Likelihood to Recommend It is perfectly suited for organizations with a small IT staff and large amount of devices. It's also perfect for pushing software to machines that are not on the network or VPN. It's less effective for server patch management. I like to have a little more control of my server patching
Read full review I recommend it to all IT colleagues; regardless of the size of the PCs with which you work most of the time, the application allows connection stability between computers that make it possible to continue working or taking care of the infrastructure from afar.
Read full review Pros Excellent support for Windows-based systems. Rarely have any issues updating those systems. When issues do arise, the Automox support team has been very responsive and informative of solutions (or where projects are on potential roll out dates). The user interface is intuitive and easy to use. Read full review Desktop sharing / view with chat to the operator, file sharing and pass-through for keyboard strokes Computer/server monitoring with thresholds and warning Search - tracking down computers when you have many by name, logged in user, IP End user ticket raising is built into the tray icon which make access really easy Read full review Cons initial deployment of agents to all end points was a challenge, would have been great if there was a way for Automox to discover and install. Sometimes upgrading the Automox client which becomes old due to an end point not connecting for a long time becomes challenging as it becomes incompatible and has to be upgraded manually It would good to have a functionality where an end point device can be turned into a brick if desired in cases where the device is not returned back after an employee is terminated. This should also have the option of turning it back into an active device if we choose to Read full review They have conflicting scheduling paradigms. When scheduling patching for clients, the 1st Friday is interpreted as the very first Friday of the month, even if this is the 1st of the month. For scripting, the 1st Friday of the month is interpreted as the 1st Friday of the 1st FULL WEEK of the month. This makes no sense to have two different interpretations, and makes it unreliable to schedule recurring scripts to fall when recurring maintenance does. The scripts need to be done manually because of this. There is no way to dictate reboot orders for patch policies. This tied directly in with my first point. We have some clients that require reboot orders. This is not possible without having different patch policies for each server and specifying a time this way. But, there aren't small enough increments of time to make this reliable, plus patching duration might vary. Excluding reboots with patching and scheduling reboot scripts fixes this. However, this can't be done once on a recurring schedule due to the different scheduling paradigms already discussed. We have to schedule these manually each month. Read full review Likelihood to Renew The system is really simple. We pushed the installer out through Group policy. Devices connected can get further defined by Tags or Groups.
Read full review The primary reason for this rating is that ConnectWise Automate is currently so integral to our operations that moving away would involve more man hours than we would realistically have to invest. However, ConnectWise Automate is also completely capable of meeting all of our business needs and customizable to the point where if something is not meeting those needs out of the box, it can be modified to do what we want. From only installing software on machines if a different software package exists, to push a new version of that software is available, to check if credentials for user/machine have been updated to our new standards and then updating them if they have not, ConnectWise Automate is capable of doing everything we ask of it.
Read full review Usability After using a combination of WSUS and group policy to manage patching on a large number of devices, it was excellent to move to a single-pane experience where patch policies, restart schedules, reports, and device status can be seen easily and quickly. Its pre-patch report on policies is particularly handy so you can check if devices will take the appropriate action before it's run.
Read full review Basic use of the product is fairly easy. Information about the machines you manage can be found in customizable dashboards, which can be unique for each user, and, therefore, properly suited to the users' needs/job function. This is not a 10 because some of the interfaces are very clunky (Patch Management), and some features are not intuitive and not well documented (reporting). Scripting and Patch Management have a fairly steep learning curve (For structure in patch management and syntax in scripting), but once learned, they work well.
Read full review Performance It used to be great, but then they broke reporting, speed and responsiveness with version 11 and the new Patch Manager. It's really bad and their support people are way behind on fixing so many bugs. They have really gone downhill. If they don't get it together soon, we'll start looking around.
Read full review Support Rating In my experience, they were responsive but the fixes were more like bandaids than a fix for the underlying problems which they admitted were on their end.
Read full review ConnectWise Automate lets you manage more endpoints, with enhanced productivity and improved service, all without increasing expenses. It can 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.
Read full review Online Training The Online training has been re-done and needs a lot more work. When you look at training in different roles, it shows a lot of the same topics but no explanation to what is different about them. Several times that topics are the exact same, but they make you re-take the same information for a different topic, instead of marking that you have already completed that portion of training.
Read full review Implementation Rating Start small and learn the in's and out's before making policies and rolling things out company wide. Ask the questions of why if you don't agree with something or your company does things a different way. Usually they are done a certain way for a reason. Start simple with roll out and slowly enable or add on the functionality that is needed.
Read full review Alternatives Considered We stoppped using PDQ because it required our users to connect to the corporate VPN. It might take months for some remote users to receive a patch, and often we would have to schedule time with them one-on-one to ensure that it got done. With Automox, we don't have to do any of that - it just happens silently in the background.
Read full review I believe the monitoring and alerts in Continuum command is better, but [ConnectWise Automate (formerly LabTech)] does have stronger scripting, and perhaps a better interface. N-Central is inferior on all fronts to both. I did not make the purchasing decision. I would myself likely pick Continuum if I had to make a on the spot choice.
Read full review Return on Investment Automox allows us to fix vulnerabilities in the shortest amount of time ever. The automated patching and end point management features have made our jobs much easier. We get to focus on more important tasks and not have to manually patch the operating systems. Read full review We found we were able to provide good monitoring of our customers sites which was an objective. However, that came at a significant time investment that never seemed to be finished. We were able to negotiate a price that worked for us for an up-front purchase which was nice. We found the pricing to be very competitive. Bottom line for us was despite the pros of the product, we found other RMM solutions to be a better overall "value" due to not having to dedicate technicians to maintaining the product. Read full review ScreenShots ConnectWise Automate Screenshots