FileWave Reviews 45

I've been a FileWave customer for about 12 years now, managing a fleet of mixed devices: macOS, iOS, Windows, and even some Android in our mid-sized education setup. Gotta say, it's been a solid ride overall. The multi-platform support is a game-changer; I don't have to mix multiple tools like with some competitors. Deploying apps and updates is usually straightforward. Top-notch customer service! Super quick responses and real help when I need it, and that saved me on more than one occasion.

Sure, there've been hiccups, like occasional bugs after updates, slightly complicated update system and delays in supporting the latest iOS features, but nothing that's derailed us long-term. We've stuck with it because it just works reliably for our 2,000+ devices, and the recent improvements in the web interface (Anywhere) are making things even smoother. If you're in IT and need endpoint management without the hassle, FileWave's 100% worth it.

Refuses to give me a quote without a lengthy marketing call that is generally only intended to impress upper management

Don't waste your time with them, because they're sure gonna attempt to waste yours

We love the product! Looking forward to full roll out and resolution of issues soon. Good people to work with. Good value too.

MDM works pretty good. GREAT SUPPORT when needed.

You guys have been great! Your responses have always been timely and have almost always provided a solution. The only exception was with an issue deploying a Microsoft office fileset. Most of our troubles have been when I created my own issues. But thankfully, you've always been able to fix those and get me back on track.

What you need, when you need it, with the support you deserve. Filewave has been one of the reasons we have been able to adapt so well to distance learning and teaching! Thank you Filewave.

very helpful tech support, understand our problem and solved.

I find most all of your support team very knowledgeable and helpful. Very good customer service. Quick to respond and follow up.

IN MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, Filewave is well suited for iOS and MacOS. Almost everything that I have tried dealing with Mac, which admittedly has been limited to creating filesets, has worked as touted and experienced.

My difficulties have come on the Windows side. The following is not very positive, but take what I say with a grain of salt. I am sure that someone who knows Filewave inside and out would not have the difficulties that I have had, but there is the rub for me. I found the learning curve to be a little too steep for someone who has many, many varied responsibilities in our company that go way beyond just setting up and maintaining Windows machines, Perhaps, I could not just give enough time to fully learn FW. It would be nice if the documentation and tutorials were suited to newbies as well as old timers.

But, I am a Windows guy. My experience with FW in the Windows environment has been unfavorable. Granted, I am not one for the deep dives into making FW work with Windows, but I have found the documentation for FW to be scattered and in some cases irrelevant. Often I cannot find documentation dealing with what I need to create or do. That may be my inability to grasp their site layout, but I don't have this issue on other products.

I suppose that is to be expected when an operating system changes as much as Windows has from Windows 7 - 8.1 to Windows 10. I think that with more in-depth and relevant documentation geared specifically to Windows 10, my experience would be more positive.

As it is, the online documentation is very hard to follow and in many cases gives the steps for doing things in Windows 7 and then making reference that it should work in 10 as well...when, indeed, it doesn't always translate well, especially when it comes to imaging. I have had spotty success with FW imaging in Windows 10. I also have found some of the filesets to be 'wonky' from machine to machine.

Perhaps FW would be better to scrap their present Windows documentation...at least dealing with filesets and imaging, or at least make a version dedicated solely to Windows 10. They have committed to concentrating more resources to Windows than they have in the past, but it's a little too late for me. Our system is considering moving to Chromebooks and using online virtual machines that the Chromebooks can access when Windows may be necessary.

As to Filewave's support, I find their techs to be quick and ready to lend support. Any time that I have reached out to them, they have quickly gotten back and given what support they could. I have no complaints about their support department.

Our experience with FileWave has been an excellent partner with our organization. FileWave's team is always there to answer our questions and quickly provide support to resolve issues. We always appreciate their efforts to ensure our organization continues to be successful managing multiple platforms across our entire organization.

My support contact that was assigned to me, helped me through all steps until all my questions were answered.

Our school has used Filewave for many years to manage all of our mobile devices. We consistently find the customer support staff to be knowledgeable, professional and responsive. We appreciate the Filewave products and support team. We think they are the best!

The best technical support I've had the pleasure of dealing with. Knowledgeable, patient, and effective. A fantastic product that I continue to recommend to anyone that is seeking for the right solution.

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.

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.

Shana was great and helped me right away.

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.

VERY DEPENDABLE, WE LOVE THE EFFICIENCY

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.

Fast turn around. Thank you!