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https://dudodiprj2sv7.cloudfront.net/product-logos/Dl/R5/UNZ290FQ37T5.PNGMy ConnectWise Automate (formerly LabTech) ReviewOur entire Service Team uses ConnectWise Automate (formerly LabTech). It gives us the power to automate the management of a greater number and broader range of endpoints, maximizing our efficiency and our profitability. We use the scripting and numerous connected products, such as Warranty Master and ConnectWise Control (formerly ScreenConnect). Screens like Dataviews and tabs like Hardware are immensely useful.,It's better than Kaseya. It's flexible, allowing our integration team to leverage the data therein, creating custom tools that empower and accelerate us. It's fairly stable, considering its immense power.,Its interfaces have a wide variety of looks and feels, and it might be nicer if it were more cohesive. Documentation of usage and features can be hard to locate at times. A little more memory stability would be nice.,9,Has positively impacted ROI to allow us to expand internationally. Has allowed us to expand our domestic offices to multiple sites. Has allowed us to invest in equipment for our service team.,Kaseya IT Center,ConnectWise Control (formerly ScreenConnect), Microsoft Office 365, SlackPowerful product but support needs an overhaulWe use Automate as one of our tools to provide Managed Services to our client base. It is used for patch management, system monitoring and alerting, remote control, scripting and asset management. We install Automate on all managed servers and workstations.,Scripting in Automate is very comprehensive and flexible. Other tools we've used pale in comparison to the scripting in Automate. Remote control is 2nd to none. Screen Connect has proven to be incredibly fast and stable. This is a significant improvement over the old LabVNC in previous versions of Automate The ability to group things manually and dynamically. Being able to automatically add systems to groups based on some criteria (almost anything) and then run scripts or commands against those groups is a huge benefit. A great example is adding machines to a group based on anti-virus install. If a machine doesn't have AV installed it gets added to a group. The group is setup to run a script at some frequency to install AV.,The biggest issue for Automate is their support. They seem to be completely overwhelmed. Chat support for simple questions can be anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes in the queue. Then when you are connected they are doing little more than creating a ticket that will take days to hear back from them. Patching. The documentation and advice from our implementation person do not match reality. The process of denying a patch is documented, but doesn't work. We were unable to block certain patches from being distributed until we spoke to a specialist about it. He couldn't explain the mis-matched documentation. Speed. Using the Automate client is painfully slow. Very sluggish and non-responsive at times.,6,In many ways Automate has sped up our ability to service end users. The remote control allows multiple techs to concurrently remote to a device allowing techs to assist each other. We have been able to utilize the scripting to do more than our previous RMM. For instance, we can deploy and monitor Bitlocker encryption ensuring that our clients with compliance requirements have the required evidence. Dataviews in Automate allow us to access/filter/sort data very quickly with the need to use reporting tools. Support has a negative impact on our team. Support takes far too long and we seem to deal with more issues than what we think is acceptable. At times we wonder if anyone else actually uses some of the features in the product because we seem to be the first to find the problems.,Continuum RMM,ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Sell (formerly Quosal), Webroot SecureAnywhere,5,Yes,No,ConnectWise Manage Warranty Master Webroot StorageCraft,None at this time,7,Know exactly what you want as a result and ensure your implementation person gets it right especially for a complex integration like Automate to Manage.ConnectWise Automate Is Great If You Have The Money.When we first started using Automate we used it for all of our clients. However, we have now brought that down to just a few due to the cost of the product. We still actively use it today for a handful of servers.,It organizes client machines very well. Is very good at automating processes. Is great for setting up alerts on client's machines.,The cost of the product is way too high. A better GUI and wizard would help streamline the process. The auto-install process for other applications could be made a lot better.,8,For the time we were heavily using it, it did help with some automation.,,ConnectWise Control (formerly ScreenConnect), ConnectWise Sell (formerly Quosal), QuickBooks OnlineConnects Wisely and QuicklyI love ConnectWise. It was a little cumbersome at first to deploy but it works great as a support tool across the organization. I have a lot of remote users who I support with it and sometimes due to bandwidth I may get disconnected but other than that it is great. It is very user-friendly once you surpass the small learning curve.,It connects quickly Signing in is bar none Connection is fast Lots of additional features have been added.,The upgrade GUI is a little hard to use out of the box It disconnects randomly sometimes Some commands like rebooting can be a little slow,10,Techs won't have to travel to remote sites It saves money because it lessens downtime Deployment is not difficult,LogMeIn Central,LogMeIn Central, GoToMeeting, Join.meAfter a decade, I still have mixed feelings on AutomateWe are an MSP using ConnectWise Automate to manage about 1100 endpoints for our clients. We use this product for patch management and remote monitoring/maintenance.,Integration to ScreenConnect and ConnectWise are fairly tight at this point. Powerful tool for automation and custom scripting - if you have the technical capabilities and time, you can do more with Automate than any RMM on the market...,New UI is built to be pretty, but it's bloated, slow, and lacks the information that used to live on the main screen. You now have to dig to get information that was once easily at hand... Too Noisy - it alerts on EVERYTHING, and it's very difficult to tone it down without missing things that are important. This puts a drain on staff time... We can't respond to every ticket, and then important details get lost in the noise... No Mac/Linux client - my admins need access to a Windows PC to function...,6,Not sure we can accurately calculate ROI after 10 years - it's just part of our process/offering. But we almost need a dedicated FTE to manage the application or it gets out of hand quickly...,NinjaRMM and SolarWinds MSP Anywhere,ConnectWise Control (formerly ScreenConnect), ConnectWise Manage, Trello, Code42 (formerly CrashPlan), Datto, eFolder Cloudfinder, eFolder Backup, Sophos Endpoint Protection, Sophos UTM
  3. ConnectWise Automate Reviews
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ConnectWise Automate (formerly LabTech)
98 Ratings
Score 8.2 out of 101
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ConnectWise Automate Reviews

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ConnectWise Automate
98 Ratings
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Score 8.2 out of 101
TrustRadius Top Rated for 2018
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Gawain Stern profile photo
February 19, 2019

"My ConnectWise Automate (formerly LabTech) Review"

Gawain Stern
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Our entire Service Team uses ConnectWise Automate (formerly LabTech). It gives us the power to automate the management of a greater number and broader range of endpoints, maximizing our efficiency and our profitability. We use the scripting and numerous connected products, such as Warranty Master and ConnectWise Control (formerly ScreenConnect). Screens like Dataviews and tabs like Hardware are immensely useful.
  • It's better than Kaseya.
  • It's flexible, allowing our integration team to leverage the data therein, creating custom tools that empower and accelerate us.
  • It's fairly stable, considering its immense power.
  • Its interfaces have a wide variety of looks and feels, and it might be nicer if it were more cohesive.
  • Documentation of usage and features can be hard to locate at times.
  • A little more memory stability would be nice.
ConnectWise Automate (formerly LabTech) is best suited for mid-size to large MSPs; it might be a bit much for the one-man-show or smaller MSP.
Read Gawain Stern's full review
David Wertz, CHSP profile photo
October 18, 2018

ConnectWise Automate Review: "Powerful product but support needs an overhaul"

David Wertz, CHSP
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Automate as one of our tools to provide Managed Services to our client base. It is used for patch management, system monitoring and alerting, remote control, scripting and asset management. We install Automate on all managed servers and workstations.
  • Scripting in Automate is very comprehensive and flexible. Other tools we've used pale in comparison to the scripting in Automate.
  • Remote control is 2nd to none. Screen Connect has proven to be incredibly fast and stable. This is a significant improvement over the old LabVNC in previous versions of Automate
  • The ability to group things manually and dynamically. Being able to automatically add systems to groups based on some criteria (almost anything) and then run scripts or commands against those groups is a huge benefit. A great example is adding machines to a group based on anti-virus install. If a machine doesn't have AV installed it gets added to a group. The group is setup to run a script at some frequency to install AV.
  • The biggest issue for Automate is their support. They seem to be completely overwhelmed. Chat support for simple questions can be anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes in the queue. Then when you are connected they are doing little more than creating a ticket that will take days to hear back from them.
  • Patching. The documentation and advice from our implementation person do not match reality. The process of denying a patch is documented, but doesn't work. We were unable to block certain patches from being distributed until we spoke to a specialist about it. He couldn't explain the mis-matched documentation.
  • Speed. Using the Automate client is painfully slow. Very sluggish and non-responsive at times.
I can only speak from a Managed Service Provider point of view. The tool is certainly well suited to provide RMM and patching for an MSP or other IT service provider. Automate would likely work well in an enterprise environment especially organizations with multiple remote locations/users that may not be connected via a VPN.
Read David Wertz, CHSP's full review
John Trevino profile photo
February 05, 2019

Review: "ConnectWise Automate Is Great If You Have The Money."

John Trevino
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
When we first started using Automate we used it for all of our clients. However, we have now brought that down to just a few due to the cost of the product. We still actively use it today for a handful of servers.
  • It organizes client machines very well.
  • Is very good at automating processes.
  • Is great for setting up alerts on client's machines.
  • The cost of the product is way too high.
  • A better GUI and wizard would help streamline the process.
  • The auto-install process for other applications could be made a lot better.
It is great if you need a solution to automate computer processes like updating computers and applications. It's also useful if you need alerts sent to a centralized location. The fact it also utilizes ConnectWise Control to remote into computers is also very nice.

It is not really an appropriate product for those who do not have more than 100 client's machines to manage.
Read John Trevino's full review
Kimberly Hammond profile photo
October 03, 2018

ConnectWise Automate Review: "Connects Wisely and Quickly"

Kimberly Hammond
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
I love ConnectWise. It was a little cumbersome at first to deploy but it works great as a support tool across the organization. I have a lot of remote users who I support with it and sometimes due to bandwidth I may get disconnected but other than that it is great. It is very user-friendly once you surpass the small learning curve.
  • It connects quickly
  • Signing in is bar none
  • Connection is fast
  • Lots of additional features have been added.
  • The upgrade GUI is a little hard to use out of the box
  • It disconnects randomly sometimes
  • Some commands like rebooting can be a little slow
It is well suited for medium to large businesses due to the cost. I would not think it is appropriate for a small business; other remote software is better suited for that.
Read Kimberly Hammond's full review
No photo available
October 03, 2018

ConnectWise Automate Review: "After a decade, I still have mixed feelings on Automate"

Verified User
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We are an MSP using ConnectWise Automate to manage about 1100 endpoints for our clients. We use this product for patch management and remote monitoring/maintenance.
  • Integration to ScreenConnect and ConnectWise are fairly tight at this point.
  • Powerful tool for automation and custom scripting - if you have the technical capabilities and time, you can do more with Automate than any RMM on the market...
  • New UI is built to be pretty, but it's bloated, slow, and lacks the information that used to live on the main screen. You now have to dig to get information that was once easily at hand...
  • Too Noisy - it alerts on EVERYTHING, and it's very difficult to tone it down without missing things that are important. This puts a drain on staff time... We can't respond to every ticket, and then important details get lost in the noise...
  • No Mac/Linux client - my admins need access to a Windows PC to function...
If you're very technical and have advanced scripting skillsets, this is a great tool.

If you're short staffed, this tool will create so much work that you can't get it all done.
Read this authenticated review
No photo available
October 03, 2018

Review: "ConnectWise Automate was the right choice for us"

Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
All of our project team and support desk use ConnectSise Automate (formerly LabTech) to remotely manage all of our clients' computer systems (both workstations and servers).
  • ConnectWise Automate helps us manage Microsoft updates for our client base.
  • ConnectWise Automate makes it easy to remotely troubleshoot issues for our client.
  • ConnectWise Automate works well when we need to push a script out to one or multiple computers.
  • Sometimes computers show as offline when they are really online.
  • We find that sometimes a computer will show in the program multiple times.
  • It often will not update the current username so makes it harder to find computers sometimes.
ConnectWise Automate is a great tool to remotely manage your client base. It helps manage Windows updates across your clients and allows you to remotely install/uninstall software sometimes. It can give you details about what is installed on a system, you can see printers and storage space. It gives you so much information.
Read this authenticated review
Catherine Zuniga profile photo
June 14, 2018

ConnectWise Automate Review: "Connectwise to the rescue!"

Catherine Zuniga
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
I'm a sole proprietor and ConnectWise makes it possible for me to connect with my clients from home, across the United States and Canada. ConnectWise allows me to connect with clients and see their specific issues first hand. I am also able to save clients money for training that would have to be done on site because I am able to connect to their individual workstations and to do program training with the individual or group remotely at their convenience.
  • Allows me to download files from a toolbox feature or drag and drop from my server to their system.
  • Gives an easy to use client access window to easily find different clients and groups.
  • Simple to use, install and work with. Unlike many other programs of its type, it is easy to generate an email invitation to a client to connect or give them a simple code to connect. Also has the ability for me to share my screen with clients for training and demonstrations.
  • That's a tough one! Great program, great features already.
  • Possibly allowing the chat box to remain on screen. It closes when you connect to a program or open windows on the screen.
  • Allow more than 1 username/ password to be stored for the auto access. Notes made on different machines seem to disappear if there is an upgrade. I lost some notes I had made on sites I support using this feature.
If you need 24 hr access to a client, ability to access workstations and have the same abilities as if you were physically there. Also, could be the less appropriate for organizations with multiple employees wherein having this type of access may be in violation of privacy of the client, or employees that can access client information inappropriately. I work in the medical field, and due to HIPPA, this could be a problem if I had employees that were not HIPPA trained or certified.
Read Catherine Zuniga's full review
No photo available
August 03, 2018

Review: "Connectwise Automate - Tons of power, tons of time spent"

Verified User
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller
Review Source
We used Connectwise Automate for many years. The product handles remotely monitoring PCs & Servers for any problems that match the automation either built-in or created in Automate. The problem solved is monitoring all the endpoints in a way no human could.
  • Remote Control via ScreenConnect is wonderful.
  • Scripting is the best of all RMM products we have tried.
  • The customization capability of Automate beats all other RMM products.
  • Because Automate is so configurable it also requires the most time put into it of all RMM products we have used. It requires a dedicated employee to just managing the product and the services provided by it. Without that dedicated resource, many alerts will be missed (due to configuration issues).
  • Support is not very good. This is a larger scale Connectwise issue.
  • The product is very resource intensive if you host locally. Upgrades are usually pretty buggy and add the need for extra resources.
  • We found VMware and Dell Open Manage monitoring to be very weak compared to other RMM products.
Connectwise Automate is a good solution if you have a trained technician in Automate available to dedicate himself to the product. If that tech is also trying to support customers most of the day, the Automate maintenance and customization will be left behind and you will suffer from that. This is probably a better choice for larger more established companies that have the ability to dedicate resources.
Read this authenticated review
No photo available
June 29, 2018

User Review: "ConnectWise Automate, simply the best."

Verified User
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use it daily to support our clients. We are an MSP that supports small to mid-sized local governments. It integrates well with our other applications.
  • Smooth remote access to managed devices.
  • Real-time machine health.
  • Seamless integration with ConnectWise manage and Bizdox.
  • We have some issues with the managed devices actually being online but no connection through the application. Have to restart the service on the machine.
  • A little slow for the application to load on startup.
  • Resource heavy.
-Great solution for MSP and internal IT departments who manage several sites and machines.
-A little too expensive for small IT providers to manage just a few machines.
Read this authenticated review
No photo available
June 29, 2018

ConnectWise Automate Review: "ConnectWise Control - Great for Large Organizations"

Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
ConnectWise Automate is used by our organization to allow our engineers to do 99% or their job remotely. We use it to monitor the status of computers, maintain software, and maintain a clean patching environment. It does its name justice as it allows us to automate a good portion of our environment.
  • The way we can automate tasks to run keeps our client's system as up to date as possible.
  • It allows our engineers to work silently on a customers machine without interrupting their productivity.
  • The vast array of plugins, allows for great customization to fit your needs.
  • Patch Manager could use improvement. At times, it will crash in the middle of patching, or switching between configurations. Setting the patch priorities seems a little convoluted.
  • The ability to copy over a file using the silent File Explorer would be nice. Rather than having to interrupt the user to replace a file or execute a download.
  • I would like to see more details in script logs. I want to see why a script failed, what step it was executing.
ConnectWise Automate is well suited for a large scale environment with multiple clients. A Managed Service Provider would benefit greatly from software like this. Your clients can have access to their computers as well which can help them manage their machines as well. ConnectWise Automate would not be ideal for a small company as it primarily caters to the management of a large scale organization.
Read this authenticated review
Donovon Carter profile photo
January 10, 2018

Review: "Behold the power of ConnectWise Automate"

Donovon Carter
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
  • Scripting across multiple domains
  • Remote Resource Monitoring
  • Onboarding
  • Patch Management can be un-reliable at times
  • Easier UI
  • Better integration with AntiVirus providers
If you are tasked with managing a large IT network, or a multi-domain/multi-client group of systems, there really aren't many better options out there. Automate, when configured properly, can handle patching, scripting, on board and off boarding of clients, and give you greater insight into your client's pain points via reporting and monitoring.
Read Donovon Carter's full review
Derek Schroeder profile photo
December 27, 2017

ConnectWise Automate Review: "Automate - the fastest way to improve productivity and client satisfaction for MSPs"

Derek Schroeder
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
  • Management of servers and workstations. Organized by client and location for ease of use.
  • Remote access is unparalleled, one button click and the computer is up with very good refresh rate.
  • Scripts and automation are easy to create and perform. Automated reboots of servers / workstations make management easy.
  • Steep learning curve, program can be very intimidating when initially configuring and deploying.
  • Software version upgrades can become a bit clunky and "undo" some progress. Recent version upgrade revamped entire Windows patching system and required setup from scratch.
  • Limitations on hardware monitoring, especially for hypervisors with VMWare.
Any MSP should investigate this software, as a former user of N-Able, LabTech has much more automation and is feature rich. It literally takes years of use to scratch the surface of its possibilities.
Read Derek Schroeder's full review
Stana Steen profile photo
December 01, 2017

Review: "We won't change from ConnectWise Automate!"

Stana Steen
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
  • Remote access
  • Alerting on issues
  • Integration with ConnectWise
  • Quick access to system logs
  • Patch Management
  • Ease of implementation
  • Script library updated
I think it is well suited for any MSP. We like being able to set up our clients that have in-house IT with their own login so they can access their in-house computers quickly and still have our Windows patching and alerting. I don't know where it would be less appropriate but I feel you do have to have a dedicated technician to manage Automate.
Read Stana Steen's full review
William Pote profile photo
March 14, 2018

ConnectWise Automate Review: "To ConnectWise or not to ConnectWise?"

William Pote
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
  • Automation of mundane and repetitive tasks.
  • Management of our clients
  • It can be painfully slow.
  • It's quite complex and needs a lot of training.
If you are an MSP looking to scale and are willing to put in the time and effort it will take you a long way.
Read William Pote's full review
Riccardo Francese profile photo
October 10, 2017

ConnectWise Automate Review: "Good product for compliance and automated servicing."

Riccardo Francese
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
  • Silent installs
  • Automate certain tasks
  • Get information from the computer
  • Scripting required to use
  • Can sometimes screw up and cause an over-run on memory
  • Backend can be hard to use
It meets our needs by providing our IT staff with the information necessary to diagnose problems. It also can automate processes like restarting services that have stopped or alerting us when a major issue is going on with a server. This has allowed us to be proactive rather than reactive and given us the power to maintain our systems around the clock.
Read Riccardo Francese's full review
Daniel Creamer profile photo
October 06, 2017

User Review: "ConnectWise Automate is the best!"

Daniel Creamer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We are using ConnectWise Automate to support and monitor our customer's networks and servers. We use it to deploy applications and scripts as well. It gives us many other different tools for providing fast and efficient service and support to our customers.
  • Remote Monitoring
  • Remote Support
  • Automated Issue Resolution
  • The GUI of the program could be a little more "user-friendly"
It's well suited for the MSP market.
Read Daniel Creamer's full review
No photo available
December 27, 2017

"ConnectWise Automate Review"

Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
  • One single location for all data (for NOC)
  • Easily scalable
  • Enforces consistent workflows (once the are configured)
  • Support often takes days if not weeks to respond
  • Constant attempts to upsell us on other products
  • Typically we are told changes to the program will require us to pay them more $
This is the ideal program if you are already using ConnectWise (Manage), but not a stretch as ConnectWise purchased LabTech (now Automate) so the programs are really one in the same. The more clients an MSP has, the more value that this program provides. However, the hosted option of Automate (instead of on-premise) is astronomical.
Read this authenticated review
Richard Anderson profile photo
July 13, 2017

Review: "ConnectWise Automate works well...if you invest the time"

Richard Anderson
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Our organization supports over 5000 end-points across 130+ locations leveraging ConnectWise Automate's remote monitoring and management capabilities. In addition to basic monitoring and alerting ConnectWise Automate (CWA) is also leveraged for software deployment, license management, and custom-built script writing/deployment. Integration with our PSA (ConnectWise Manage) is seamless as is integration with ConnectWise Control.
  • Incredibly robust with infinite capabilities
  • Recognized as one of the top 2 RMMs in the industry
  • Strong community/forum users
  • Ample add-ins for integrating with other vendor tools
  • Incredibly robust -- unlikely you'll ever leverage 100% of what CWA has to offer
  • Requires dedicated resource(s) in order to fully leverage scripting and customization capabilities
  • Thick client -- slow to load and bulky to use.
For larger MSPs with dedicated NOC personnel - this is a great selection. For smaller MSPs looking for basic monitoring and alerting, there are easier and cheaper solutions that should be considered.
Read Richard Anderson's full review
Carson Hagan, ITILv3 profile photo
April 24, 2017

ConnectWise Automate: "LabTech Review - MSP Standpoint"

Carson Hagan, ITILv3
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use LabTech as a RMM tool to help delivery and integrate our Managed Services catalogue for clients. It has become an essential tool for supporting our Service Desk operations and proactive maintenance to our clients. LabTech is used by other departments of our company to help gather information or assess situations when going on prom is not optimal. Being able to support our clients and their end users from the background has been vital to our company and changed the way we do business.
  • Provides a ticket based system that integrates directly into the user's computer for easy access to Ticket Submissions.
  • Provides a remote connection tool, ScreenConnect, that is amazing to use.
  • Provides a very technical approach to managing computers and servers.
  • Powerful reporting and auditing features.
  • Cloud partners have issues with infrastructre stability and reliability.
  • Broken agents need self remediation for when they have been offline for too long.
  • Number of built in scripts, screens, modules don't work completley.
  • Patch Manager needs serious attention.
Suited well for an MSP that is managing multiple clients with workstations and servers at multiple sites. Less appropriate for an internal tool to a 1 person IT department. Would not recommend to someone who does not have a technical background - Need to have a firm understanding of computers, networking, etc.
Read Carson Hagan, ITILv3's full review
Scott Sanford profile photo
April 17, 2017

ConnectWise Automate Review: "LabTech - Good solid choice for the MSP"

Scott Sanford
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Labtech to manage and help maintain our managed service clients.

Labtech handles our needs well, including server and high-priority workstation monitoring and remediation of issues and errors.
While it's a little bit of a challenge to setup and implement, once you put the time in, it only increases its value the more you utilize and customize it.
  • Handles alerting of critical and moderate issues
  • Integrates with our PSA solution
  • Allows for rapid remote access with an integrated implementation of ScreenConnect
  • Initial implementation and setup is a bit of a bear. We have, over the years, completely re-done our installation 3 or 4 times.
  • Allow a more feature-rich implementation of ScreenConnect to be run with LT so that if you want to give a client a session key, they can connect in that way as well as through the unattended client.
  • Sometimes server down alerts, raid failure alerts are not sent. High potential for egg-on-face ...
Well suited to true and hybrid MSP model shops.

Not well suited for an in-house IT that is already strained and who doesn't have time to read up and or be trained to understand LT.
Read Scott Sanford's full review
No photo available
September 08, 2017

ConnectWise Automate Review: "Pretty good product for small/mid MSPs"

Verified User
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We are a managed services provider and use it as one of our RMM tools. We use it to administer patching, reports, integration with antivirus software, integration with backup software and remotely connect to workstations/servers. Our entire service desk and professional services team use LabTech. We do not use it for network monitoring, Office 365 management or AD integration.
  • The integration with screenconnect is my favorite. Being able to console in directly to a machine within a matter of a few clicks is great. Performance is better than teamviewer, logmein, Bomgar, join.me and vnc.
  • Integration with third party products, such as Webroot or Shadow Protect. It has made deployments much easier to manage.
  • Support. The support team at LabTech has always been great. They are always able to locate a knowledge base article or assist with an issue relatively quickly and resolve it just as fast.
  • Patching. This used to work well, but since the 10.0 version forward, it has been lacking. Too often we have systems that don't patch and servers that don't reboot and manual intervention is needed.
  • Reporting. Could use a lot of work. Even with going to Devexpress, we aren't seeing what we want for larger businesses and have to rely on creating our own reports through other tools.
  • Support for third party products. I find a lot that if it isn't integrated to LabTech, the reporting on it lacks. Currently my biggest pet peeve, is how LabTech reports other antivirus statuses. Works great if it is Vipre, ESET or Webroot, but if you are using Trend, Symantec or something else, you don't get accurate data about version status or if it is up to date. Sometimes, it doesn't report an antivirus installed, even though it clearly is.
Overall, I think LabTech ( LT) has been able to do well in all areas, but I see it lacking the ability to manage large scale environments. The LT server itself starts having performance issues over 5,000 agents. Even though you can break out certain services, it needs to be able to scale much higher than that. Within the next 2-3 years, we will have double the amount of agents we currently have and right now we are at 6,500.
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Karl Fulljames profile photo
March 09, 2017

ConnectWise Automate Review: "I trust Labtech to automate our support"

Karl Fulljames
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Labtech to care for all of the endpoints under our management. Our techs love it!
  • We switched over from Kaseya and immediately found that the scripting engine was far more powerful! We have many architecture, engineering and construction clients that require quite a few applications. We weren't able to script most of them with Kaseya, however we are now able to with Labtech (our biggest scripted application is 50gb in size).
  • Labtech monitors everything! I found it far easier to have everything monitored and quiet it down than it is to keep adding in the individual monitors. We used to always miss something, now it's built in for us
  • Compared to Kaseya, support at Labtech is VERY good. With Kaseya, I'd only get a call back if the server was hard down. Now I have chat support and someone gets back to me the same day every time.
  • Labtech's UI was obviously built by a developer :-) I've seen some of the mock ups of what the product will look like in the future and it's a huge improvement!
MSP's are well suited for Labtech software
Read Karl Fulljames's full review
Ian Hansen profile photo
March 03, 2017

ConnectWise Automate Review: "Experience Using LabTech"

Ian Hansen
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller
Review Source
We use LabTech daily for a number of IT service help desk mission-critical operations. We have important monitors and scripts that keep servers and workstations working at peak performance, as well as alerts and scheduled automated processes. We use information from it daily to provide reports and audit the health of our clients' data.
  • Monitoring critical server services
  • Scheduled scripts and processes on servers and workstations
  • Auto-remediation of many important IT tasks
  • Alerting and reporting on health and other critical endpoint data
  • Customer support is very knowledgeable/good
  • Knowledge base is very good
  • Response time on some tickets has lagged from time to time
  • Sometimes initially, a reported issue may not be well-understood
  • Windows patching support is sub-par
LabTech is a good fit for an MSP that wants to automate processes for their clients' endpoints. It integrates well with the ConnectWise PSA and customizes fairly well. For a company that wants to dedicate their staff to other pursuits, LabTech can automate a lot of the important things.
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Eric Christiansen profile photo
September 16, 2016

ConnectWise Automate Review: "How LabTech has improved our day to day operations."

Eric Christiansen
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use LabTech primarily in our managed services group within our company. We use it to manage over 4000 client workstations and servers. It lets us consistently monitor, patch and remotely manage our client systems as efficiently as possible. We also use it for other tasks as well like assisting our clients with keeping their hardware and software inventories up to date and using it to deploy software to systems.
  • LabTech lets us consistently monitor client systems for basic things like server up/down, low disk space and high CPU and memory usage. It also excels at automatically detecting and monitoring specific systems like e-mail and database servers. Because LabTech automatically applies the proper monitoring, onboarding new clients is very simple.
  • We use LabTech for automation for repetitive tasks. For example, when a low disk alert is received, we run a script automatically to clear out temp and other unnecessary files that we've defined. A tech only needs to get involved if the script isn't able to automatically free up enough space. Automation like this greatly increases our efficiency.
  • The ScreenConnect remote control is fantastic. Having the ability to instantly connect to a client system directly from LabTech makes our job a lot easier. Previously we had to depend on client specific remote access solutions which varied from client to client. Now we can connect to every client the same way.
  • While LabTech does an excellent job at monitoring servers and workstations, it lacks in network device monitoring. We tried for a while to use the built in SNMP device monitoring effectively but eventually went with a different product which fit our needs. However, the nice thing about LabTech is that it is open with integrating with third party products and we are working on integrating the SNMP product
  • Support can be slow to respond which is a minus. However, once you are able to get to someone, the techs are very nice and helpful.
LabTech is well suited to MSPs who manage mostly Windows Systems. While LabTech can manage Mac computers, the feature set is limited. Also, LabTech does a lot of different things so if someone is looking for a solution to a single problem (monitoring, remote control, etc.), LabTech could be overkill. LabTech is an ideal tool for MSPs or larger organizations to manage many systems. As LabTech is a complex system, it requires a certain amount of care and feeding so LabTech may not be an ideal solution for a small organization with not a lot of systems to manage.
Read Eric Christiansen's full review
Justin Nehring profile photo
August 15, 2016

ConnectWise Automate Review: "LabTech is a platform you can build an IT service company on"

Justin Nehring
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
LabTech is being used to remotely manage and monitor our clients' computers, servers, and networks. We use it to deliver automated services that allow us to increase profits by reducing labor. It is a force multiplier that allows us to deliver services consistently and timely across our entire client base. We have several applications that integrate with LabTech to help keep all our technicians informed and it aids in providing quick support to clients.
  • Scripting - Automation is what makes LabTech great. The built-in scripts are a good start, but the real power comes from being able to customize the automation to make it your own.
  • Remote Control - Not having to roll a truck for every service ticket is a huge time and money saver. It is fast and reliable. It works every time with no delays.
  • Integration - LabTech's framework allows for tight integration with other applications and gives you freedom to select the components that are a best fit for your business. For example: you aren't locked into one baked-in antivirus or disaster recovery application.
  • Network Monitoring - Network monitoring isn't the strongest point for LabTech. Mostly this is due to the licensing model. They aren't charging you for monitoring printers, switches, and routers so their isn't much incentive for them to make it a best-in-class network monitoring tool. However, remember integration is a strong suit and what it lacks here can be made up with third party utilities that can "plug-in" if you need something stronger.
  • UI in flux - With LabTech 11 the next generation tile based computer management screen has been rolled out. While it updates the Interface to a much more modern look and feel. There are some things that need to be tweaked. Speed is a bit of an issue. On the plus-side, each month's patches have made strides of improvement and the developers are really in-tune with getting it right.
  • Not a Microsoft SQL database back-end - I personally don't count this as a "con", but if you are expecting to find a Microsoft back-end it isn't. MySQL is the default database used with this product.
LabTech was built by an MSP for MSPs. It can scale from small one man shops to organizations with tens of thousands of endpoints under management. LabTech isn't just for service providers. Enterprises are starting to pick up on the power of LabTech and adopt it as well. It is a great value with a proven track record and solid management guiding its future success in servicing its partners needs.
Read Justin Nehring's full review

ConnectWise Automate Scorecard Summary

Likelihood to Recommend (98)
8.2
Likelihood to Renew (3)
8.0
Usability (3)
3.2
Performance (4)
3.0
Support (3)
4.9
Online Training (2)
7.0
Implementation (1)
7.3

Feature Scorecard Summary

Remote monitoring (1)
8
Network device monitoring (1)
8
Multiple Server Monitoring (1)
8
Multi-device monitoring (1)
8
Automated alerts and notifications (1)
9
Patch Management (1)
8
Service configuration management (1)
8
Software and hardware inventory (1)
9
Policy-based automation (1)
8
Performance data reports (1)
8
Customizable reporting (1)
9
Data visualization (1)
8
Risk analysis (1)
8
Data backup and recovery (1)
7
Antivirus and malware management (1)
7
Adinistraor access control (1)
9

About ConnectWise Automate

ConnectWise Automate, formerly LabTech, is an IT management tool that helps deliver IT services. The vendor says their remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform provides powerful automation to discover and manage devices, monitor for problems, and automate action. According to the vendor, this solution enables users to deliver streamlined reactive and proactive managed services, stop putting out fires, and start focusing on what matters most.
Categories:  IT Infrastructure Monitoring,  System Monitoring

ConnectWise Automate Features

Has featureDiscovery
Has featureManagement
Has featureMonitoring
Has featureAutomation
Has featureIntegration

ConnectWise Automate Screenshots

ConnectWise Automate Downloadables

ConnectWise Automate Integrations

ConnectWise Manage, ConnectWise Control (formerly ScreenConnect), ConnectWise Control (formerly ScreenConnect)

ConnectWise Automate Competitors

Kaseya Virtual System Administrator (VSA), Kaseya Virtual System Administrator (VSA), Autotask Endpoint Management, Continuum Managed IT Services, Solarwinds N·able

Pricing

Has featureFree Trial Available?Yes
Does not have featureFree or Freemium Version Available?No
Does not have featurePremium Consulting/Integration Services Available?No
Entry-level set up fee?No

ConnectWise Automate Support Options

 Free VersionPaid Version
Forum/Community
FAQ/Knowledgebase
Social Media
Video Tutorials / Webinar
Phone
Live Chat
Email

ConnectWise Automate Technical Details

Deployment Types:On-premise, SaaS
Operating Systems: Windows
Mobile Application:No
Supported Languages: Automate's Control Center is in English, Agents are compatible with all Windows supported Languages