ConnectWise Automate, formerly LabTech, is a remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform. It provides powerful automation to discover and manage devices, monitor for problems, and scripts repetitive action.
$700
Zoho Assist
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Zoho Assist from Zoho Corporation is a remote administration tool for SMBs and outsourced IT.
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.
Zoho Assist has been great for me when someone calls and has problems accessing files, or can't figure out why their computer is doing something weird. I can just send them a link and be connected to them in a couple minutes. I've tried providing support to mobile devices and it has proven to be a challenge, especially if the user on the other end is not particularly tech savvy. The installation process is not intuitive and the functionality of the support once I was connected was not very good
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.
Zoho Assist service will stop workstations automatically sleeping (unless overridden) - this was done deliberately by their development team as they aware (and unable to fix) their issues with WOL.
Support is terrible - very quick response initially - but it can take weeks to get any actual support or solution. I currently have outstanding tickets over 2 months old with no response.
File transfer clunky, slow and inconsistent.
Clients often show offline when actually available and online.
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.
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.
Very easy to use. Tech support is available, but not needed. Our customers are able to download and run the file quickly, an audible tone alerts users as to when the assisted person joins the session. It is functional, aesthetically pleasing, and contains all the capability anyone needs for remote support.
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.
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.
As I said earlier, Zoho Assist is a perfect remote access software and very well meets our needs to solve installation, uninstallation and general configuration issues. The interface is beautiful, clean, user-friendly and works very well on Windows 10. All the support and infrastructure staff approve and enjoy using it
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.
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.
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.
All of the products listed can be used as standalone products or like we do as a suite of products that help various teams and departments make the day to day operations run more smoothly and efficiently. The only non Zoho product that i currently use that is like Zoho Assist is Microsoft Teams, and while teams has many of the same features that Zoho Assist has it does not go into as much depth as Zoho Assist does as it is not meant for support, also the other party would need to have teams as well to establish a call whereas with Zoho Assist its just sending a link via email to the customer to open the support session.
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.
We never skipped a beat when the 2020 lockdown occurred. Everyone was already set up and able to work from home.
The cost of Zoho is much less than other remote programs; especially when remote connectivity cost includes up to 100 technicians (we made each user a tech of their own computer).
Integrating with other products and receiving a bundle discount is a plus.
