Buyer beware, its no wonder there is no trial period on this product.
November 01, 2022

Buyer beware, its no wonder there is no trial period on this product.

Steve Muenstermann | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with ConnectWise Manage

We are trying to use it to manage our project and CMSP client based services. We wanted a application to track projects, tickets, CMSP services, contracts, and sell for proposals, contract creation and lead follow-up. We were seeking efficiency for managing operations in a rapidly growing business. The challenge is the lies CW Salesperson told us on the native integration, simple data entry, ez management, interfaces with all of our business apps easily, calendars sync immediately, works with our office suite, CRM, etc. Unless you business is fully running on Microsoft Dynamics and O365 this may not be for you. It is an absolute money pit in my opinion.

Technology wise, it is comparable to an early access database. A very homegrown antiquated feel. It also requires a 100% dedicated resource for managing it. The salesperson told us it it was like having an added person as a resource. It certainly is having an opposite impact.
  • Connects with Sell
  • Inventory management
  • Numerous daily nuisance emails
  • Too many disparate pieces
  • Manage and Sell should all be on the same application
  • Integration to work properly requires costly 3rd party apps
  • Significant hours lost in training, integration and implementation
  • Too many to list
  • High COO (300+ hours vested into Connectwise SW that adds inefficiencies and integrates poorly to our business applications)
  • Content use is not at all intuitive, it requires extensive training to learn where they hid all the menus for everything. The university has a ton of content. But the 'needle in the haystack' type hunt for answers.
  • Staff members become frustrated due to more work for the same results. (We had one quit)
  • Constant updating of pricing & products not sold through the few large IT distributors
Everyone but dynamics had holes in it. Dynamics is good, but it requires more development time. I spoke with some people that have CW and liked it. But when I inquired after our frustrations, I discovered they had a full time scheduling & logistics CW manager and the field people were using it purely like any other more simplistic ticket system. They said it would be impossible otherwise.

The one big difference is the transparency of the sales effort. The other sales people were honest on the limitations or potential challenges and worked with us. They also worked with our agenda. At CW they don't have that option. The consulting time is eaten through a pre-formatted agenda which they communicate too you, not with you.

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

No

Are you happy with ConnectWise PSA's feature set?

No

Did ConnectWise PSA live up to sales and marketing promises?

No

Did implementation of ConnectWise PSA go as expected?

No

Would you buy ConnectWise PSA again?

No

You absolutely need a full time individual on this program to manage it properly. It is likely a powerful application. However, you have to know how all the disparate parts interact with the other content in the application. How they actually interface with your businesses operation applications (really check this one out as it only seems to play nice with Microsoft suites based on our experience.) and decide how much time and additional money you are willing to bury into this. Figure at least 2x over CW cost your initial period of out-of-pocket costs.

ConnectWise PSA Feature Ratings

Organize and prioritize service tickets
7
Subscription-based notifications
10
ITSM collaboration and documentation
3
Ticket creation and submission
5
Ticket response
6
External knowledge base
1
Internal knowledge base
5
Customer portal
5
IVR
5
Social integration
5
Email support
5
Help Desk CRM integration
5