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Powerful business tool with room to grow
Updated January 19, 2020

Powerful business tool with room to grow

Nicolas Poague | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

2015.2

Modules Used

  • MSP integration, service desk, sales, marketing manager, report writer, configuration/asset management

Overall Satisfaction with ConnectWise Manage

We use ConnectWise across the whole organization. Our business relies on it, as it is how we centrally manage our customers, their assets, sales leads, service tickets, and projects. Everything must go in ConnectWise! Our schedules are managed through the application, so it is the main way employees can track what everyone is working on. All client communication happens through ConnectWise, whether in relation to a service ticket or sales proposal. It's integrated with our quoting system as well as our network monitoring system, so everything ultimately ends up in ConnectWise.
  • Service tracking: whether for help desk, sales, or network alerting, everything gets tracked as a "ticket." in the system. Whether automated through the multiple integrations available, or performed manually, the service tickets are easy to manage. Our system heavily relies on ticketing, so having multiple ways to create and manage tickets is a must.
  • Customization: it's built so that businesses can customize the features to meet their needs. Being in IT, we can create multiple "boards" where we can lock down permissions only to certain departments. Those boards then can track specific kinds of tickets. The customization can go beyond that as well, from workflow to asset management, so needless to say it is very flexible.
  • Reporting: since everything is in a database, the latest reporting features with ConnectWise (such as Report Writer), make it easier to pull the data you need. So for example, we pull reports on sales leads monthly to track how many quotes were referred by technicians, and then use that to reward the technicians. This can also assist tremendously when meeting with clients to present data on the work we've done, as well as internally to identify any trends.
  • Performance: we use an on-premise instance of ConnectWise, but our system meets or exceeds the required specs. However at times the system can be a bit clunky. When our business relies on using the system, we can't afford to wait even more than a few seconds for a screen to load.
  • Interface: while the application is extremely versatile, the interface seems a little dated and some of the menu items can be confusing. This has improved slightly since the previous version, but I'd like to see a more modern look and feel with a design that is a little more intuitive.
  • Project module: the relatively new project module was a feature we were hoping to use heavily for our larger scale projects, however it ended up not being able to fit our needs. Specifically I know the projects module didn't integrate will with workflows in ConnectWise, which we use heavily, but I know our project team found other areas where it didn't meet their needs. We've provided this feedback to ConnectWise in hopes to have future enhancements, but in the meantime we continue to use regular service tickets for our projects.
  • ConnectWise has provided much more efficient customer service. Since everything is centrally managed, dispatchers can now handle and prioritize incoming tickets and schedule them accordingly. Our customers quickly get used to our process, so they know when they call to provide a ticket number for reference, and their asset tag number. This will allow the dispatcher to easily locate items and saves time from having to gather additional information.
  • Our remote monitoring and management has drastically improved. Before we utilized the integration with our monitoring system, there was little or no proactive work being done for customers' assets. Now that we have ticketing integrated with our monitoring, rather than taking a reactive approach, we are now reaching out to the customer to provide proactive assistance. This impresses the customer, making us look good, and also saves additional time on the help desk from handling issues that would arise had we not taken the proactive measures.
  • We've lessened admin time substantially. Since I came on board, ConnectWise was still rather new, but I was not familiar with their old system. However ConnectWise has allowed us to streamline the scheduling and resource management process so that less time is spent tracking down people, getting status updates from them, and figuring out how to schedule something. Over the last four years, our processes have changed as we've learned how to more efficiently use the product, and we've seen admin time decrease, allowing employees to do their actual work.
  • serviceledger
Our team previously used ServiceLedger prior to switching to ConnectWise. I do not personally have experience with ServiceLedger, but I am told the switch was made due to the more extensive functionality that ConnectWise offers. ServiceLedger looks to be more focused on service desk management, while our business now uses ConnectWise across the board for all departments and just about anything relating to our customers.
ConnectWise is most suited for a business that can really take advantage of all its features. The company needs to evaluate how many of the features they can really use in order for it to be cost effective. So if one was just looking for a help desk solution, using ConnectWise is probably not the best solution as it would provide much more functionality than is needed. On the other hand, if a company has multiple large customers, departments, and needs a way to track issues and scheduling along with the reporting, asset management, sales, and workflow capabilities, ConnectWise is a good pick. Lastly the prospective ConnectWise user would want to evaluate what kind of integrations they may require, or could benefit from, and make sure that ConnectWise has a relationship with their third party vendors. For example, our network monitoring system integrates well with ConnectWise to create and track alerts. Now that we heavily use ConnectWise we always make sure any new products we look at can integrate with ConnectWise.

Using ConnectWise Manage

The product works awesomely. The only factors holding back a 10 star rating are some of the upgrades that I believe are necessary. Namely, active directory integration for the customer portal is a feature that is long overdue. AD integration on the technician side should also be made available for subscribers of the cloud hosted solution.

ConnectWise Manage Training

They're online training courses, specifically the online videos, are very professionally done and are kept up to date.

Using ConnectWise Manage

Since the latest updates, the interface hides options that used to be easy to access and everything seems slower. The interface also continues to be outdated looking and cumbersome.

ConnectWise Manage Reliability

ConnectWise seems to have a good understanding of the IT service industry. During the required onboarding training, they even preach configuring only features that you need right now, as you can always scale up later. The feature set for the most part takes into considerations all aspects of an IT business, whether small or enterprise, or growing from one to the next.