Datto Autotask PSA vs. Hiveage

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

For a very small business or a freelancer this is an excellent billing/invoicing system. Easy to get set up and configured quickly so you can get paid online quickly. It works very well for what it is intended. But for a growing small business it doesn't have the more complex accounting/bookkeeping features you might need. There is some limitation to customization as well.

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

• Setting up to receive online payments from a number of payment processors was quick and easy, and the range of processors was excellent.
• Invoicing and recurring invoicing were easy and straightforward to use, and clients liked it as well.
• The entire system is user-friendly and very easy to use for anyone. It has all the basics you need for billing/invoicing for a small business and is especially ideal for freelancers.

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

• Mobile app still needed some work, but they were going in the right direction.
• Would like to see them add more accounting/bookkeeping functions.
• Preferred the old pricing structure vs the current one.

Incentivized

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

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

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

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

Hiveage and FreshBooks are actually pretty comparable. I tested both before choosing Hiveage. At the time that I chose Hiveage, the reason for choosing it was that the pricing was cheaper with their old pricing structure (you could select what features you did and didn't need as "modules" and just pay for what you used). The pricing is now comparable and both offer the same features, and similar ease-of-use.

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

• Hiveage was perfect for my small business when I was smaller, and it worked well to get invoices paid online from clients quickly and easily.
• The invoices were professional-looking, and the ease of use to make payments made clients happy.
• Keeping track of time for billing to specific projects was advantageous as well.

Incentivized