Datto Autotask PSA vs. Deltek Vision (legacy product)

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

It is very well suited for Project Accounting - we have thousands of Project codes in the system. I wish it were easier to make changes to data already entered. You have to jump through hoops to make any changes or corrections and timing is everything.

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

• Deltek is a very integrated system for accounting purposes. It stores documents as support for postings (e.g. AP invoices) so you can easily access the source information.
• Time tracking for our consultants is a must and Deltek has a good platform for tracking time and for accounting for time.
• Deltek has the ability to run almost any kind of report that you could possibly think of! There are fields for almost everything and if there aren't specific fields you can add them.

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

• Deltek Vision's use of the desktop browser interfaces could use some major upgrades. It's not very user-friendly. When a field is left blank it would prevent the user from saving the timesheet but would not clearly inform the user where the error has occurred.
• Deltek Vision should provide a simple method to print summaries like have its own built-in pdf export program instead of relying on a 3rd party program like Adobe.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

Because we are looking to upgrade to the next software level of Deltek.

Incentivized

Datto Autotask PSA is a full featured product that can do almost anything you need. There is a significant learning curve to get started which requires several hours spent in product training. Additionally, several hours / days are needed to get clients imported, contracts configured, and integrations implemented. Once the setup and user training is complete, the product is very functional, but it's imperative to not get overwhelmed when starting out.

Incentivized

It's on the verge of being awesome. Right now it's a matter of money -- if you have the money to hire consultants round the clock, yeah this is awesome.

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

99% of the customer service specialists and technicians that I've encountered are quite awesome!

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

We have used Deltek Vision and previous versions (names) of the product since the early 1990's. We are engaged in the system and are committed to the continued use of the product. I have long supported the value added to our company and benefits realized by our users.

• 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

• We went from using a DOS-based accounting system that all the management had to go to Accounting for a weekly printout of status reports, and there wasn't much visibility into the network. Deltek Vision gave our PMs and management information at their fingertips, without having to wait on someone else to get the info.
• A lot of quality control was handled outside of an electronic system through Microsoft Excel forms. With Deltek Vision's user-defined functions, we were able to bring those functions into a system that could then be reported on, send automatic reminders, and create dashboards. This has been hugely beneficial in not losing sight of action items etc.

Incentivized