Find how much you have
Sign in to ConnectWise PSA (formerly ConnectWise Manage) and go to Service Desk > Service Ticket Search. If the screen or its Export button is missing, ask your administrator to check your security role.
Set the scope before you count. The screen defaults to parent-level service tickets. Choose All under Ticket Type to include project tickets and project issue tickets, and All under Level to include child tickets. Decide whether project tickets belong in your number, and if they do, keep service and project counts separate so you can describe both.
Clear every filter except the dates you want, then click SEARCH. List views show up to 200 rows per page and the help pages do not say where a total appears. Click Export on the toolbar instead. ConnectWise says it downloads all filtered results, including additional pages, as a comma delimited file, and that it exports every filtered item and not only the ones you selected. Count the rows. Do not use Print for a total, because a printed report stops at 5,000 entries.
Cross-check in Report Writer if an administrator can do it (System > Report Writer). ConnectWise says it can reach database views and tables, run in real time and export to Excel, PDF and XML. Its Instant Reports designer is meant for exploring data, and its documentation lists the most commonly used reporting views.
Find your start date in the export by sorting the Entered column, which shows when each ticket was created, oldest first. The Closed On column shows when tickets were closed. Keep merged tickets in mind, because ConnectWise says a merged ticket stops being an individual record and its updates go to the parent.
For hours, the Total Hours column in the export shows the hours entered on each ticket, so adding it up gives your logged hours. The help pages give no account-wide count of notes or attachments, so open five or six tickets from different years, average their notes and attachments, multiply by your ticket count and mark that figure Estimated.
What to put on your intake
Your intake has five boxes for each system. Here is what goes in each one for ConnectWise PSA.
- What does it hold?
- Service tickets, and project tickets if you run them, with summary, description, internal analysis, resolution, notes, time entered, attachments, linked configurations and agreements, and the company and contact for each. Say which boards you actually use, for example help desk and projects.
- Data types
- Structured records and Text for ticket fields, notes and resolutions. Add Image only if attachments such as screenshots are in scope. Leave Audio unticked unless you agree a specific source with us.
- How big is it?
- Choose Tickets as the unit and enter the row count of your unfiltered export. Put project-ticket and logged-hours figures in the description so a buyer sees the full shape.
- Verified or estimated
- Verified when the number is the row count of an export with Ticket Type and Level set the way you describe and no filters beyond your date range. Estimated when it came from a single board, a single year or memory.
- Records start
- The earliest Entered date. ConnectWise offers imports for service tickets, so if you moved from another PSA, say in the description whether older tickets were imported or are still in the old system.
Exporting the full history
If a buyer licenses your records, this is how the full history comes out of ConnectWise PSA.
Nothing is exported until you have signed a license and agreed the scope: which boards, which date range, whether project tickets are in, and whether notes and attachments are in or out. The steps below show what to expect.
List export. On Service Ticket Search, filter to the agreed scope and click Export. ConnectWise says the file is a CSV that opens in Excel, and that a link column in the file opens each record in PSA. The columns come from the list view, and the Customize button shows, hides and reorders them, so check the file has the columns you need. Slice a long history by date range to keep files manageable.
Ticket text. The columns the Service Ticket Search page lists cover ticket fields such as summary, status, board, company, dates and hours. They do not include the discussion, internal analysis or resolution text, so plan on Report Writer or the API for the words themselves.
Report Writer. An administrator builds a report on the reporting views, saves it and exports it. ConnectWise's support covers whether Report Writer works as designed, but not creating, editing or troubleshooting custom reports, and it points those requests to its professional services team. The documentation also points to a Data Dictionary that describes the database structure for report developers.
API route. ConnectWise's setup guide for its own Reports and Dashboards integration shows the pattern: in System > Members, an administrator creates an API member with a dedicated security role, with the Level set to Corporate so no service boards are hidden, and then makes a public and private key on the API Keys tab. The private key is shown only once, and that guide says the Admin role is not recommended for the integration. ConnectWise's developer documentation asked for a sign-in when we checked, so we have not read its paging or rate rules and your developer should confirm them.
Attachments are stored with each ticket, and ConnectWise says the original email is attached when a ticket was created by the email connector. We found no bulk attachment export, so agree with us whether attachments are in scope before any pull.
Identifiers come out before anything is delivered to a buyer. That covers client company names, contact names, email addresses and phone numbers, hostnames and addresses typed into notes, and anything that looks like a credential.
We only ask for an export after you sign a license and agree the scope. Sizing your data for the intake never needs one.
Limits to know
- The Service Ticket Search screen defaults to parent-level service tickets. Child tickets, project tickets and project issue tickets stay hidden until you set Level and Ticket Type to All, so a default count undercounts.
- List views show up to 200 results per page, and Print stops at 5,000 entries. Export is the documented way to get every filtered row.
- The Export button depends on a security setting. ConnectWise says that if you cannot export, check System > Security Roles > System Setup and Security Module > List View.
- The screen offers a mass Delete Ticket action, and merged tickets cannot be separated again. A count shows the tickets that remain, which can be fewer than the requests you ever received.
- Notes come in three categories, Discussion, Internal and Resolution. ConnectWise says the notes feature supports 1,000 notes per ticket in total across the categories, and that once the All tab shows 1,000 no new notes can be added, which matters for long-running tickets.
- Report Writer is enabled only for the Admin security role by default, and ConnectWise's support does not cover custom views, procedures or database objects, or repairing reports whose data source does not start with v_rpt.
- ConnectWise's developer documentation asked for a sign-in when we checked, so we could not read the API's paging, count and rate rules. Do not plan a large API pull until your developer has confirmed them.
- We found no ConnectWise documentation that says what happens to your data when a subscription ends. ConnectWise's article on mergers and acquisitions says you can request a SQL database of a non-surviving instance at an additional cost, but it is written for mergers, so ask ConnectWise in writing whether the same request is open to you before you cancel.
- Tickets describe your clients' environments. Some client agreements restrict how ticket content can be used, and tickets from clients in regulated fields may need to be left out entirely. Check your agreements before you list the system. This is not legal advice.
This guide isn't legal advice. Check your contracts, and any recording-consent rules that apply, with your own lawyer.
Why buyers value it
A managed service provider's ticket system is a record of how real IT problems are reported, triaged, worked and closed across many different client environments. In ConnectWise PSA, each ticket carries a board, a status, the time spent, written notes, a resolution and the company it was for. That chain from first report to resolution is what buyers building IT-support and help-desk automation want to learn from.
Breadth matters as much as volume. One provider sees the same kinds of problems in many different setups, so years of consistent tickets show which fixes work, how long they take and where work gets handed off. Public sources rarely offer that, which is why continuous history across many clients is the valuable part.
What stays private
Buyers see de-identified operating records, not your clients or their systems. Under the license, identifiers are removed before delivery. The de-identification step removes or excludes:
- Clients and people: client company names, contact names, email addresses and phone numbers, and the names of your technicians.
- Free text: notes, descriptions and resolutions, which often carry names, locations, device names, network addresses and sometimes pasted passwords. Counts, timing and outcomes can stay; sensitive wording is scrubbed or left out.
- Credentials and system detail: passwords, keys, hostnames, IP addresses, internal URLs and remote-access details of any kind.
- Attachments: screenshots, logs and emails attached to tickets are excluded unless a specific package is agreed.
- Regulated clients: tickets from clients whose own rules limit sharing are usually excluded entirely.
Your API keys, member list, billing and agreement terms with clients are not part of the license.
Common questions
Sources
Vendor documentation, checked . Screens and plans change, so if a step looks different in your account, check with ConnectWise PSA.
- ConnectWise Docs: Service Ticket Search Screen (opens in a new tab)
- ConnectWise Docs: Customize List View and Searches (opens in a new tab)
- ConnectWise Docs: Ticket Tab - Service Ticket (opens in a new tab)
- ConnectWise Docs: Report Writer (opens in a new tab)
- ConnectWise Docs: Connect to ConnectWise PSA Cloud (API member and keys) (opens in a new tab)
- ConnectWise Docs: Historical Database and Merge Options for Mergers and Acquisitions (opens in a new tab)