SmartDeploy

Great imaging software, it will make you forget about all of the others!

Commenti: I've been using SmartDeploy a little over two years now and continue to be amazed at the new functionality that continues to be released on a regular basis. They took the amount of time it used to take to complete a build of a new computer down drastically and we quickly had an ROI.

Aspetti positivi:

This software was very easy to use and learn. The software walks you through everything to setting up a reference virtual machine to capturing that reference machine. The support documentation is great and if needed, you can always reach out to their amazing support team.

Aspetti negativi:

No cons to add here, Smart Deploy continues to expand its capabilities and is always adding additional functionality. Most recently, cloud deployment options.

Deployments have never been easier!

Commenti: Overall, I would recommend SmartDeploy to any IT professional as they have helped us with saving hours of IT overhead, saving costs and it's ease of use. I would choose SmartDeploy over again in a hearbeat.

Aspetti positivi:

We have multiple PC Vendors (Dell, Lenovo, etc.) which all required different drivers and was a headache for us to manage and implement (especially with new refreshes). Smart Deploy's ability for us to image devices without having to worry about drivers and ease of use / understand was fantastic.

Aspetti negativi:

There were a lot of pre-requisite software from Microsoft which we were required to install to get our SmartDeploy server up and running. We ran into some issues with software and compatibility, which was frustrating, however the Support team was very quick to respond and help resolve these issues very quickly.

Good Product (Performs Better than Others)

Commenti: Overall, it is a good value. The ability to connect it to the WiFi network without having to manual do it makes it worth it. Additionally, not having to worry about getting drivers as they have the most popular drivers within the library makes it better than other solutions on the market.

Aspetti positivi:

The product is easy to use and the ability to automatically connect to a WiFi network on deployment is a great feature

Aspetti negativi:

Sometimes devices do not get joined to the network for whatever reason. Also, you cannot have computers named in sequence upon deployment, instead they are automatically given random numbers. Unlike Acronis, which I could input computer names to be Laptop-Department{15} and it would named the computers Laptop-Department15, Laptop-Department16, Laptop-Department17, etc. SmartDeploy randomizes the number sequence. So, when you input the naming convention as Laptop-DepartmentXX, it names the device Laptop-Department84, Laptop-Department25, Laptop-Department40, etc. There is no sequence or logic to the number section. Additionally, you still have to do some prep work by making some changes in the Bios on newer machines in order to get the software to image to it. Also, when you select to log into an account after imaging, it seems that it creates a local account for the profile instead of using the domain account and then it does not join to the domain.

Incredible Asset!

Commenti: We used a hard drive duplicator before implementing SmartDeploy. SmartDeploy has made our process for computer preparation much easier and faster. We utilize the software on a regular basis for new computers and also to prepare existing computers for the upcoming academic year. Support staff have been very helpful and I don't know if I could ask for anything more. Thank you for producing a remarkable piece of software.

Aspetti positivi:

Ease of use and functionality. SmartDeploy makes it very easy to deploy a golden image onto virtually any PC with its use of driver packs.

Aspetti negativi:

Nothing. The software has been very functional in our environment.

Imaging Software That Works

Commenti: I've had the pleasure of using SmartDeploy for about 1 year now, and I don't regret a minute of it. The software is easy to use and setup, customer service is prompt and helpful, and the new features they add make it better each day. SmartDeploy is the best option for imaging that I've found.

Aspetti positivi:

SmartDeploy is easy to use and simple to manage.

Aspetti negativi:

Lack of reporting features...which they are starting to add.

Simplified our Image Deployment

Commenti: I have nothing but praise for SmartDeploy. We maintain 600 PCs and keeping all of the many separate images we used to maintain up to date was an endless process of frustration. Our old process required that each manufacturer have its own image and we had a collection of legacy computers and images to maintain. Now we keep two images up to date, download the appropriate drivers for any new computers we purchase and we are ready to deploy. SmartDeploy also created a new driver pack for a legacy computer that needed to run an old OS for us and saved me endless headaches.

Aspetti positivi:

SmartDeploy made our imaging and deployment of PCs so easy. I still get nightmares about our previous system, but SmartDeploy has made updating our image and deploying it to computers very straightforward and the best of all uncomplicated.

Aspetti negativi:

The capture process is a little slow, but honestly that is it. I still get images updated and captured easily.

Makes standardizing PC's a breeze

Commenti: I started using Smartdeploy 2 years ago (2016) and they have made many valuable enhancements since then. I manage a fleet of about 250 laptops with many makes and models in the mix. Having Smartdeploy has allowed me to push the imaging process out to the end user saving time and money in shipping costs.

Aspetti positivi:

-Easy to use -Great Customer Support -Flexibility -Standardization -Platform Packs

Aspetti negativi:

-Creating platform packs for custom systems is a little complicated -The cost, although being able to reclaim licenses from decommissioned PC's is a plus

ease deployment by inverting image creation

Commenti: we sell laptops to our customers, delivering software of their needs, smartdeploy helps us ease this, by premanufacturing images, and simplifying the process of preparing a computer for delivery

Aspetti positivi:

Smartdeploy is a deployment program easing deployment and integration process, by inverting the process, beginning in the image end, where you set up the golden image in a virtual environment, pack it up, download platform packs(driver packs) and if you want, specific application packs you make yourself or premade

Aspetti negativi:

its nothing to not like about it :) it solves most problems hassle free

Excellent Deployment Tool

Commenti: We used an deployment system that was written in-house, but when it needed updating it was much easier to move forward with SmarDeploy. We've been using it for 12 months, and have re-imaged all of the computers on our LAN. It is literally faster for us to re-image a computer than to run Windows updates if there is a Win10 feature update required. We do update our reference images monthly.

Aspetti positivi:

It's actually easy to use! I was surprised that I was literally able to learn how to use this system in about 3 hours. Of course, there was a lot of fine tuning. I really like how the platform packs make it easy to support the models of laptops and desktops we purchase. The support has been excellent.

Aspetti negativi:

I have had some issues with client agents getting updated on about 20 of my 100 computers, but other than that I have no complaints.

Hassle free imaging

Commenti: Our team loves Smartdeploy - it has really helped us and made our multitasking job a bit more manageable. I would recommend this software before trying any others.

Aspetti positivi:

This is so much easier to push a software image than I expected. It really frees up alot of time and you can do more than one at a time. Its also easy to keep an updated Master Image so that you will always be a current version of software.

Aspetti negativi:

It can be a little daunting in the beginning, but they have great videos and tutorials to help you through it. Customer Service is great! They always have an answer or if not, they find one really fast!

Build a Virtual Machine then deploy to any hardware

Commenti: Our company delivers software training and needs to deploy a single image to hundreds of machines multiple times a year. We primarily use offline USB deployment for this and it has worked extremely well over the past two years with very little issues or maintenance needed. We have a few dozen disparate sites and each site is maintained by a non-technical employee. They plug the USB drive into a computer and leave it alone for an hour. When they come back its fully deployed - like magic! This method offsets the installation of several software packages that would normally take several days. When deployment issues are experienced we ask the user to capture the logs and send them into SmartDeploy Support. They are incredibly responsive and helpful.

Aspetti positivi:

Being able to generate a single VM image and distribute it to hundreds of different computers (manufacturers and models) is revolutionary. Other software I've used requires you to have an image created on each type of physical hardware. This means you have to manage multiple images and have a spare of each type of computer just to maintain the system.

Aspetti negativi:

There are several deployment methods (USB drives, local network, cloud-based) that all work really well. When using the USB drive method, there isn't an easy way to update the boot software (e.g. WinPE) on the device or distribute new USB media. Shipping the USB drives works but is slow and expensive. Having the coworker at the remote office create a new USB drive is difficult because you have to walk them through installing the enterprise software which I don't necessarily want them to have access to. However, this is not undermining the huge benefits we see from using SmartDeploy.

SmartDeploy on College Campus

Commenti: SmartDeploy has been a very appreciated resource in my department. As I'm the only one that creates/manages the images for all of the college-owned machines, it has made that part of my job much easier and more streamlined. Although I have had minor issues with the software in the year that I've been using it, the issues have been severely outweighed by the benefits it has provided. I haven't gotten the chance to work with the networking team on setting up the connectivity necessary for using some of remote management features, but I do look forward to taking advantage of those. Overall it's been a solid experience with my only real gripe being a lack of true documentation. I know there are articles but I've found a good portion of them lacking in the information that I needed. The good; however, is that technical support has been timely in getting around to my questions and answering them for me.

Aspetti positivi:

Ease of capturing VMs and deploying images Platform packs user interface image management and connectivity to the images after deployment

Aspetti negativi:

lack of documentation regarding differencing images lack of documentation/training for folks newer to image creation/SmartDeploy software Have had issues installing the SmartDeploy application on secondary machines in the past

Best imaging software out there.

Commenti: My experience with SmartDeploy has been great.
If I have an issue which is rare and it's always ends up being my fault because I did something wrong or stupid ( hahaha) they have ALWAYS fixed any issue I have had very quickly.
I have never worked with better support on a product!!
I am always praising the support when I am trying to get our clients to buy the product or if I am demonstrating the software.

Aspetti positivi:

The ease of imaging computers makes my job so much easier, no hunting around for different drivers for each different manufacture we have. One image for all of our computers makes it simple, fast and reliable. I have some of our clients using it now due to me bragging about it constantly.

Aspetti negativi:

I have no cons that I can think of. That is rare with most software.

Ghost is a thing of the past....Smart Deploy is the future of imaging!!!

Commenti: We have, literally, only been using Smart Deploy between 30-45 days (new to it all), but it has DRASTICALLY changed how fast we can pump out deployments of PC's. We had SO MANY issues with Ghost and their support was HORRIBLE!!! So far we have only had one ticket with Smart Deploy and they responded in a VERY timely manner and had an answer for us.

Aspetti positivi:

Complete ease of setup and ease of use. We love the fact that is now only takes us 6-7 minutes to image a PC for our company. The "no touch" and "click and go" functionality of the Smart Deploy imaging process is superb! Setting up and using a "reference" image to use on multiple platforms of hardware is a stellar part of the processes. I could go on and on and on.........JUST BUY THIS (and then shutdown your Ghost server!)!!!! It's the best thing you can have for an imaging solution for your IT department.

Aspetti negativi:

My team and I would like to see this software be able to keep data and programs in tact when we use it for upgrading purposes. We have a massive Windows 10 upgrade project that we need to accomplish before EoL of Windows 7 and this feature would save us time from having to run "manual" upgrades. I am sure I could come up with more idea's for this software, but I am pretty positive that Smart Deploy is already working on upgrades to this software.

Make your IT life easier and more efficient

Commenti: Have a problem with a system and it could take over an hour to correct it if you are lucky? Just wipe it and reimage it - save yourself all of that wasted time...

Aspetti positivi:

SmartDeploy does it all, they keep the drivers up-to-date and even BIOS upgrades are automated in the process! So easy to use!

Aspetti negativi:

I can't think of a single thing...

Good Platform

Commenti: We are a MSP and deploy new PCs on a regular business. We tried several imaging methods and decided to go with Smart Deploy for its low cost and ease of use. We have greatly standardized our setups and in some instances, saved 6-8 hours of installing software.

Aspetti positivi:

Easy to use. Greatly reduces new PC Setup times, sometimes by several hours. Drives are included so we don't have to try and hunt them down. Custom driver packs are easy to create for one off custom built PCs

Aspetti negativi:

Extra steps to activate Windows after the image (We don't have Enterprise licensing) Requires LAN connection (I have heard Wireless is coming though)

SmartDeploy

Commenti: My experience with SmartDeploy has been 100% positive. It has helped me in my job and has allowed me to image computers more effectively. I love that SmartDeploy can be used in any environment.

Aspetti positivi:

SmartDeploy is a must have. SmartDeploy has made imaging devices and upgrade a whole lot easier.

Aspetti negativi:

I have had no issues with using SmartDeploy.

A smart way to deploy

Commenti: Support has always been available for our needs if we needed them. The videos easily answer questions so I dont have to hunt down how to do something.

Aspetti positivi:

Platform Packs make life to much easier. New hardware? No problem. Within 15 minutes I can have a new image available. Before SmartDeploy this would be a half of day easily.

Aspetti negativi:

Nothing, they keep adding new features.

Helpdesk Manager

Commenti: I have been using SmartDeploy for over 5 years now and have not had any issues.

Aspetti positivi:

it is very easy to use and you only need one golden image for all the different PCs you are supporting.

Aspetti negativi:

none, it just works only had to call support once in 5 years

Easiest windows deployment ever

Aspetti positivi:

SmartDeploy has made deploying windows to dis-similar hardware so much easier. The added features continue to improve this product.

Aspetti negativi:

I do not see any cons to this deployment solution.

Imaging

Commenti: Overall, Smart Deploy has been a huge time saver within our IT department. Before we used several products including Symantec and Microsoft's solutions, however they seemed very difficult to get configured. Smart Deploy walks you through very simple steps and with the addition of the platform packs, it saves our desktop team the time it would take to also load drivers on our systems. Also, the fact that the imaging process auto syspreps each new system has been a game changer! (configuring sysprep with our previous solutions was often a very difficult and daunting task) Imaging that used to take us almost an entire day now only takes an hour. I am overall very happy with this product.

Aspetti positivi:

I like how easy this software is to use.

Aspetti negativi:

I did run into a few problems where some of the driver packs caused blue screens on some of our units.

Excellent Product

Aspetti positivi:

SmartDeploy is really user friendly, they provide activity wizards that take you step by step through the process from creating your golden image to deploying your to your first machine. I downloaded the trial software and deployed my first image about 4 hours later.

Aspetti negativi:

I'm having a small issue that I am working with their developer team to resolve. The software didn't support the naming convention of my domain. They are working to modify their software to work with my company's domain. I was told the functionality would be included in the next software update. Do not take this as a negative comment because this is no fault of SmartDeploy that my company named the domain in an unconventional manner. I just wanted to express that the SmartDeploy team recognized my needs and is trying to accommodate my company.

Great tool to have around

Commenti: We tried SmartDeploy three years ago and it turned out to be an invaluable tool. We had a group of 250 specialized, outside the domain computers that were migrating to a new OS version and SmartDeploy made this migration super easy. Before SmartDeploy, we used to maintain six computer images and we can't be happier to maintain only one now. Introducing new hardware into the mix is no longer an issue - just build your driver pack (or download prebuilt one) and start deploying!

Aspetti positivi:

Ease of use; great time saver for your image maintenance and deployments.

Aspetti negativi:

When SmartDeploy installation computer is sitting behind a proxy - it might have difficulties connecting to the internet to verify itself and get new updates.

Most Effective Imaging Tool Out There

Aspetti positivi:

Smartdeploy simplifies our deployments by allowing our imaging to be hardware agnostic. This is a game changer for us.

Aspetti negativi:

Per device pricing model, but this is understandable given our use-case.

Smart Deploy

Commenti: Big time saver

Aspetti positivi:

quick ability to deploy employee systems

Aspetti negativi:

taxes network resources when imaging multiple systems simultaneously