Item: ConnectWise Automate
Rating: 9
Author: Garry Adams

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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.

Pros and Cons

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.

Return on Investment

As a services-based company, Automate is Central to providing support to clients. Without it, we would not be able to manage the share volume of devices that we managed today, and volume equals revenue.
There is a cost to any tool, but Automate will return that investment over many times by allowing you to scale with smaller staff sizes.
Automating tasks beyond remote access allows our team to work more efficiently thereby supporting a larger number of devices with a smaller staff.

Alternatives Considered

Continuum Command, Kaseya IT Center and Autotask

Automate is the most well-established platform among its peers. Because it is part of a native ecosystem, you know that everything from remote management to ticketing to quoting an invoicing will work together. I have used other platforms, and many of them share core functionality. The choice of your RMM tool is largely dependent on your choice in other tools that will be in your software suite.

Support Rating

Support can often take a long time to resolve an issue depending on what the problem is. They are responsive though. My support experience typically tends to be with more advanced issues that have a longer resolution time by nature. We tend to solve more trivial problems internally and do not often need to reach out to support.

Key Insights

Do you think ConnectWise Automate delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with ConnectWise Automate's feature set?

Yes

Did ConnectWise Automate live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of ConnectWise Automate go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy ConnectWise Automate again?

Yes

Other Software Used

ConnectWise Sell (formerly Quosal), ConnectWise Manage, Smartsheet

Likelihood to Recommend

Automate integrates natively with the rest of the ConnectWise suite. If you are looking for a one-stop-shop, then Automate, Control and Sell are a great way to go. There are regular updates to the toolset, but because it has been around for so long certain aspects of it still seem quite dated. For example, the local client is not well optimized. The web version is making progress, but still lacking the ability to export asset reports called data views. Once all of the functionality from the local client is available on the web client that will make a significant difference.

One piece of the puzzle

Overall Satisfaction with ConnectWise Automate (formerly LabTech)