ChangeGear Service Desk vs. Datto Autotask PSA

It's perfect for companies of all sizes

Incentivized

In my opinion, Datto Autotask is exceptionally complicated to set up, manage, and use on a daily basis. I would think the target market for this product would be someone managing a team of 20 - 50 people, possibly more. In my experience, for it to run properly you will need to dedicate at least half an FTE to running this product in an organization of that size per month. I would not recommend it for companies with less than 10 people or for companies that value quick communication with their clients. I would not recommend it for companies using Datto's RMM product. The integration exists, but it is clearly a bolt-on. They were not developed together and they are slow to talk to each other. Frequently you cannot add details from RMM sessions into the PSA without manually copying the ticket number, and if the ticket is more than a week old, then you can't even find it with the ticket number.

Incentivized

• Change Control
• Ease of Use
• Simplicity

Incentivized

• AutoTask allows for us to receive and work support tickets very easily. We've setup various 'Issue Types' that in turn are bound to SLAs ensuring that items are worked appropriately as they are received.
• The automation that AutoTask allows for with regards to various emails/requests coming through has been great. It allows for us to not have to constantly "watch the queue" as when a critical item arrives the appropriate persons are notified and can work it.
• I feel that the management of AutoTask for both user setup, and various automations is done well. We're able to copy settings as needed, and create templates for multiple items.

Incentivized

• Not sure if this is due to our back end, but ChangeGear Service Desk can sometimes bog down. Speed can always be improved and, while version 6 has been impressive so far, slow downs are still common.
• Browser compatibility can sometimes be hit or miss. Certain fields would not work on Chrome, so our department has required FireFox. I have not tested 6 on other browsers but hopefully the upgrade has taken care of this.
• The communications with customers are not easy to sift through. With limited attention spans, seeing a subject line filled with 'gibberish' causes our customers to either delete or leave the message forever unread. Again, not sure if due to our implementation, but I would clean that sort of thing up.

Incentivized

• The GUI is a little dated.
• Some integrations are limited for not being a Datto product.
• While not as complex to set up as Connectwise, it definitely requires some serious thought during the initial setup.
• Email processing could offer more options for parsing keywords and allow for more automation.
• The mobile app is just not worth using in my experience.

Incentivized

After using multiple products on the market, Autotask was intuitive and easy to manage.

Incentivized

Because it allows me to work in (probably) the most organized way possible. It allows me to collaborate quickly and rather effortlessly with coworkers within my team and other teams in the Technology department. The deduction in rating is due to the issues with speed and browser compatibility. Version 6 has been a revelation but I as always, there's room for improvement.

Incentivized

Datto Autotask PSA is a full featured product that can do almost anything you need. There is a significant learning curve to get started which requires several hours spent in product training. Additionally, several hours / days are needed to get clients imported, contracts configured, and integrations implemented. Once the setup and user training is complete, the product is very functional, but it's imperative to not get overwhelmed when starting out.

Incentivized

They are fairly quick at returning a response to a problem and have been able to fix all issues for the most part.

Incentivized

As this is my first position in an IT support environment, I have never used or evaluated a different product. Products such as ServiceNow are always mentioned as upgrades but the finances and logisitcal situations for the institution I work at do not allow and//or necessitate the use of such a tool.

Incentivized

The portion of Autotask that we've used other companies for prior to using Autotask is the Endpoint Management. The Autotask Endpoint Management (AEM) portal integrates perfectly with their PSA/CRM tools. It's alerting features are much better than the above software as there aren't a bunch of superfluous and unneeded alerts. Instead, it only alerts for things that you specify that you want. Alerts aside, for the PSA/CRM, I don't have much to compare it to as Autotask was the first PSA we tried. It's hard to imagine a PSA having more features or doing a better job than Autotask.

Incentivized

• For the time I've been working at this job, reports have always been positive for incident resolution rates.
• We use the Incident Management module for event support related requests. We provide A/V support and the IM allows us to create tasks for setting up the room, thus creating a thread of responsibility for customer interaction and statistics for our institution's registrar regarding event space / classroom usage.
• Implementation of customer surveys in resolution emails has allowed us to gauge the areas we are strong at and areas we need to improve. This has proved vital since its implementation last quarter.

Incentivized

• We were able to identify the profitability of our entire client base.
• We identified a loss of over 1 million dollars for time unbilled consultancy fees using metrics derived from Autotask.
• Autotask helped us serve our client base in a professional manner, it's like having an entire department at your finger tips.
• Autotask is the heartbeat of our operation.

Incentivized