ChangeGear Service Desk vs. Datto Autotask PSA

1. What kind of service-levels are you looking to establish? 2. Are there other programs you are going to be using for other aspects of 'the job?' 3. How many employees are going to be needing access to ChangeGear? 4. Do you want a highly configurable product or something that will come out of the box pre-set? 5. Are you looking to keep track of equipment deployed to the customers you support?

Incentivized

In my opinion, Datto Autotask is exceptionally complicated to set up, manage, and use on a daily basis. I would think the target market for this product would be someone managing a team of 20 - 50 people, possibly more. In my experience, for it to run properly you will need to dedicate at least half an FTE to running this product in an organization of that size per month. I would not recommend it for companies with less than 10 people or for companies that value quick communication with their clients. I would not recommend it for companies using Datto's RMM product. The integration exists, but it is clearly a bolt-on. They were not developed together and they are slow to talk to each other. Frequently you cannot add details from RMM sessions into the PSA without manually copying the ticket number, and if the ticket is more than a week old, then you can't even find it with the ticket number.

Incentivized

• Change Control
• Ease of Use
• Simplicity

Incentivized

• The graphical calculations on time spent on requests, how long they were open for, who worked on a ticket last.
• Grouping by priority so you can determine easier what needs to be addressed sooner rather then later. This also helps if Account Management has conversations a technician is not aware of so they can prioritize efficiently.
• The email updates that are sent out to the technicians so they are aware of upcoming or stale tickets.

Incentivized

• Not sure if this is due to our back end, but ChangeGear Service Desk can sometimes bog down. Speed can always be improved and, while version 6 has been impressive so far, slow downs are still common.
• Browser compatibility can sometimes be hit or miss. Certain fields would not work on Chrome, so our department has required FireFox. I have not tested 6 on other browsers but hopefully the upgrade has taken care of this.
• The communications with customers are not easy to sift through. With limited attention spans, seeing a subject line filled with 'gibberish' causes our customers to either delete or leave the message forever unread. Again, not sure if due to our implementation, but I would clean that sort of thing up.

Incentivized

• The GUI is a little dated.
• Some integrations are limited for not being a Datto product.
• While not as complex to set up as Connectwise, it definitely requires some serious thought during the initial setup.
• Email processing could offer more options for parsing keywords and allow for more automation.
• The mobile app is just not worth using in my experience.

Incentivized

After using multiple products on the market, Autotask was intuitive and easy to manage.

Incentivized

Because it allows me to work in (probably) the most organized way possible. It allows me to collaborate quickly and rather effortlessly with coworkers within my team and other teams in the Technology department. The deduction in rating is due to the issues with speed and browser compatibility. Version 6 has been a revelation but I as always, there's room for improvement.

Incentivized

The work flow is much better then other competitors

Incentivized

They are fairly quick at returning a response to a problem and have been able to fix all issues for the most part.

Incentivized

Simpler and easier to implement.

Incentivized

The portion of Autotask that we've used other companies for prior to using Autotask is the Endpoint Management. The Autotask Endpoint Management (AEM) portal integrates perfectly with their PSA/CRM tools. It's alerting features are much better than the above software as there aren't a bunch of superfluous and unneeded alerts. Instead, it only alerts for things that you specify that you want. Alerts aside, for the PSA/CRM, I don't have much to compare it to as Autotask was the first PSA we tried. It's hard to imagine a PSA having more features or doing a better job than Autotask.

Incentivized

• Better Response Time
• Email Tracking of Tickets
• Change Control Module Simplicity

Incentivized

• We were able to identify the profitability of our entire client base.
• We identified a loss of over 1 million dollars for time unbilled consultancy fees using metrics derived from Autotask.
• Autotask helped us serve our client base in a professional manner, it's like having an entire department at your finger tips.
• Autotask is the heartbeat of our operation.

Incentivized