love Automate. We use it to manage patches and updates across thousands of computers. We also use it for customized monitoring and alerting on workstations and servers. Monitoring is really robust and granular. It does a great job of gathering a TON of data about the network, and that data is searchable. There are a bunch of different reports built in. Integrates with Manage, Control, and other applications. It does a ton of stuff out of the box, and has endless customization options.

Cons:

It may not do quite as much as you want right out of the box, and it will take some work to set it up. You'll need someone on your team willing to invest the time and energy into making this software do everything you want.

ConnectWise Automate, a great software

Comments: Labtech, as it was previously known, is currently operating in our offices and infrastructures, operating correctly and providing an optimal service, over time we have applied favorable configurations such as the reproduction of events associated with ConnectWise Manage. Its monitoring offers us remarkable performance by tracking any device that is in the network, from the installed applications to the events presented by an error in the system. Its powerful command system manages to facilitate the deployment of any patch you wish to perform.

Pros:

It has a large interface composed of various options that enhance its use, it works well enough to carry a monitoring on your devices, you will have detailed information of each action that this takes, you can even display any action by means of commands.

Cons:

CW Automate is a fairly complete software, but with a support team that leaves a lot to be desired for certain problems, the resolution of problems is not very complete.

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.

Really powerful tool

Comments: We chose Automate over everything else for a reason; Price and functionality simply could not be beat.

Pros:

- Mostly intuitive GUI - Packed with tons of functionality; Been using the product a little over 2 years now and still learning neat tricks/tools to use - Great asset management - Great at pushing remote commands - ConnectWise University offers tons of training on their products

Cons:

- Because it is so powerful, there is a lot of training that needs reviewed to become proficient in working and navigating - Been experiencing an issue where I need to re-launch the control center because otherwise the agent tree will refresh forever -

Patch management, Machine access and ease of use

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.

An MSP's dream

Comments: We run all of our managed client workstations with Automate.

Pros:

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!

Cons:

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.

Has almost all the functions and features, but not support and hard to use

Comments: We wanted a product to streamline the process. This is anything but that. We only contact support when its impacting customers, and have to wait days to get assistance from a live body.

Pros:

The product has a lot of potential and from a sales standpoint the have the features that you would want..

Cons:

They provide you with no support and as a MSP you can not even talk to someone on the phone. Count on issues taking you days to weeks to get support to address. Third party vendors and products take twice as long.

Review of ConnectWise Automate

Comments: My overall experience with this product is fantastic! I wouldn't be able to help my employees the same way without this product.

Pros:

What I like the most about this software is that I can remotely login and help my employees with any issues they are having on their computer from anywhere. This is extremely helpful because I look over 11 stores and I am not always at the location that needs help. I can just remote in and help them!

Cons:

What I like the least about this product is that I have to have a two factor authentication key emailed to me every time I login to use this product. I understand that this is a necessary security measure, but it slows me down when I'm in a hurry. Other than that minor annoyance, I have not had any issues using this product.

Average Product

Comments: We use connectwise automate to monitor our client locations and automate our ticket creation process for issues

Pros:

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

Cons:

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

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.

CW Automate

Comments: I would recommend this product to anyone managing more then 100 computers especially if they are not on a domain.

Pros:

Single place to manage your workstations. Great patching product, great control product, awesome scripting engine.

Cons:

Most of the rich automation is done in a fat client that is heavy and slow to launch. Once in the product everything performs well it's the startup that can take some time.

ConnectWise for wiser IT Admins

Pros:

ConnectWise Automate solutions is a remarkable ITSM Solution that has a strong and accurate agent that will make a complete inventory of all the IT assets of your organization. Strong scripts capabilities to automate tasks of maintenance and preventive support. Provides simple, fast, and powerful remote access capabilities.

Cons:

For Junior IT Admins has a higher complexity to achieve proficiency to manage the tool. New versions are kind of unintuitive and sometimes difficult to figure out.

The solution for any size MSP

Comments: Awesome piece of software that allows to take your MSP to the next level

Pros:

Provides you the tools that you need in order to streamline your systems and automate a lot of your processes as a MSP

Cons:

Overwhelming for new users, need to introduce them slowly to all the features that it includes

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

We calle it the 7 headed Hydra

Pros:

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.

Cons:

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.