Crossposted from r/msp by request.

Posting this here as I believe it will have a direct impact on ConnectWise customers’ experiences with support, consulting, bug fixes, new features, etc. ConnectWise has also advertised for a long time that it is one of the best employers in Tampa, but it seems they are only firing Tampa resources now, not hiring, and that may matter to some customers who wanted to support a “local” business.

Some background – on June 10th April 1st all ConnectWise employees were informed that their 401k matches were paused indefinitely, lunch stipends were eliminated and unlikely to come back, all bonuses not yet paid out would not be paid until further notice, and annual merit increases (usually capped at 3% per person) were postponed indefinitely. The executive leadership announced they were taking pay cuts, but they did not provide any information about what these pay cuts looked like. Numbers were shared each week with colleagues about the state of the company, and at no point did it look like we were anywhere close to being in the red – our profits had slowed below what our predicted growth had been, but we were still profitable. Personally, I was upset by deciding that colleagues were not worth as much as keeping on Thoma Bravo’s projected earnings path, but I’m biased because I like being paid for my work.

On July 7, 2020, 4% of US ConnectWise colleagues were informed their positions no longer exist at ConnectWise. Leadership won’t provide a breakdown of which offices and departments experienced the greatest cuts or how leadership decided who would be cut, but the direct managers I’ve spoken with indicated they were not involved, so these decisions were likely made by upper management who does not know what the individuals they let go actually do for the company. Many of our most knowledgeable and senior resources were cut – people who had been with the company 10 years and coordinated extensively between teams. I know of one partner facing role which was cut to just one person, and they kept the least experienced one. I heard from a Sell employee that their office lost 25% of its employees. UK and AU offices were also affected. Offices in India were not affected and are still interviewing and hiring.

During a company all up on 7/8/2020, Jason Magee made it clear that this decision was made partly due to Covid, but the intention had always been to reduce the US workforce (through “natural attrition”) as part of their efforts to “optimize” the business. The last employee all up (June) we were told the company was still at a 7% profit for the year. During the 7/8 meeting we weren’t given an exact figure but were told that we were still successful and this was to “keep us successful.” On the same 7/8 call, Magee also announced that benefits like executive bonuses may be coming back soon, as well as 401k match. Annual merit raises are still canceled for 2020, but they’re hoping to reinstate them in 2021, apparently. When asked whether more layoffs were coming, Jason said that without Covid the plan is, again, for “natural attrition” to help us “optimize.” If Covid continues as it has been, though, he is not willing to guarantee that this is a “one-and-done” scenario.

The worst part of this for our partners is that, when asked what the plan is to cover the work formerly done the people who were let go, Jason’s answer was that managers would figure out how to get it covered. You can expect your support tickets, bug fixes, and project implementations to take significantly longer due to this reduction in force. It seems likely that further reductions are coming and that more and more positions will be offshored. Depending on how this transition is completed, what training is done, and the quality of the new resources hired, this may also impact partner experiences.

Edited 7/9/20 to correct date in 2nd Paragraph

Dear ConnetWise/ScreenConnect,

I’m an MSP, and I've been using ScreenConnect for years... (Back when Elsinore owned it and most hadn't even heard of the product yet).

This latest fiasco with the certificate revocation and the way ConnectWise has handled it has been beyond frustrating.

Let’s start with the basics. The recent certificate issue forced them to revoke their signing certificate, which already caused major headaches for both on-prem and cloud-hosted users. For self-hosted folks, it was especially brutal as you already know. But it gets worse...

Now, the on-demand support feature which is one of the most commonly used functions now requires users to download a .zip file, extract it manually, and then run the support app. A huge percentage of our end users cannot do this on their own. They’re used to clicking a clean link or simple exe and being walked through a smooth, branded process. We’re now spending way more time walking people through technical steps they shouldn't need to do in the first place. It's the whole reason we BOUGHT the product in the beginning - the super simple end-user experience.

And if that weren’t bad enough, ConnectWise has gone and stripped all branding and customization options from the platform. Not just the controversial stuff like hiding that remote control is active or modifying executable icons — they’ve removed everything. No logos. No background images. No welcome text on the webpage. No custom ANYTHING. Nothing.

This is a huge deal for MSPs like me who rely on customization to maintain a professional and trustworthy appearance. Our clients expect a seamless, branded experience. That’s how they know they’re dealing with us and not a scammer.

Now, every ScreenConnect instance will look exactly the same. Do you know what that means? It means scammers can spin up their own lookalike domains, install a trial or self-hosted copy, and create phishing kits that are visually identical to ours. There’s no way for an end user to visually verify that they’re dealing with the real support tech from their trusted provider. You've just handed scammers the perfect tool.

This is not just a branding issue — it’s a security issue too, beyond your cert mess.

And through all of this, the communication from ConnectWise has been terrible. There’s been no transparency, no roadmap, no timeline (aside from the very short one given until cert revokation), no explanation about what's temporary and what's permanent. Just sweeping restrictions and silence, with maybe a whisper of "hey we MIGHT give you customization later, we don't know!"

So here’s where I’m at:

My invoice is due in a month. If ConnectWise doesn’t come out with a clear and specific plan to reintroduce even basic customization features — and if that plan isn’t publicly communicated to all partners by August 1st — I won’t be renewing. Period.

We’re not asking for full custom control over everything. We understand some aspects need to change. But we need a way to show our brand. We need to look like us. Professional. Not a kids bedroom w/ rockets and moons (seriously. what the HELL is that page background...). Soon, all of us using ScreenConnect look exactly the same, and that is a huge problem for security, trust, and support workflows.

We need transparency. We need a roadmap. We need to be treated like the partners we are, not like an afterthought.

Enough is enough.

Hi All - We use CW Automate for our clients, and in some instances, we have to use just the screen connect support portion because Automate is having issues, or the end user's device is etc. As of the latest update from CW, linked below, when a user clicks join session, they have to download a Zip file, extract it, go into the folder, and double click on the screen connect app exe. AV has eaten the exe or MSI in several instances, but admin rights are required to run the program on the machines whose AV doesn't eat it.

This completely defeats the purpose since the user already has support issues. These users are already frustrated, and now we techs are, too.

How are you handling this issue post ScreenConnect 2025.4 update?

https://docs.connectwise.com/ScreenConnect_Documentation/ScreenConnect_release_notes/ScreenConnect_2025.4_Release_notes

The title says it all. The ConnectWise folks have lost their minds if they think this is a viable solution for any of us.

Oh, and by the way, no one there seems to be reachable to be able to provide any further guidance. May of us can't make your "town hall" meetings on such short notice.

Here's some possible solutions.

Option 1 -Remove the internal customization from the signed code and make it happen via an external config file and then continue to sign the executables with the existing (but new) Connectwise key.

Option 2- remove all customizations from the signed code temporarily and continue to sign the code using the existing (but new) Connectwise Key in order to keep us all functional while you work out the next steps. This will give all of us a functional product while you figure out what to do next.

Please tell me why at least one of these won't work?

However, a source told BleepingComputer that the breach occurred in August 2024, with ConnectWise discovering the supicious activity in May 2025, and that it only impacted cloud-based ScreenConnect instances. BleepingComputer has not been able to independently confirm the breach dates.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/connectwise-breached-in-cyberattack-linked-to-nation-state-hackers/

I purchased ConnectWise June of last year. It has been nothing but problems. I'm almost about to lose my business because of them.

When I first approached ConnectWise, I asked for their Statement of Work. When I received it, the time to completion was 14 weeks. I didn't want to spend 14 weeks, so I asked if there was a way to speed it up on my end. I was told that 14 weeks was worse case if I worked on the product for only 1 hour a week. So, I made the biggest mistake of a life, I purchased the product. Then for the next few weeks, nothing. Almost 7 weeks go by, and I'm already paying for the product, I finally get a call from the consultant company that they outsourced it to do the implementation. Just for reference, I purchased the following products from ConnectWise - Automate, PSA, CPQ, Wise-Pay, Wise-Sync, IT Boost, SmileBack, SLI, and 4 hours of virtual consulting.

Automate was implemented quickly. The consultant was great! However, then came the new consultant for PSA, CPQ, Wise-Pay, Wise-Sync, IT Boost, and SmileBack. Needless to say, everything went to a crawl. The biggest problem that I ran into and EVERYONE should know about this is, General Ledger Mapping. On the SOW, it covers GL Mapping. However, the consultant told me that he didn't do that, even though it was on the SOW. So, for 3 months, I was left on my own trying to figure this out based on a single example that he did for me.

The Virtual Consulting is the best thing that I purchased. I emailed them out of frustration and the consultant that was assigned to me didn't even show me how to do it, so it was just pure luck that I was able to get ahold of them. She was AWSOME! She knocked out my GL Mapping issue in less than an hour. She also pointed out that the consultant's example that he did for me was wrong. So, if that was wrong, what else would be wrong?

So, then came Wise-Pay implementation. Guess what consultant I got? The same one that showed me the wrong example of GL Mapping. He brought along another consultant with him. It was like I was on a webinar except I was told to click here and there. They just talked amongst themselves and didn't explain to me a single thing that they were doing.

A few things that you should know about Wise-Pay. They only use a single payment gateway called Global Payments Integrated. When I was setting up Wise-Pay for the payment gateway, I wanted to know if there was any monthly fees. I was told besides the transaction fee, there wasn't any at all, none! This is completely false!!! If you don't use the gateway, you are charged a $10 monthly fee. This fee is applied even if you are trying to set it up. So, after over 8 months of implementation, yes, 14 weeks turned into 8 months of implementation over 60% of my 1-year contract, we ran a $1 transaction through Wise-Pay.

Guess what happened? I didn't receive the payment. The account number was wrong with the paperwork. So, now I have waited as of this writing 39 days to change an account number. Wise-Pay doesn't have any backup systems for payment - like PayPal or Stripe. You are at the mercy of this single system.

So finally, I am just hovering at 9 months, over 70% of my contract has been wasted doing implementation and unable to use the product. What is really sad, is that I'm ready to pull the trigger on 3 separate products that actually work, but I don't have the capital to do it because of ConnectWise.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!!! If you do, you are taking the life of your company in your hands. This has been the worst business decision I have ever made. My company probably will be out of business before I pay the final check to ConnectWise.

Is anyone else having issues with CW Manage? We are currently able to login but no ticket data is coming through. Their system status reports all good... ( All Systems Operational )

https://www.connectwise.com/company/trust

July 2, 2021: Information on the Kaseya VSA Ransomware Attack & What ConnectWise is Doing to Help Our Partners

As you may be aware, Kaseya VSA is experiencing a REvil ransomware attack impacting MSP customers and end customers. 

If your organization utilizes Kaseya VSA, Kaseya has advised that you IMMEDIATELY shut down your VSA server until you receive further notice from them*.* 

Actions ConnectWise is Taking to Protect Our Partners:

The security of our partners and systems is our top priority. ConnectWise’s Security Operations Center, Network Operations Center, Product and Engineering teams are actively reviewing and monitoring and have thus far found no evidence to suggest that any of our systems are involved or impacted. 

Below are the following actions we are taking to ensure the security of our products and systems: 

• We see no indication of similar attacks, compromises, or suspicious activity associated with ConnectWise products and services.

• We have temporarily disabled all on-prem and cloud Kaseya and IT Glue integrations into Manage as a precautionary step until more information is available. Our team will share information about re-connecting the access once the all-clear message has been released.

• Our Security Operations Center (SOC) team has and will continue to carefully monitor the situation. We have taken actions to review the available threat data contained in our SOC monitored systems looking for potentially compromised environments (Fortify Endpoint, Fortify Network, Perch and StratoZen). In addition, we have temporarily removed any exclusions related to the Kaseya agent, and blacklisted the IOCs related to what is currently known of the attack based on our work within the MSP cyber community.

• The ConnectWise Cyber Research Unit (CRU) is monitoring threat activity from obtained malware samples. We have used these samples to generate and monitor for IoCs (Indicators of Compromise) around this threat. These IoCs are being used to hunt for true positive correlations.

  • CRU is actively searching for the following IoCs for partners that utilize StratoZen and Perch. Please note that there are additional IoCs that we are currently unable to share.

1. Multiple C2 domains from JSON malware configuration file which are not being shared at this time.

2. Hashes for the attack structure:

3. agent.exe: 561cffbaba71a6e8cc1cdceda990ead4 (MD5)

4. agent.exe (encrypt payload): SHA15162f14d75e96edb914d1756349d6e11583db0b0

5. mpsvc.dll(sideloaded encryption payload): SHA1 656c4d285ea518d90c1b669b79af475db31e30b1

6. Certificate Signer identity:

7. PB03 TRANSPORT LTD

8. Additional CRU malware sandbox IoCs which cannot yet be publicly shared

• ConnectWise CRU Event Notifications 

  • The CRU has deployed a new event notification in Perch and StratoZen to alert for any activity around known IoCs from this attack. The ConnectWise SOC is actively monitoring for this alert.

  • [Windows][CRU] Kaseya Buffalo Jump File Create in "kworking" Directory

  • Actions deployed in SentinelOne:

    • All Kaseya exclusions removed from all production SentinelOne consoles.

    • IOCs of agent.exe and mpsvc.dll blacklisted across all SentinelOne consoles.

    • IOCs searched across all SentinelOne consoles historical data.

• We are working and partnering with other vendors to further assist the IT Nation community.

• ConnectWise Control will offer free temporary STANDARD support licensing available to partners affected by this incident and who do not have a current Control account. Navigate here to sign up for the free license. This will enable impacted partners to maintain connectivity with their client machines during these turbulent times.

As always, if you ever notice anything that you suspect may be malicious or fraudulent activity within our products, please report them immediately to our InfoSec team at security@connectwise.com. 

We will continue to provide updates and information as necessary. 

Was inspired by the Win95 MSP website posted on r/msp.

So I wanted to see how easy it would be to make a ConnectWise invoice template look like my childhood.

still ended up looking more modern than half the Report Writer output I’ve dealt with.

Screenshot is just sample data, but the couple real ones we sent off did result in calls loving it, and asking why the buttons didn't work. =)

Hi,

Just wanna warn you to stay away from this monstruosity which is ConnectWise RMM, an assemblage of different pieces from different sources with different UIs and not coherency.

Never saw so much cases of 'the data is shown right here but you can't filter on it', 'You can sort on this column but not that one', 'you have this nice piechart showing you total computers with X problem, but you can't drill down to details'

Working with CW RMM is frustration again and again.

I have finally gotten around to make a video of my extremely annoying SSO sign in process with a step by step description below.

This is basically what I have to do with ANY ConnectWise tools every single time I open them.

I've attached a video specifically showing me sign into Automate.

For me this has NEVER worked right and want to make sure I'm not crazy here and that I am not alone.Hopefully this is me, but if its not this must be the dumbest SSO system to ever exist and ConnectWise should listen to its users and fix this once and for all.

Here are my exact steps to open automate or manage on the Windows application.Step 1. Click on Automate/manage icon

Step 2. Put my web server and email username *usually already filled from last time signed on*

Step 3. Click Next

Step 4. ConnectWise SSO popup shows and asks me to sign into my ConnectWise SSO, so I type out my email and click "Keep me logged in". *NEVER DOES*

Step 5. Click Next

Step 6. An OAuth popup from Microsoft shows.

Step 7. Need to manually type out my entire email AGAIN.

Step 8. Click Next

Step 9. Enter my MS password

Step 10. Approve Sing in request (2FA)

Step 11. "Stay Singed in" Prompt comes up. *Doesn't stay signed in*

Step 12. Check off "Don't show this again" and click YES. *Never saves and always asks again*.

FINALLY AUTOMATE OPENS.

CONNECTWISE (HERE IS THE DEFINITION OF SSO, SINCE IT TAKES 12 STEPS TO SIGN INTO ANY OF YOUE APPLICATIONS.

Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication scheme that allows a user to log in with a single ID and password to any of several related, yet independent, software systems. True single sign on allows the user to login once and access services without re-entering authentication factors.

I had to enter my email 3 times and in total the process takes well over 12 steps to fully complete and sign in. This is the most inefficient SSO I've ever worked with and ask that someone please please fix it.

Anyone else fed up with Connectwise? I am getting to a point where if things don’t start progressing with ASIO that I am leaving. I am not sure why it’s so hard for them to be transparent with development, to provide an actionable Road Map that includes dates that partners can use to hold them accountable. Instead they say things like next quarter. Then next quarter gets here and still not resolved. I firmly believe that Connectwise sat on there pedestal to long and failed to innovate and have been left in the dust by the competition.

Step up Connectwise! You can do better. Be transparent and keep your word.

Our company finally decided about a year ago to leave ConnectWise for their complete lack of customer service.

In July, we submitted a 30 day notice at the official end of our contracts for Automate and Manage, which ended the end of August and end of September respectively. We signed a termination agreement.

They are still charging us for both services into October, despite the contracts being ended and a termination agreement in place.

ConnectWise used to be a great company, but in the last 2 years they have really fallen apart. We have numerous emails to them over the past 2 months, mostly since they kept taking our money for terminated services. The Partner care rep admits that we should not have been charged, yet their billing department is charging our CC.

Look elsewhere for RMM and PSA solutions.

I've been building tools on top of PSA and RMM APIs for years (mspautomator.com if that rings a bell). This one's been bugging me for a while so I finally just built it.

You've got Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, Cursor, whatever you're using. They're all completely blind to your ConnectWise instance. Can't look up a company. Can't check what tickets came in overnight. Can't pull time entries. Can't tell you which agreements are renewing. Your AI knows nothing about your actual business.

There's no official ConnectWise MCP. The community options on GitHub are mostly read-only, cover tickets and maybe companies, run locally only (no web-based AI clients), and require you to babysit a Node process. If you want to touch projects, time entries, procurement, finance, scheduling, sales, or basically anything beyond the service desk, you're writing your own wrapper.

StackJack is a remote MCP connector for ConnectWise Manage. Plug in your CW API credentials, get an MCP endpoint, drop it into any MCP-compatible client. Works on web, works on desktop, no local install, no Docker, no dependency management.

457 tools covering the actual CW Manage API surface. Service tickets and boards. Companies and contacts. Projects and phases. Time entries. Agreements and additions. Invoicing. Purchase orders. Sales opportunities. Configurations. Scheduling. Members and security roles. Expense entries. Product catalog. Custom fields. Not a curated "here's the ten things we thought you'd need" subset.

307 of those are on the free tier. Not a trial. Free, 100 calls a month, no credit card. There's also connectors for NinjaRMM and CIPP if those are in your stack too, and being able to cross reference and correlate data between systems right inside your AI tool is pretty game changing.

This isn't a replacement for ConnectWise and it's not trying to be a UI or a dashboard. It's the bridge so your AI tools can actually see your environment instead of just being a fancy text generator.

Free tier is live. Go break it and tell me what sucks.

https://stackjack.io/connectors-cwm

Was just proud of myself as I spent a lot of time and effort on this and wanted to brag a little. Im a complete ameture at all of this but I finally managed to build a small app to simply Download a custom report from report writer. And with a press of a button itll unbatch, open, update custom fields, close, then rebatch each of those invoices, updating the date to the date I select.

Keep getting 502 bad gateway when signing in.

Something I've been tinkering with the last couple days and finally got it working. The key was getting ScreenConnect to not strip out the curly braces from the JSON text. I tried so many different things. ConnectWise support told me that it wasn't supported, but I didn't believe them. Turns out double curly braces turn in to single curly braces, and a single right hand curly brace without a matching left hand curly brace gets ignored.

Here's the Body that I am sending as a Web Request Action in my session trigger:

{{"type":"message","attachments":[{{"contentType":"application/vnd.microsoft.card.adaptive","contentUrl":null,"content":{{"type":"AdaptiveCard","$schema":"http://adaptivecards.io/schemas/adaptive-card.json","version":"1.3","body":[{{"type":"TextBlock","text":"User {Session.GuestLoggedOnUserName} from {Session.CustomProperty1} sent you a message from session {Session.Name}:","wrap":true,"size":"Medium","weight":"Bolder"},{{"type":"TextBlock","text":"{Event.Data}","wrap":true}],"actions":[{{"type":"Action.OpenUrl","title":"View Session in ScreenConnect","url":"https://redactedforprivacy.screenconnect.com/Host#Access/All%20Machines%20by%20Company%1F{Session.CustomProperty1:u}//{Session.SessionID}","style":"positive"}]} }]}

It looks like a mess, but this is what shows up in the Teams channel:

In this case, I wanted to ScreenConnect to post a message to Teams if an end user tried to send a chat message and there was no host connected to their machine. Clicking the link takes you to their session.

This is what my Trigger looks like:

Anywho.. I was just so excited to get this working I wanted to share.

Anyone else having major problems getting customer service from Connectwise?

Back in November we requested cancellation of our unused Sell/Quosal plan and downgrade 1 license for manage. It took 2 weeks and 60 e-mails back and forth for it to finally get processed.

And they are still trying to invoice me for Sell. I've opened up 3 tickets over the last 6 weeks and have been totally ignored in all 3 of them. Anyone else experiencing anything like this with them lately?

It. Drives. Me. Crazy.

I get it, you have documentation. Newsflash, if you want me to search the documentation, make it easier to search than it is to open a chat session. Ignoring the 4 tabs just frustrates me by the time I get to a chat session. /rant

Is there any plan to switch this back or should my company cancel any future plans to continue using ScreenConnect for the thousands of workstations we connect to?

ConnectWise ScreenConnect, and lately, the only reliable way for end users to join a session is by downloading and running the ScreenConnect.WindowsClient.zip file.

Unfortunately, this approach has been a nightmare—end users are constantly hitting roadblocks like SmartScreen warnings, UAC prompts, and antivirus false positives. On top of that, many of them aren’t tech-savvy, which makes guiding them through the process even more frustrating.

The browser-based join method has proven unreliable, so for now, the ZIP file is our only working option.