Item: ConnectWise Automate
Rating: 7
Author: Jack Skinner

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

LabTech is used across our entire organization for both MSP and non-MSP clients. It assists with the management and tracking of the PC assets across all clients, gives our Team the tools and information that they need to support the endpoints, and the automation needed for deployment and support of a large number of endpoints with fewer resources.

Pros and Cons

Automation
Customization
Flexibility
Managment

Technical Support
QA of new releases
Communications with their customers

Return on Investment

Fewer human resources needed
Occasional additional man hours needed for customization.
Product grows as we do

Alternatives Considered

MAXfocus and N-Able

Other Software Used

ConnectWise, QuoteWerks

Likelihood to Recommend

LabTech is a great product, but has great room for improvement and has gradually improved over the past year or so. It lacks some maturity in the product, but excels in features and flexibility. The lack of maturity can usually be over come with some customization due to its flexibility, but it requires additional man hours spent on the product. At times, the support of the test technology is also an issue, but again can usually be over come by additional customization.

Users and Roles

8 - Account Managers, In House IT, Engineers, Service Desk, and Help Desk

Support Headcount Required

1 - An Engineer is needed to support LabTech as you need scripting skills and knowledge of all aspects of servers, software, and networks to properly implement this solution and use it to its fullest capabilities.

Business Processes Supported

Automation
Inventory
Day to Day Support

Innovative Uses

Watching for Malware/Randsomware
Automate work and billing for Break/Fix clients
Deployment of Solutions

Future Planned Uses

More Automation and Resolution
Migration Automation
Better Reporting and Strategy Insight

Likelihood to Renew

Support and the Speed of supporting the latest technology is the main reason for not giving this a 10. But the product is powerful and flexible. The best way that I can sum it up is "You can get out of it what you put in to it"

Products Replaced

Key Differentiators

Price
Product Features
Product Usability

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I did a very in-depth review and feel that we made the right choice. There has been bumps as there always is with everything. Nothing is perfect and when people tell you that it is, they are not being transparent and you need to look that much harder at something.

Implementation Rating

Start small and learn the in's and out's before making policies and rolling things out company wide. Ask the questions of why if you don't agree with something or your company does things a different way. Usually they are done a certain way for a reason. Start simple with roll out and slowly enable or add on the functionality that is needed.

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house

Implementation Phases

Change Management Lessons

Change management was minimal - LabTech keeps a good history and audit of what it does and what the techs so. We have very seldom had any issues with tacking anything. The security roles are granular and customizable, but the lack of tiered approvals could be an issue. We utilize a ticket system to track the approval for the tasks executed.

Implementation Issues

Understanding the inner workings of it
How somethings related to others
How other things would be effected by a change

Training Types Used

Online training
Self-taught

Online Training

The Online training has been re-done and needs a lot more work. When you look at training in different roles, it shows a lot of the same topics but no explanation to what is different about them. Several times that topics are the exact same, but they make you re-take the same information for a different topic, instead of marking that you have already completed that portion of training.

Ease of ConnectWise Automate Training

Once you understand the product, you can figure most things out yourselves. But there are a few hidden things that you won't ever figure out without someone explaining it to you

Support Rating

I have worked with Support for many years on the product. At the time of writing this review, it takes almost 5 business days just for a support ticket to be assigned to a Tier 1 support agent. Then workflow seems to be that the Tier 1 Support requests logs and support files that are no longer relevant to the situation as a long enough history isn't kept and the files are too large to send via their normal methods. Then once you do get them the information, they start going through a level 1 check list and you go round and round on that. Once you are through the checklist, then start going back and forth with a higher tier support with other things that they should check. Once you are done there, then it gets escalated and things start to happen as they should of when you first submitted the ticket over a week ago.

All of that said, they are starting and trying hard to improve on support and I have seen a slow change. Most of these issues are due to a transistion of Support and hopefully will be resolved in the very near future.

ConnectWise Automate Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Good followup Problems get solved Support understands my problem Support cares about my success	Slow Resolution Difficult to get immediate help Slow Initial Response

Premium Support

No - To me, the additional things that you get from Premium Support are not justified by the cost. Also, I fully disagree with having to pay to "be supported" when you are already supposed to be receiving a certain level of support.

Bug Resolution

Yes - Yes and No. It depends on how it was submitted and where they are at in releases. This also ties into some of the support issues that we have had.

Exceptional Examples of ConnectWise Automate Support

Yes, there are certain people there that know the product inside and out and are high enough to make anything happen. When something is really difficult or things have gone sideways enough, they always seem to get involved.