SolarWinds Passportal

Vorteile

Highly intuitive interface, easy browser integration, plenty of options to customize data entered into the system, data is connected quickly to other relevant data to navigate client documentation quickly, password management has been spot on with little to no issues. Recently learned I can integrate it with customer AD networks and manage account resets from within my own system!

Nachteile

As of yet, clients cannot access their documentation we record. This is supposed to be coming in the future, however. Also waiting for documentation access in the mobile app, but I can forgive as I know progress doesn't happen overnight.

Vorteile

The mobile app to see passwords while on the field. +1 for MFA support.
Ability to request access to passwords for L1 techs and they can be assigned permanently or temporarily. The is no report about this, thought.

Nachteile

It is supper slow. To get one password you have to navigate through folders and it takes 3-5 second to load a page. The search engine should default to current customer and keep that setting until its changed. It should remember your last folder, etc.
All the documentation part is still not mature as rivals like IT Glue:
- Default templates don't have the fields we need, and if we modify them, we can not link them from passwords anymore. There is no way to go back.
- Domains don't allow to enter custom DNS records, and they don't have snapshots; so if somebody changes your DNS zone, there is not way to know what was there before.
- There is not alerts for domain or certificates about to expire.
- SOP Documents don't allow inheritable templates. You need to create the same document for each client for common procedures.
- No reporting. Only for passwords. The "runbook" is just a dump of all documents/assets.

The feedback option doesn't show dates, so you don't know if a feedback or a idea you are going to vote for has been there for years or days.

Vorteile

Once we removed the subfolders and placed all of the passwords at the root of the clients it works just as we need it to on the web and mobile apps for quick access to users and passwords.

Nachteile

There is an ability to create subfolders for each client but when you have a number of subfolders for all clients it breaks the search function eliminating the possibility of using the subfolders.
There have been 2-3 major outages in the 8 months we have been using this application. This increases the need for constant backups which can only be done via an application run manually.
Support was not aware of the ability to run the backup application from command line which has instructions in text file in the same folder as the application itself.
Unfortunately you can't run a backup via command line and automate it (batch file, scheduled task, etc.) with 2-factor authentication enabled (which we HAVE to have enabled) so you would have to run the backups manually. If there is ever an update to a password between backups and there is an outage then the staff does not have access to the updated password until the service is restored.

Vorteile

It was quick and easy to setup and deploy on my systems and customer systems. Being able to see who accessed a password and when is also pretty huge for audits.

Nachteile

There are some things that can't be changed after you set them, some of the setup is not super intuitive or flexible. Things like assuming the customer has a person who can administer the service onsite and forcing you to have at least 1 site administrator per customer when in reality, there are probably a number of companies that don't have a person in house suitable to be the site administrator.

Integration with N-Central doesn't seem there quite yet, but we're hopeful they'll get it working properly soon enough. You can access and copy the passwords from the Take Control, but it won't actually paste the passwords into the system it seems.

Vorteile

I love many things about Passportal, but my favorite one is the 'Site' feature. Being able to securely share the entire password database with the PoC at each client is a major game-changer for my MSP. It adds visibility to the relationship. A lot of clients with outsourced I.T. feel like they are in the dark and kind of held hostage with their own environment. The Site feature bridges that gap and helps keep the client in the loop and feel like they've retained some ownership over their environment. Can't wait until the full documentation platform can be shared with the client!!

Nachteile

The biggest change I would make would be the ability to edit and change what configurations are listed in the menu tree under Core Items, Trackers, Apps & Services, & Others. I'd like to be able to move these around, rename them, add additional, etc.