I would rate this higher if I was confident that Apple is continuing to develop this utility. It has only received minor updates for quite a long time, and is not featured much in any of Apple's online material. It really is a useful utility, but it is starting to show its age and is fraying a bit around the edges in some respects. It could be very useful when integrated with the various MDM solutions (in our case, Jamf Pro) especially when an engineer needs to force something immediately and can't wait for a check-in, and also can't depend on the end user being able to (for instance) do a sudo jamf policy or sudo jamf recon.
If you have many remote users in challenging-to-access locations and they use multiple platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux), Zoho Assist is the solution. If you have a limited budget, you'll like Zoho Assist pricing. If you have a large team of IT technicians, you'll appreciate Zoho Assist's concurrent usage licensing.
One user's computer screen is black, no task bar and start button, after system crush, Unattended Access help me remote control it and use tools under quick Launch to change system settings and created new account for the user, so she can work few hours later.
One user computer need help vpn setup but it is not on Unattended Access list, so I create a temporarily Remote Support session, send the link to him by WhatsApp, after he download and install agent, I can connect and remote control it.
Sometimes user computer has randomly happening issue, I will connect it by Zoho Assist, record the remote screen, then will catch the issue and know it's triggered
sometimes I use video chat as a meeting tool with users
The file transfer by web client is useful for me, most of time is to upload files into user computer when it is not able to access our network drive
I would like to see more included Unix scrips that can be pushed to clients.
Inclusion of a way to remote control or screen share with Windows machines would be useful, as I manage a handful of Windows machines. While this would be possible using VNC on the Windows machines, including the ability to connect using Windows terminal connections would be awesome, for me.
It is a fairly unique tool in the level of integration it has with Apple Desktop products. It definitely needs some engineering attention, and it should be expanded to the iOS arena. It is not perfect, but it is very useful and fills an otherwise fairly empty niche in the support toolkit realm. The built-in screen sharing app in macOS handles the direct screen control or viewing function fairly well, but it does not have all of the other mass control features that Apple Remote Desktop supplies.
Once it is set up, it is quite straightforward to use. However, currently, it requires both a script to run to set up permissions and controls, AND a command from the MDM to authorize it to be active. The MDM management command is manual. This is not conducive to an automated workflow, and sometimes gets forgotten. Then, the endpoint is not contactable until someone realizes that the MDM command was not sent or was not successful.
Zoho Assist has proven to be a highly effective and reliable tool that I use on a daily basis. While the "wake up" feature occasionally fails to respond, this seems more likely due to network connectivity issues rather than a flaw in Zoho Assist itself. On rare occasions, the unattended access installation doesn't appear on the administrator's dashboard, which could potentially be caused by firewall restrictions rather than a problem with the software. Aside from these minor and infrequent issues, the platform has consistently performed well and has become an essential part of my workflow.
Support is terrible. Quick to initially respond with the boilerplate "The information provided by you should be sufficient for my development team to analyse this further. I shall also write back to you as soon as I get an update from them on this regard." And then you will hear nothing more from them. Chase further and you'll get stock responses such as "Our development team are still looking into this," etc.
I would feel much more comfortable having one of these alternative solutions as our Remote Desktop management tools. Each has their drawbacks and expenses associated with them, but we simply have too large of a deployment to not be considering alternatives. If it is the only solution you can afford, it is OK to start here. I could see where this would have a return on investment, but it is really only suitable for a very small and localized scale. If employees are at all mobile, the duct taping of products necessary (VPN, distribution points, script repositories) would be very cumbersome.
The value for Zoho Assist and the functionality is superior to what is now known as LogMeIn Resolve. I knew it before as Goto Assist. My decision to try out and ultimately purchase Zoho Assist has been a great one for my business. I am glad I heard about Zoho Assist and will continue using them for years to come.
Apple Remote Desktop has a positive return on investment because for the expense to the school, the value it brings to teachers is important. The return on improved student performance is very difficult to measure financially, but there is a definite return.
The overall objective of education is to increase student learning, ARD does that phenomenally. Parents see the tool used and are impressed at what the capabilities of the tool can do and how it impacts how active their students are as well as how well they can learn.
One negative impact is that teachers rely too much on this tool rather than on actually teaching sometimes.
