Datto Autotask PSA vs. Ivanti Neurons for ITSM

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

It's a great system for anyone between wanting something that's just plug-n-play that works out of the box, or someone who wants to shape it to make it their own, and do things their way. It's easy to build your processes into the system, or you can just run with how it's been preconfigured. One of it's limited features is document management. While the system will allow you to upload documents to a record, it's purely storage. It's not suitable for processes that require document processing functionality.

• 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

• 100% ITIL Process Compliance.
• Dashboards, Reporting, Analytics.
• Workflow Automation.
• Holistic Overview of IT Health.
• Easily customizable.
• Self Service customer portal.
• Integration (ERP, CRM, EPM, SCCM, Discovery Tools, Softchoice, Active Directory).
• HR Automation (Onboarding, Offboarding, Changes).
• Change Control including Change Notifications.
• Asset Scanning, Asset Management, Asset Integration.
• Policy and Contract Management.
• Software Inventory and Software Entitlement.
• Procurement Integration (Purchase Orders, Invoices, Shipments, Packing Slips, Product Catalog).
• Approval Workflows.
• Audit Capabilities.

• 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

• Had a little trouble sending some files remotely a few times, but it could have been on our end.
• The system was a little different from what we were used to. We had to drill down into the program a bit more than expected.
• We couldn't tell if some of our older machines were having problems with it, or if it was the program itself.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

We are fully committed to this system. After customizing it for the past 3 years we have no plans to change

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

You will need a certified partner to make sure you are configured to meet the needs of your organization. If you use it as is/turnkey then Ivanti Service Manager (powered by Heat) will begin to be more of a clunky product.

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

Initial response is usually fast, but solving issues takes longer than expected and most of the times it is not clear what exactly the issue is and when it is going to be solved. It would be helpful to know if there are already complaints by other customers regarding new issues, so that we know that we are not alone and that Ivanti support is already aware of the problems.

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

From what I've seen of ServiceNow, Ivanti Service Manager seems to be easier to configure for smaller teams. In addition, the expense necessary to fully build-out a ServiceNow system was much larger. Both systems follow ITIL framework recommendations quite closely, which was a major feature we were looking for in a Service Management system.

• 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

• Our instance has introduced integration of HEAT Voice and HEAT CRM to our contact center, which has resulted in reporting efficiencies in our group.
• The product has allowed an in-house team to administer the product and support it rather than rely on our IT Organization for basic reporting and administrative needs ($$ savings)
• A browser-based application has eliminated the time expended on installing the product for newer users.

Incentivized