FileWave is a great program FileWave gives us the ability to manage all of our devices from a single platform. It doesn't matter if it is Windows, Mac, IOS or android. We can push out files and apps to them easily.

Filewave is better than the average MDM For the most part, everything works great. It is nice you can add LDAP user groups, you just cannot add LDAP users, you have to add them as a local account which will not have the LDAP users password.

Unable to manage devices after an upgrade, poor communication from Filewave. I haven't been able to manage my devices for a week now since I upgraded to 14.0.2 (I tried 14.1.2 also, no dice). The support person told me that I shouldn't revert my snapshot because "it's not recommended" even though as a part of your KB you tell people to create a backup before performing an upgrade presumably for this express purpose. The support model of "remoting in and controlling your computer" is not something I like, I prefer to have someone walk me through it rather than someone do it for me. I learn nothing that way. I asked the support tech for an update from Development (who my problem was passed to) a few days ago and she passed the message along but no one has updated me on anything. So not only has my problem not been resolved, I have received no indication that it is even being worked on. There are some things to like about Filewave, but I am not very happy right now with the support or the program.

Transition from VPP tokens to ASM tokens We had a staff member that decided they would be switching us from Apple's VPP service to ASM and in the middle of it started complaining that the filesets for the apps were not being pushed out. I was able to get in touch with Filewave and the tech was able to determine that the filesets did not know which authority to use to install them since they were jumping back and forth with a legacy token versus the new token. Some homework was given that day to see if it would work. The next day I was able to schedule again with the same tech and several more things were passed back and forth to fix it further. The tech gave me some homework things to do later that night when people would be off the system and the next day, I scheduled one more appointment with the tech to figure out one last part of the puzzle of not having the devices connect. We are running again. Not completely smoothly since we have some clean up to do, but the persistence of the tech to help out was excellent.

Filewave is like a marriage....there is good, bad and work to be done Filewave is a robust MDM, and to the developers credit, they work very hard to implement as many features as they can, stay current with both Apple and Google in terms of managing devices, and innovate where they can to offer a great experience in managing your fleet of devices. There are many things they still need to do to make it a super stellar product: Key on my list are three things I would love to see: 1. Organization in the filesets Pane ( the ability to Color Code Filesets / Fileset Groups, being able to add Enclosing folders ( that cannot be accidentally associated to a client, but can just group filesets and fileset groups in a single place). 2. A better client piece experience, including a way to from the Client Info window, to send remote messages to the client ( Hey I'm logging in, Hey I need to restart the client, etc) and a way to from the Client Window Auto Kickstart the client when it isn't connecting to home. 3. Better division of tasks in the Profile Creation Setting. Several profiles are "lumped together" and should be broken out, to allow some settings to be separately managed. Where Filewave though keeps it self from being a five star company is their customer service / technical support, which is often haphazard, confusing, and sometimes non-existent. Their online Knowledge Base needs to be revised, with an emphasis on being a response to a customer's questions, not just a "brain dump" of Wikipedia style articles that often confuse, contradict, or do not elaborate on their topics ( ex. A step by step tutorial on Customizing the App Portal Kiosk with Video Walk Through desperately needs to be created, Troubleshooting articles are hard to find and comprehend, and some aren't even complete ( issues with Backup, Issues with Duplicates in the Database, Issues with Boosters not talking with the Filewave server are prime examples). And then the support agents: There are agents that are very good at their job, five in particular that provide great customer service, are willing to listen to your concerns, and do their utmost best to walk you through the intricacies of their product and are patient to your questions and work to try to find resolutions. These five should be training the other support agents in the support team how to interact with customers, how to address customer issues, and how to provide support. But if you don't get one of these five, it can be a crapshoot or frustrating, to get an issue addressed. I'd also like to take time to acknowledge and thank the Filewave Forum on Slack. It has been a tremendous help and I have turned to it when I've had issues that couldn't be resolved through FW Support. I would encourage any Filewave users to join the Slack channel for Filewave, the community of users really pull together to help each other with troubleshooting issues with the product and is a positive place to help foster an understanding of the product and engages users to continue working with the product positively. It is the Therapist, if you will, to address the "marriage" of customer and Filewave ( the Product), lol. And has been a good source of helping to maintain that healthy relationship and love of the product. I would rate it 3.5 stars out of five, and it would be one of the three recommended MDMs I would recommend to a colleague / potential client if asked.