ManageEngine Endpoint Central Reviews

Our main use case, the core function we are using it for, is Patch Management. We download the patches from the database in the Desktop Central server, then we test the patches in our system and push those patches on the server, Microsoft server and Windows, user machines.

Inventory Management, Managing Index of Central, was the second main function that we were using to maintain all the records of our servers, laptops, and all the other devices, like Cisco devices and other things on our network. We manage all of our assets through Central.

We have directory information using User Management, where we sync all users from the Active Directory to Desktop Central to give access to the users.

We did not use Mobile Device Manager, MDM.

The first benefit that we use Desktop Central for is this: In our audit reports, we have to compile a list of all the vulnerable systems and determine which are healthy systems and which are vulnerable and highly nervous systems. On a quarterly basis, we have to make sure that all the systems are healthy. We categorize all the highly vulnerable systems and install the patches on those using Desktop Central. 

Patch Management is the most valuable feature of Desktop Central. We have all the information on the patches we are going to push on the systems and which patches are not installed on the server. We know which servers or Windows machines or Linux machines are highly vulnerable. We categorize the machines so if there are any issues on one of the machines, we just take care of those specific machines which are highly vulnerable and take care of the patches which are not installed on those machines. 

Inventory is also a very good feature of Desktop Central. We don't need to manage all the inventories manually. We just install the Managing Desktop Central agent in all the systems, put down the report request, and download all the reports to share with management. 

There are many features that we use from Desktop Central, but Inventory Management is a solid feature, and Patch Management is a solid feature.

One area that could be improved with the solution would be integrations. Sometimes it happens that the agent got corrupted on the systems, and we have to manually uninstall and push it to the systems again. Also, ManageEngine does not recognize systems that are not on our network. For example, one of our employees in another city did not connect his or her laptop to the system for a few months, or just connected to the internet and did not connect to our VPN, so the agent got corrupted or disconnected from our ManageEngine. Then we have to manually ask them to connect to the network. Then we push all the updates.

That's the only issue we really face with Desktop Central. So if somehow we could connect it through the internet, that would be a great improvement. Right now, if a user is not connected to the VPN or the network and he's outside the country or city, and when he just connects the internet, ManageEngine does not connect to communicate with our server. 

Regarding additional features, I had created a lot of tickets for feature enhancement, things which were not available in Desktop Central previously, but were noted by the team, developed by the Desktop Central team, and published. For the last year and a half, and I haven't opened any tickets or seen any additional requirements from our side. Desktop Central is very good software.

I worked with this solution for about five years. I have had a great experience with Desktop Central, and I have great knowledge of this product. Five years of experience for one product is sufficient to learn the things under the product.

The performance of Desktop Central is nice. We don't need any high-end servers for Desktop Central; we just install it on a VM, Virtual Machine, the database, gigs, memory, and a few hard discs, and we don't need any high-end CPUs for the Desktop Central support. The performance is good, and it doesn't require any high-end processor.

The solution is definitely scalable. Once you are working on a virtualization environment, it's very simple to scale any product. We can enhance the memory and the processor of the servers.

We have around 400 or 500 client machines using the solution, and I was the person managing it for the last five years. In the last three months, my colleague has now been taking care of managing Desktop Central.

Customer support was great. They were helpful and always responded to my queries, and they help really quickly. I'm very happy with the Desktop Central support team.

I created a lot of tickets for support and new features. They promptly responded and took care of those issues and how to resolve them. If I don't know how to perform the step, they always send detailed documentation or detailed steps to perform those tasks. The technical support is good. 

One thing that could be improved is documentation. For example, with Atlassian Jira and Confluence, their documentation is very strong. Desktop Central could improve the documentation so we don't need to create the support requests first; we just go to the documentation, and it should be very simple in words so everyone who is not technical or doesn't have the in-depth knowledge of Desktop Central can easily read and perform those steps. 

The initial setup of the solution is simple. We have a server on which we set up the Desktop Central server, and we synchronize our active directory with it. Then we push the agents in, on the OUs, and then on all the system got pushed. It only takes a few hours for the initial setup from scratch. 

The upgrade process is also very simple. We just bring down the system, get the update downloaded to the server, post it on the server, install it, and bring the server up. So that's great, and the agent always upgrades on the systems as well, once the server is upgraded. The upgrades only take a few minutes.

The validation process is quite long because we have to make sure that it upgrades all the agents on all the client machines. The validation is a lengthy process just to make sure that all the systems are upgraded on the new version of the agent. But the overall process is not very long.

I did the deployment of the solution on my own. I always upgrade the server myself, and I was the person who was managing the Desktop Central server and managing the Desktop Service Desk on my own.

The pricing is fine. We purchase a one year agreement and one year support with Desktop Central for 500 users, and the price was fine. We were not charged for any additional costs, except the licensing.

I've recommended this product to a few of my colleagues in different companies because I was admiring this product when we need to make sure that all the systems are healthy and patches are installed. It's a very user-friendly product, and anyone can use this product.

The automation control over scheduling server patching along with the ability to automate the reboot time has been critical. This process isn't straightforward, but after figuring out the requirements staggering reboots is an easy process to manage.

The software has provided the ability for us to not only replace SCCM seamlessly, but to train and allow for easy cross training.

The way patches are pushed out and applied can use a little work as it appears the patches are pushed out and just force applied as a group, as opposed to a specific registry pattern. Not too often, but this causes servers lockup or fail patching as it halts reboots before other patches can be applied which cannot be applied because the registry is locked from previous patches applied.

This software has been in place coming up on a year now. The flexibility of the software has proven very useful. A small business perspective replacing SCCM with this product has proven both cost effective and an efficient use of our staffs time.

We have had no issues deploying it.

There have been no stability issues.

Overall once we figured out the process structure we really did not have a whole lot of issues. From our client base, and architecture I do not see anything that would hinder scalability based on the way the remote offices are setup within this code.

I would preface this by saying in general the FAQ's are pretty helpful. Overall the support system has been helpful for this specific product, but we have not needed a whole lot of assistance.

We previously used SCCM which is a great enterprise solution if you can keep the administration knowledge on-site. For a small business, SCCM did not meet the ease of use or the price break which was the reasoning for the move to Desktop Manager MSP 9.

The installation of the product itself was very straightforward. The installer was pretty much default settings all the way through and was able to reference FAQ's for the few custom settings we desired.

Implementation was done in-house and for the most part was straightforward. Once the client setup process is done I would suggest babysitting the automated pushes for a couple of weeks. We ran into some weird issues that we were able to resolve fairly quickly and completed the maintenance during our timeframe which otherwise would have just looked like the patching jobs failed completely when they succeeded in reality.

The ROI switching to this product was noticeable after it had been around six months as we were able to retire our SCCM product along with the licensing that comes with using SQL.

I like the ease of setup and administration. There are some minor annoyances with how often the server software needs patched, how patching is applied and how the terminologies are translated.

Keep an eye on the automated reporting that is generated. We have not fully invested the time to discover why we have inconsistencies with the data, but it appears to be happening.

I'm currently using this solution as a configuration manager, for patch management, and scheduling the batches to run automatically, as well as OS deployment, MDM, for install agents on other computers, to allow us to see the software in the inventory.

Patch management is the most useful aspect of the product.

The initial setup is easy.

The solution is stable.

The scalability is very good. 

Technical support could be better. They should increase their hours of availability so that they are easier to reach and it's more convenient for us.

The pricing could be a bit better. 

They must change project management on Service Desk Plus to make it possible to integrate with Microsoft Project on Service Desk Plus and to increase the results on Google maps, on the Mobile Management, so that we can track our mobiles devices. Right now, it's not integrated with Google maps. This is a major issue.

I've been using the solution for four years.

The stability of the solution is very good. the performance is reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. there are no bugs or glitches. 

The solution scales well. If a company needs to expand it, it can.

While you can live chat with technical support, they are only available for maybe seven or eight hours a day. If you have a problem at night they aren't available. 

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. It's not a problem at all in terms of being able to handle the implementation. 

I handled the implementation myself. If did not need the assistance of any integrators or consultants.

It's my understanding that the pricing is pretty high.

We're a partner. 

I am currently working with both cloud and on-premises deployment models. 

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten. 

What is valuable for us is the ability to manage Windows OS, Mac OS, and Linux OS on a single console. This also includes push applications, patches, and configurations on all three platforms.

We are able to manage all user operating systems on a single console.

Management of Mac OS X, Linux OS, and encryption. We would like this to be on par with how Windows OS is managed.

Also, the reporting feature could be more flexible.

We have been using the solution for three years.

We had an issue with the reporting feature, but other than this, it's pretty robust.

We did not encounter any issues with scalability.

The technical support is excellent.

We previously used SCCM and ARD. Cost was a big factor. Just the ability to manage all operating systems on a single console was the main reason we chose this solution. Ease of use for the administration was also a big factor.

The setup was straightforward.

We evaluated Jamf, Lansweeper, TriActive, FileWave, etc.

Look for something that will fit your environment, budget, and level of expertise. For us, we manage all OSs. This was a perfect fit.

We also have 5000 endpoints. ManageEngine allows us to manage these endpoints at a fraction of the cost.

Our IT administrators are also able to use the product without much complication compared to other competitors.

The functionality most valuable to us is the distribution of our software packages to all workstations. We also like the automatic asset management function which allows us the ability to retrieve and configure all necessary CI reports for auditing issues, for example.

This software gives good insight of all the running applications, especially those that were not installed through DC9 or manually by an admin.

Often I had issues with user configurations. An additional check should be built that, before installing software through a user config, the software checks if an application has already been installed on the workstation or not. Especially because of roaming profiles and workplaces nowadays, this becomes a “must-have” option.

I've used it for approximately one year.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

9/10

Before DC9 I used Scense (Dutch-programmed software distribution tool) which was only good for distribution of software, mostly through scripted applications. DC9 was very much more intuitive, flexible and clear.

Just click and install.

Just downloaded from manageengine.com and implemented and configured myself. Read an overview of this software beforehand so you know how you want and/or need to configure the software.

DC9 is a simple, cheap and complete software distribution tool, also to configure all necessary options to control all kinds of OS options on the workstations like in Microsoft Group Policy Editor.

I value the remote deployment solution the most as that functionality is used daily. However, other parts of the software like patch management, inventory and client/user configurations are also highly regarded.

It changed the entire flow of my department, though it is not a large department ranging from 55 to 75 users and about 130 clients (which includes lab and student PCs). I was able to save one full time employee and, thus, the software allowed me to present a serious cost reduction to the department staff.

I would love to have the self-service portal which is now present in the Enterprise edition to be deployed to the users of the Professional edition as well.

I implemented Desktop Central in spring 2009 and have used it ever since.

The response from the technical support staff was great whenever I needed it. They are also open to suggestions from the community and now and then implement ideas offered by the community.

We previously had a full time employee running around to install software when demanded.

It's straightforward. Between setup, testing and deployment of my first software package there was half a day. Since I have been running Desktop Central for six years. People looking for an easy management tool without steep learning curve like MS System Center should definitely have a look at Desktop Central.

We deployed in-house and have no additional remarks about implementation.

We have saved one full time employee.

We get Academic licensing which is not representative for the majority of users.

People looking for an easy management tool without steep learning curve like MS System Center should definitely have a look at Desktop Central.

We primarily use the solution to run on all the desktops in our company. We have unique requirements, and this was the only solution that really met them.

The easy application deployment allows you to use the solution directly.

The solution works very well. It offers excellent performance.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward.

We find the solution to be pretty stable.

The product can scale well if you need it to.

The pricing of the solution could be better.

The solution should be better at integrating with other solutions. Right now, it's not the best.

I've been using the solution for 12 months. It's been about a year at this point.

The stability is excellent. We haven't experienced any bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's quite good.

The solution can scale quite well. We haven't had issues. If a company wants to expand, it can do so with relative ease.

We have about 15 individuals using the solution.

Although we don't have current plans to increase usage, we might do so in the future.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten in terms of support. They do offer support in Portuguese, which is helpful, however, it could be a bit better.

We used to use a local solution provided by us, however, it was too expensive to maintain. That is the reason we switched to this product.

We did not find the initial implementation to be complex. It was straightforward and simple. If a company needs to implement it themselves, they shouldn't have any problems doing so.

For our organization, the implementation took about three weeks.

You only need one person to handle maintenance. In my organization, that is me.

We did not use an implementor or reseller to help us with the implementation process. We handled the entire setup in-house ourselves.

I'd rate the cost at a seven out of ten. It's okay. It could be a bit more affordable, however, it's not too expensive.

We pay about $250 a year for our license.

We did not evaluate other solutions before settling on this product. It was the only one we considered and looked at.

We are just a customer and end-user. We don't have a business relationship with the product.

We are using the latest version of the solution. I'm not sure which version number we have.

In general, I would recommend the solution. I'd rate it nine out of ten overall, however, I hope that in the future, they improve their integration capabilities.

• Patch Management
• Software Licensing
• Asset Management
• Reporting
• Mobile Device Management
• Remote Control

Patch management was being done manually and as a result many workstations and servers were lacking current critical/important security updates and OS fixes. With the implementation of Desktop Central's patch management functionality, it is now a more streamlined and automated process with the use of deployment schedules aligned with Patch Tuesday from Microsoft. In three months over 1000 critical/important updates were applied to over 1500 workstations/servers using this tool.

It would be helpful to add image management to this tool.

We had no issues deploying it.

There have been no instability issues.

It's scaled just fine.

Don't use it with Internet Explorer, as it's glitchy. Chrome or FireFox work best.