First, I want to say that we genuinely love the Atera platform. It’s central to how we operate, and we actively want to deepen our commitment to it. The automation, visibility, and overall direction of the product are excellent, which is why this issue stood out so starkly for us.

We recently experienced a serious operational incident caused by the current behaviour of the Remote Access settings UI.

What happened
We manage thousands of devices across many customers, often onboarding environments where previous MSP tools or customer-managed tools (for example, ScreenConnect) are already present on endpoints. In our environment, Splashtop is our only approved and enabled remote access tool.

However, on the Remote Access settings page, the dropdown at the top of the screen:

Immediately switches the global default remote access tool

Enables that tool

Triggers uninstall actions for the previously enabled tool

Applies the change across all devices

Does all of the above without any warning, confirmation, or explanation

In our case, someone dropped down the list while navigating the page, assuming it was informational or a way to view configuration options. That single action silently changed the default remote access tooling for thousands of devices.

As a result:

Splashtop was uninstalled (or queued for uninstall) across the estate

Devices began surfacing ScreenConnect as the active remote tool simply because it was already present on endpoints

Customers were rightly asking why remote access software had been installed or changed without consent

We were left explaining and remediating a change that no one knowingly approved

Why this is a UI problem
The dropdown visually behaves like a navigation or filter control, not a destructive global action.
There is no indication that selecting an option will:

Change account-wide behaviour

Impact all devices

Trigger installs/uninstalls

Override existing operational decisions

Compounding this, the actual enable/disable options for tools exist elsewhere on the page, which reinforces the assumption that the dropdown is informational rather than authoritative.

What we are requesting
At a minimum, one (or more) of the following safeguards should be introduced:

A confirmation prompt clearly stating the impact
Example:
“Changing the default remote access tool will affect all devices and may trigger installs or uninstalls. Are you sure?”

Separation of concerns

Use the dropdown purely as a view selector

Require an explicit “Set as default” or “Apply globally” action elsewhere

Change logging visibility

Clear audit entries for default remote access changes

Ideally surfaced inline on the Remote Access settings page

Optional role-based restriction

Ability to limit who can change global remote access defaults

This is not a request for new functionality, but for protection around an action that has very large blast radius and real customer impact.

We are very keen to continue expanding our use of Atera, but incidents like this make it difficult to do so confidently. Addressing this would significantly improve operational safety and trust in the platform.

Thank you for listening, and for continuing to build a genuinely powerful product.