What remote access software would be good for a small/new IT support company?

[rtrice81]

I have used both

simple-help.com

and

screenconnect.com

both are a one time fee, you have your own server to host them or rent a server for a web hosting company.

both work great, screenconnect has a better interface but simple-help has more features, we decided to go with simple-help for the fact it was faster for our techs and it also allowed us to access machine unattended if we used the simplegateway service on the unattended machine.

it also has reports for customers and tech.

we use it to support about 600 users remote around the country.

plus for the smaller shops you can make 5 payments to simple-help

 

[allanc]

I have used both

simple-help.com

and

screenconnect.com

both are a one time fee, you have your own server to host them or rent a server for a web hosting company.

both work great, screenconnect has a better interface but simple-help has more features, we decided to go with simple-help for the fact it was faster for our techs and it also allowed us to access machine unattended if we used the simplegateway service on the unattended machine.

it also has reports for customers and tech.

we use it to support about 600 users remote around the country.

plus for the smaller shops you can make 5 payments to simple-help

From what I have seen at simple-help.com their software does not allow reverse screen sharing. Correct?
How about unattended support?
Thank you in advance.

 

[thoffland]

This is great info. I've been using a paid version of Kaseya at work, and it's a great tool. I'm trying to save the company some money and will look into the kaseya free (of course they didn't tell me about it).

I did try a program called SysaidIT which is pretty good and uses vnc to connect. It's free, but I've been having problems getting the agent installed on some machines, so without really trying too hard, I'm giving up on it.

 

[rtrice81]

From what I have seen at simple-help.com their software does not allow reverse screen sharing. Correct?
How about unattended support?
Thank you in advance.

You can not share your desktop with you customer, but they do have a unattended client.

They also have an tune connection setting that will allow you to tune the connection based on your customer connection.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

 

[allanc]

You can not share your desktop with you customer, but they do have a unattended client.

They also have an tune connection setting that will allow you to tune the connection based on your customer connection.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

I assume that by 'concurrent' they are referring to the number of remote clients that the tech can work with at a time.
However, multiple remote clients can still go into the queue with only one license. Correct?

 

[rtrice81]

i feel like a salesman for them, but i only use their products

any way

yes it is based on concurrent sessions so if you get the 1 license you can only have one active session, but have any many people in the queue as you want.

This is also the same way with the unattended sessions, you can have as many machines as you would like running the application but only 1 sessions with 1 license

you can also have different groups for different techs, and you can limit techs to certain machines as well

 

[allanc]

i feel like a salesman for them, but i only use their products

any way

yes it is based on concurrent sessions so if you get the 1 license you can only have one active session, but have any many people in the queue as you want.

This is also the same way with the unattended sessions, you can have as many machines as you would like running the application but only 1 sessions with 1 license

you can also have different groups for different techs, and you can limit techs to certain machines as well

I wish there was a comparison chart of Simple-Help and GoToAssist Express.

 

[Iconic]

You can look here at a good comparison chart:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_remote_desktop_software

A great comparison chart but unfortunatly it does not highlight a couple options that I require from my Remote software. 1)restart and reconnect 1)restart in safemode and reconnect. Also I see it is missing a few of the software options that members are mentioning...

Personally I use LogMeIn rescue. It has everything I need but I would always be willing to switch to something that has all the functions I use regularly at a cheaper price. Would be nice to have a customized launch instead of directing people to logmein123.com with its generic entry.

 

[allanc]

A great comparison chart but unfortunatly it does not highlight a couple options that I require from my Remote software. 1)restart and reconnect 1)restart in safemode and reconnect. Also I see it is missing a few of the software options that members are mentioning...

Personally I use LogMeIn rescue. It has everything I need but I would always be willing to switch to something that has all the functions I use regularly at a cheaper price. Would be nice to have a customized launch instead of directing people to logmein123.com with its generic entry.

Currently, I use GoToAssist Express.
To date - it has every feature that I would like except Remote Printing.
The one *big* issue that I have is that both Comodo and McAfee firewalls either generate many warning messages or block the application.
I could probably tweak the firewall but:
a) Typically, the client does not have the patience.
b) The time involved would be non-billable.

 

[rtrice81]

to date, i have had not had any virus warning messages, simple-help will not do remote printing

simple-help runs on java and is all web based, they offer a free trial that works as a license verison you should download and give it a try

 

[allanc]

to date, i have had not had any virus warning messages, simple-help will not do remote printing

simple-help runs on java and is all web based, they offer a free trial that works as a license verison you should download and give it a try

Thanks.
I just might take you up on that offer.

 

[rtrice81]

takes no time to get it up and going

 

[Digital Future]

I use LogMeIn Rescue. If you call you can set up a yearly contract to reduce the monthly payments to $99.00/mo. Also by calling you can get the free trial increased to 45 days.

Still at $99.00 a seat, it may seam pricey but the software has so much to offer like Calling Card, Unattended Access, Session Transfer, etc. It really lets you focus on supporting your clients.

 

[allanc]

takes no time to get it up and going

Just received the bad news from my Hosting provider yesterday.
Basically, there are 2 issues:
- The software requies core access to the server and they cannot grant access to install it due to security reasons as we are on a shared hosting platform.
- Simple-Help requires Java Virtual Machine but the Hosting company only permits Java.

 

[gabak]

teamviewer is the best one , it run on windows and linux now

 

[BCC]

we've just changed to logmein-rescue, had been using housecall for a while, but we dropped it after we had quite a few connections dropped & were not able to re-establish the sessions until the cust rebooted - that didn't do anything for customer satisfaction or my hubby's blood-pressure I can tell you!

Have tried various other programs (free & paid) over the years but I think for the time-being we've settled on a combination of LogMeIn-Rescue for ad-hoc customers who just want 1-off support, maintenance clients on support contracts & when we're working from remote locations we use it to get into workshop pc's.

 

[gidman]

if you can afford it, I would recommend TeamViewer. I have never had a problem with it when using it for personal purposes.

I've been using TeamViewer for a few years now, and ended up buying it. It's great, works anywhere in the world and i've never ever had a problem with it. Even with users using Teathering or Via Wi-Fi/WWAN, it scales itself for performance.

The file transfer option is also very very handy, getting rid of the need to have a full time FTP setup for support reasons.

 

[Graystar]

I have been using a UVNC system from Remote Support System ($250 one time fee) for almost two years and liked it a lot and with the roll out of Win7 I started having too many issues that I decided to try the Go To Assist Express free trial.

Last night I had a customer online and was trying to install the unattended connection plug-in and it would not work.
I called GoToAssist's customer support line and was able to get a tech in 2 minutes who screen shared with me while I was screen sharing with the client.
The tech walked me through the process and it was a great support experience.
This level of support is what I want to provide and while it may be a little more price wise, as of this morning I think it is worth it.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.

 

[keeperofthecode]

I've been using UVNC for a while but it doesn't work good on vista & 7 machines. As I look to expand our remote services I've been relentlessly testing the different remote softwares out there in hopes of finding "The One." It seems pretty obvious to me that Logmein and gotoassist are the top dogs, and this espicially shows in their price. Techinline was very promising but requires that internet explorer be running to keep connection, no good if you're working on internet explorer, which is a regular thing these days. Remote Support System was my next choice but it seems incredibly clunky. In my tests my customers were having trouble getting the connection going, it was just too complicated. Instant housecall gave me the same reults as RSS.

I've just about settled on TeamViewer. I was hoping to get some negatives about it. Theres plenty of comments in favor of it and it would be nice to find out the bad stuff I might be missing in my examination of it prior to dishing out the cash for it. Thanks.

 

[SMocek]

I have been using a UVNC system from Remote Support System ($250 one time fee) for almost two years and liked it a lot and with the roll out of Win7 I started having too many issues that I decided to try the Go To Assist Express free trial.

Last night I had a customer online and was trying to install the unattended connection plug-in and it would not work.
I called GoToAssist's customer support line and was able to get a tech in 2 minutes who screen shared with me while I was screen sharing with the client.
The tech walked me through the process and it was a great support experience.
This level of support is what I want to provide and while it may be a little more price wise, as of this morning I think it is worth it.
Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Any chance you could share what the tech did to fix it? I've been using GoToAssist Express relatively trouble free, but I like to anticipate problems in advance whenever I can.

Stan Mocek