TrustRadius Insights
ConnectWise Automate is a powerful tool that is actively used by customers to support and monitor their networks and servers. With this …
Starting at $700
View PricingOverview
What is ConnectWise Automate?
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.
Recent Reviews
Awards
Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards
Popular Features
- Remote monitoring (21)7.272%
- Policy-based automation (21)6.969%
- Patch Management (20)6.060%
- Network device monitoring (20)5.151%
Pricing
Agents
$1.00-$6.00
On Premise
per month/per agent
Implementation Fee
$700
On Premise
Entry-level set up fee?
- No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://info.connectwise.com/automate/b…
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Product Demos
ConnectWise Automate Demo
YouTube
Office365 For ConnectWise Automate - [Shell Console]
YouTube
Active Directory UC for ConnectWise Automate
YouTube
Office365 for ConnectWise Automate
YouTube
Features
Return to navigation
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is ConnectWise Automate?
ConnectWise Automate enables users to proactively monitor, manage, and support client networks. Key features of ConnectWise Automate include:
- Discovery – Automatically deploy and detect the status of devices, creating accountability and access to all managed devices.
- Management – Providing access to each endpoint managed makes it easier to resolve issues fast and keep downtime to a minimum.
- Patching – Configures Windows patch management with out-of-the-box policies for Microsoft and third-party software.
- Automation – Automates repeatable tasks to decrease costs and also keeps techs happy by automating the tasks they hate doing.
ConnectWise Automate Screenshots
ConnectWise Automate Video
ConnectWise Automate overview
ConnectWise Automate Integrations
ConnectWise Automate Competitors
ConnectWise Automate Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Windows |
| Mobile Application | No |
| Supported Languages | Automate's Control Center is in English, Agents are compatible with all Windows supported Languages |
Frequently Asked Questions
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.
Reviewers rate Remote monitoring highest, with a score of 7.2.
The most common users of ConnectWise Automate are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
Comparisons
Compare with
Reviews and Ratings
(205)
Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
ConnectWise Automate is a powerful tool that is actively used by customers to support and monitor their networks and servers. With this platform, users are able to provide fast and efficient service by remotely managing all clients' computer systems and maintaining software. This includes managing endpoints, providing patch management, and remote monitoring/maintenance for clients. Users also leverage ConnectWise Automate as a comprehensive asset inventory, support ticketing, monitoring, and alerting tool. It allows for screen sharing access to assist end-users and manage servers remotely.
LabTech, another name for ConnectWise Automate, plays a crucial role in managing technology assets for multiple clients. The service department of organizations uses it to handle Windows patching, alerting, and remote access for clients' servers and workstations. LabTech ensures that client networks are efficiently managed by independently scanning and deploying agents, installing patches, and monitoring critical machines. Additionally, LabTech serves as an RMM platform for managing, automating, and maintaining customers' networks. It enables remote support, patch management, and remote monitoring while providing flexibility and multitenant architecture.
ConnectWise Automate has gained recognition for its ability to serve as a central point for end-user support and automation management. Its flexibility and multitenant architecture make it a valuable tool for managing, automating, and maintaining customers' networks. By offering features such as remote support, patch management, and remote monitoring, ConnectWise Automate empowers organizations to provide top-notch services to their clients while increasing efficiency in IT operations.
Tight Integration with Connectwise: Users have consistently praised the seamless ticket management and resolution that comes from LabTech's integration with Connectwise. Several reviewers found this aspect to be very tight, allowing for a smooth workflow between the two platforms.
Powerful Scripting Capabilities: Many users have highlighted LabTech's scripting capabilities as a standout feature. They appreciate its versatility and ability to automate mundane tasks. This has made their work more efficient and streamlined.
Effective Alerting System: Reviewers have mentioned that LabTech's alerting system is highly effective in notifying the on-call team of critical events while separating non-critical issues. This feature has been particularly valuable in ensuring timely responses to important incidents.
Confusing and Outdated User Interface: Many users have found Labtech's management system user interface to be confusing, outdated, and in need of updating. Some users have described it as unintuitive and difficult to navigate, making tasks more challenging to perform.
Steep Learning Curve for New Users: A significant amount of configuration is required out of the box for Labtech's software, which has led to a steep learning curve for new users. Some reviewers have mentioned that it can be intimidating and complex, requiring dedicated resources to fully leverage its capabilities.
Issues with Stability and Functionality: Users have experienced issues with the stability and reliability of Labtech's infrastructure when using cloud partners. Several built-in scripts, screens, and modules were reported not to work completely, indicating some problems with functionality.
Users recommend using the self-hosted version of ConnectWise Automate instead of the cloud version, particularly for companies with more than 500 employees. It is suggested to evaluate other products if support is a priority and to dedicate sufficient time to planning before implementing ConnectWise Automate. Users advise familiarizing oneself with all the software's capabilities and taking advantage of online courses to gain a deeper understanding. ConnectWise Automate is regarded as reliable with regular updates and excellent support, although there is room for improvement in its reliability. To ensure long-term success, it is recommended to set up ConnectWise Automate correctly from the start and to establish the appropriate configuration. Additionally, when comparing to other free RMMs, users suggest considering the cost and setup required for ConnectWise Automate.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-25 of 40)Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
October 20, 2022
It is a genuine remote Control.
We have various computers that manage the state of the oil, and we cannot always or personally monitor them in real-time, in addition to machinery and android devices that depend on our supervision. When we go out to the field, thanks to the program, we can see what is happening in the office, and with its formats and blocking tools, we can safeguard data from any intruder who approaches us at the site or on networks.
- Good system agility and compatibility with latest generation processors.
- Fast implementation with agile support ready to face critical problems and help us generate possible solutions.
- Information and display of errors in real-time make communication very easy for later repair.
- Fast blocking of networks and access to devices remotely.
- There are times when it takes time to connect and control, but specifically, one could not say that this is random.
- Device expansion is complex and expensive, which I imagine is not suitable for small businesses.
- The initial panel for both PC and droid devices is a bit complex to learn at the beginning of the implementation, but after that, it is quite understandable.
- Support help is needed initially as I had already commented.
October 14, 2022
ConnectWise Automate: The Robust RMM of Choice
As an MSP, our RMM is one of our most used tools in our toolbox. ConnectWise Automate has been our best resource for remote support of our clients. We use it for our day-to-day monitoring, management, and script engine resources. It's integration with other ConnectWise products we use give us seamless management and analysis of our managed environments.
- Silent tools and command access that works behind the scenes so clients aren't disturbed.
- Easily assembled scripts from a robust scripting engine.
- Event monitoring and alerting.
- Integration with some SIEM products is lacking.
- True event monitoring to support NOC activities isn't as robust as some competitor's.
- UI is a little clunky and has not been updated in years.
October 06, 2022
Not For Small MSP
We use ConnectWise Automate for both Microsoft and 3rd party software patching management for our customers. We also utilize its monitoring capabilities in addition to integrated Auvik. Its remote management (Control) is much better than previous RMM we used in the past.
- Remote Control Support (Connectwise Control)
- Customize Report
- Vendors integration
- Dashboard
- Technical support
- Patching is hit and missed
October 03, 2022
In My Opinion, Please, Don't Go with ConnectWise Automate Unless You Never Want to Reduce Your Client Count
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use it with clients on their computers. ConnectWise Automate is supposed to do a lot of things, but it's still called Labtech within the program, which you'd think after all of these years, they would have fixed since it was purchased and renamed years ago. ConnectWise Automate requires a client license for each computer that it is installed on, but you can only add licenses and never remove them. If you don't have enough licenses, you can't use it properly. If you have too many licenses that you aren't using, you have to pay for them no matter what happens. Imagine if Microsoft did the same thing with Office and made you pay for the licenses that you don't use. In my opinion, this isn't a company that wants partners, this is a vendor only interested in making money without regard to their clients. As an MSP, my client count fluctuates, and ConnectWise Automate removes the ability to allow my client count to fluctuate as needed, which to me, that just isn't acceptable.
- Ironclad contract
- Inflexible terms
- Requires licenses to use
- I would appreciate it if you could please value your clients.
- Also, please allow us to add and remove clients as needed so the product scales with our needs.
- I believe you should rename the product from LabTech.
- I would like it if you could make it easier to use.
I am the RMM Manager for ConnectWise Automate. We use ConnectWise Automate for: Patch Management, Process Automation, Software Version Control, Monitoring, Remote Remediation, PC inventory/specification checks, Warranty Management, and Security Features.
Every computer that we manage gets ConnectWise Automate installed on it, and it handles installing the rest of our tools stack and gets those machines assigned to the proper client with the proper settings for that client
Every computer that we manage gets ConnectWise Automate installed on it, and it handles installing the rest of our tools stack and gets those machines assigned to the proper client with the proper settings for that client
- Alerting / Monitoring
- Process Automation
- Software Version Control
- Selective Targeting of Automations
- Patch Management - kind of clunky, but works well
- Reporting
- Endpoint user management
April 20, 2021
ConnectWise Control - Great for Large Organizations
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.
The IT team that I am involved with mainly use this product mainly for screen sharing access to either assist end-users or to manage servers remotely (more so nowadays). It has been invaluable with helping members of the team demonstrate issues with our back-office application so we can speed up support for those users, but equally its been a great help in remote managing servers when other means have been unable to work. We use this in an almost exclusively Windows PC environment so I cannot say how this performs no other platforms and the use is pretty well limited to the aforementioned desktop sharing aspect.
From a regular, IT support aspect, though this is quite a comprehensive asset inventory, support ticketing, monitoring, altering tool.
From a regular, IT support aspect, though this is quite a comprehensive asset inventory, support ticketing, monitoring, altering tool.
- Desktop sharing / view with chat to the operator, file sharing and pass-through for keyboard strokes
- Computer/server monitoring with thresholds and warning
- Search - tracking down computers when you have many by name, logged in user, IP
- End user ticket raising is built into the tray icon which make access really easy
- Really minor niggle but login to the management website can be a pain at times
- Would like to be able to access the remote desktop session as an option to manage rather than always accessing the console session on windows. There is command prompt option to manage computers without interrupting the user but sometimes its just easier to use a GUI.
- The management website has come on leaps and bounds but occasionally we still have the odd issue, but nothing that really stops us achieving what we need to do.
January 28, 2021
Automate Review
We are a managed service provider so we use Automate for all our MSP clients; it helps us to monitor updates for our customers and, if needed, uninstall updates if something went wrong.
- Takes care of updates
- Support
- Technical documentation
- Has a big learning curve just starting out.
- Needs mores simplified directions.
- Better support.
March 14, 2020
ConnectWise Automate
We are an MSP who uses Automate to manage 3000+ endpoints. Automate handles Windows patching, alerting, remote access, among many other things for our business. It is our primary source of management for our users workstations and servers.
- Manages Windows updates.
- Alerting for offline servers.
- Antivirus management.
- Backup management.
- Due to its many features, it seems some areas are a bit difficult to configure.
January 02, 2020
Automate Me, Baby!
We use ConnectWise Automate as our RMM platform. We are happy with the product as a whole. We are using the on-premise version of the software. One complaint we do have is the slowness of the application. However, they are moving more and more functions over to the web URL. At one point, we switched from Labtech over to Kaseya. Kaseya was substantially less expensive, however, we ended up switching back to Labtech within 8 months due to the technical support and lack of features within Kaseya.
- Computer Management
- Remote Control
- Performance
- Integration
October 29, 2019
If you are an MSP, you should be using ConnectWise Automate.
I use it daily in my technical support role. It is used across my organization.
- Seamless integration with other ConnectWise products.
- Works well and is feature rich.
- Allows me to access servers at anytime for patching and maintenance.
- Honestly, there is not much I would change.
- As far as I am concerned; it is the best by far.
- Might be a little expensive for small MSP's...But worth the investment.
October 21, 2019
ConnectWise is essential for any IT Department
We use ConnectWise within our managed services department and also for our internal IT operations. We use ConnectWise to provide remote support for end users' computers. In additional to remote control capabilities we use ConnectWise for patch management and remote monitoring. ConnectWIse is great since it provides a CRM platform and you don't have to purchase a separate CRM platform.
- The reporting is great and it shows clients and staff how many issues have been resolved and how to decrease trouble areas.
- Great at patch management.
- Scripting is one of the thing we use extensively and ConnectWise has great scripts to use and also it's very easy to create your own.
- The remote control capabilities are fast and responsive and the bandwidth overhead is minimal.
- New features are constantly being added.
- Wish is was cheaper. This is a competitive market and they should lower the price to be more competitive.
- The GUI needs to be cleaned up and more streamlined. Currently it's a mess.
- Tech support could be better.
October 07, 2019
Great software for an MSP
We use Automate every day to provide our customers with support. We use it to remote control, automate maintenance tasks, monitor our clients' systems. It is an essential part of how we do business. Our business would not be successful without this application and the rest of the ConnectWise suite of products.
- Remote control.
- Patching.
- Monitoring.
- It is a little slow some times.
- It can be difficult to set-up and maintain.
- The interface is not very intuitive for new users.
October 07, 2019
My viewpoints on ConnectWise
ConnectWise has a CRM, ticketing system, help desk, and tools for project management, billing, and procurement. The business tool also has reporting and dashboards and uses over 300 third-party integrations.
ConnectWise gives businesses a complete business management and process automation platform for technology companies including IT service companies, professional services, software developers, security, and telecom. The workflow rules that are defined in ConnectWise cover various areas of the business, ranging from conducting targeted marketing campaigns to monitoring service delivery using service level agreements.
You can create work plans and project timelines and get detailed reporting on progress of projects. It’s also possible to use the workflow engine to manage deadlines and get notifications of overdue tasks.
- It includes a ticketing system using workflow automation, SLA, as well as performance monitoring and access tickets from mobile devices.
- Dashboards of the tool show overviews and detailed explanations of KPIs. Your business can also use the custom report writer to generate reports on whatever issue you want.
- You can use ConnectWise to automate the range of ITIL process, such as: incident management, availability management, change management, service reporting, service-level management, service asset and configuration management, request management, and knowledge management.
- You can track all your clients information and every single job you do for them. You can do quotes, send them, add providers to compare prices, manage the calendar of the employees, assign tickets to the correct person, there is nothing you can't do with this tool.
- Inside all the greatness, there are some works around that you have to do for specific duties that could be automated.
- Make sure you keep notes on each client profile, you can use the private note section, it is secure and it works as a reminder of everything you need to do about that specific client, only you and your employees will see those.
October 04, 2019
One piece of the puzzle
ConnectWise Automate is used in managing client systems as well as our own internal systems. Users in our support teams use it daily for access to and management of systems, alerting, and updates and users in an account management role also access it regularly for asset reporting and management.
- Scripting
- Remote asset control
- Asset reporting an inventory
- The local client is very robust, but it can be a resource hog.
- The web client is not as full-featured as the local client but runs much faster.
- Updates on the local client are installed automatically when you launch the application, but they can take some time to run. Since there is no option for a window to install them, this can cause delays when launching the software for the first time after a period of inactivity.
October 03, 2019
CW Automate automates our business
RealTime, LLC uses ConnectWise Automate in our managed services department. Automate provides rich data, simple endpoint management, and allows RealTime to automate tasks that were out of reach prior to changing to Automate about 7 years ago.
The primary uses are patch management, VMware management, automation, client onboarding, cybersecurity solutions deployment, reporting data, and tight integration with our PSA, ConnectWise Manage. Remote control via ScreenConnect, or Connect I think it's called now, is pretty seamless and we even have one-click access to backstage when using the web version of Automate. Security-wise, we use AD integration and Two-factor authentication to secure our connections to the tool in and out of the office.
The primary uses are patch management, VMware management, automation, client onboarding, cybersecurity solutions deployment, reporting data, and tight integration with our PSA, ConnectWise Manage. Remote control via ScreenConnect, or Connect I think it's called now, is pretty seamless and we even have one-click access to backstage when using the web version of Automate. Security-wise, we use AD integration and Two-factor authentication to secure our connections to the tool in and out of the office.
- It feeds tons of data to our reporting solution.
- A good overview of client endpoints, online status, av status and access to many tools to keep from disturbing end-users while troubleshooting their computers.
- Synchronizes with our PSA to automate billing changes.
- Tightly integrated with the remote control tools so we don't have to jump into a different console to make that connection.
- Alerting on multiple items (got one just a little while ago from the VMware plugin about a failed drive on a VM Host) and automatic ticket creation, and in many cases, automated remediation.
- Patch management is always a little finicky. Gets better every time.
- If you decide to hitch your MSP to ConnectWise Automate, make sure you have a clear plan of what you want to accomplish and please, save your self a ton of hassle and use ConnectWise consulting to get things going initially.
- Conflicting answers from support on more complicated items.
- Not sure if this applies, but you need to have someone at your MSP whose job is the care and feeding of Automate, as well as that script and automation creation. Not really a complaint, more along the lines of "you are buying a business automation platform, you need to dedicate people to get the most out of it."
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...
February 05, 2019
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.
October 18, 2018
Powerful product but support needs an overhaul
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.
October 03, 2018
Connects Wisely and Quickly
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
August 03, 2018
Connectwise Automate - Tons of power, tons of time spent
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.
June 14, 2018
Connectwise to the rescue!
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.
January 10, 2018
Behold the power of ConnectWise Automate
- Scripting across multiple domains
- Remote Resource Monitoring
- Onboarding
- Patch Management can be un-reliable at times
- Easier UI
- Better integration with AntiVirus providers
December 27, 2017
Automate - the fastest way to improve productivity and client satisfaction for MSPs
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
- 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.
December 01, 2017
We won't change from ConnectWise Automate!
- Remote access
- Alerting on issues
- Integration with ConnectWise
- Quick access to system logs
- Patch Management
- Ease of implementation
- Script library updated