ConnectWise Control 6.7
A versatile cloud support solution, offering myriad branding options and a flexible licensing model
If you’re not satisfied with a generic support solution, ConnectWise Connect will be right up your street. It offers a great range of features that can be customised with your own branding.
Licensing options are very flexible, with prices starting at around £15 per month for a “One” licence. As the name suggests, this allows one technician to open a single connection to up to ten unattended agents – and also gives you access to file transfers, web meetings and remote printing features. The next step up is a “Standard” licence; from around £28 per month, this permits up to three sessions per user and adds unlimited unattended agents, VoIP audio for meetings and support for the iOS and Android mobile guest clients.
Getting set up on the cloud portal requires no technical knowledge whatsoever. You simply need to provide an administrative email address and a company name, which then forms part of the URL your clients will use to access support.
Starting a remote session is quick: the portal’s support page presents a connection URL and a five-digit code. You can directly email these to the user, copy them to the clipboard or, for session booking, save them as an ICS file for your calendar.
When the client enters the correct code, the Connect app loads up on the remote system and links with the portal. The technician will see when they have done this, and can then double-click to start a session.
Once connected, you get a complete interactive view of the user’s desktop, along with a feature-packed toolbar. From here you can initiate file transfers, capture or annotate the client’s screen, activate session recordings, start a voice or text chat and share your own screen. There’s also a useful option to reboot the client and reconnect without having to install a permanent agent. We tested this on both Windows 10 and macOS High Sierra and found it worked perfectly every time.
If you want to set up unattended access, you can use the Build page of the portal to create a tailor-made agent installer for Windows, macOS and Linux. Once we’d installed these on our Windows 10 and MacBook clients, they promptly appeared in the portal’s Access page ready for anytime connection.
“If you want to set up unattended access, you can create a tailor-made agent installer for Windows, macOS and Linux”
The portal also features a handy sidebar. By default, this shows a thumbnail of the client’s screen, but you can switch it to show a basic hardware inventory, a list of messages exchanged or commands sent and a graph showing who last connected and for how long. You can place selected clients in session groups for easier management, and there’s a built-in web conference service, too. It’s accessed using a custom company URL and meeting code, which brings up an interface for screen sharing, audio chats and messaging.
If the web portal isn’t convenient, the native apps for iOS, Android and Chrome OS offer the same key features as the browser interface. Just be warned that the iOS client requires iOS 11 or later – so it wouldn’t work on our fourth-generation iPad, which can’t be updated past iOS 10.3.
ConnectWise’s final distinctive feature is, as we’ve mentioned, its support for custom branding. Within the portal we were able to choose themes and modify any part of the front-end with our own company logos. We were even able to use our own favicons for the browser, and set a custom system tray icon for the agent.
ConnectWise Connect is a great choice for businesses seeking the simplicity of a remote support solution, while retaining a good set of features and control over their own branding. It’s reassuringly secure, client connections can be made in double-quick time, and the pricing options mean it’s accessible to organisations of all sizes.
Windows 7/Server 2008 upwards macOS 10.8 upwards Linux Mobile apps: Android/iOS 11/Chrome OS