Can ConnectWise do critical path?
ConnectWise PSA has project boards and dependencies, but a true critical-path engine is a different thing. Here's the honest answer.
Not really — not as a true, native critical-path engine. ConnectWise PSA has a project module with phases, tasks, workplans, and dependencies, but it doesn't compute and continuously recast the critical path — the chain of dependent tasks with zero slack that determines your finish date — the way dedicated planning tools do. For real critical-path management, ConnectWise shops typically add Moovila or another planner.
What ConnectWise offers natively
ConnectWise's project boards handle tasks, workplans, scheduling, and time — solid for billing-connected delivery, and backed by a big, mature ecosystem. Dependencies exist. ConnectWise is also mid-migration to its Asio rebuild, so the project experience you see today may keep changing.
What 'critical path' actually requires
A true critical-path method (CPM) engine calculates the longest sequence of dependent tasks, works out how much float every other task has, flags exactly what will slip your go-live if it moves, and auto-recasts downstream dates when something changes. That's meaningfully different from simply drawing dependency arrows. Moovila is the deepest CPM engine in the MSP space (RPAX risk scoring, automatic recast) and integrates with ConnectWise.
Where Current fits
Current is a modern, dedicated project layer that runs alongside your PSA — Autotask, ConnectWise, or Halo PSA — with one PSA per workspace and two-way sync. It ships a native critical-path engine with client-side cycle detection, an interactive dependency map, Kanban and Gantt, and PTO-aware back-scheduling — while your PSA stays your billing source of truth. Partners get a portal with database-level financial isolation, so they never see your margins.
What ConnectWise does have
Credit where it is due, because ConnectWise project management is more capable than the usual comparison admits. There are project boards, phases, tasks, workplans, and dependency relationships, all connected to the billing side so delivery work flows to invoicing without a handoff. For an MSP already running ConnectWise as its system of record, that integration is genuinely valuable and should not be dismissed.
What is missing is the engine: ConnectWise does not compute a critical path or continuously recast the schedule as dates change. You can express that one task follows another; you cannot ask which chain is currently driving your finish date and have the answer maintained for you.
The Asio consideration
ConnectWise is mid-migration to its Asio rebuild, which means the project experience is a moving target. This cuts both ways during an evaluation. Capabilities may improve on a timeline nobody outside ConnectWise can predict, and the interface you evaluate may not be the one you use in eighteen months. Worth asking your rep directly what is on the roadmap for project scheduling specifically, and worth weighting current capability over promised capability.
The realistic options
- Stay in ConnectWise and manage sequencing by hand, which is fine for short, simple project work and painful for anything else.
- Add a dedicated engine alongside it, keeping ConnectWise for billing and running delivery where the scheduling lives.
- Wait for Asio to mature, which is a real option if your project volume is low today.
How Current pairs with ConnectWise
Current syncs two-way with ConnectWise PSA — companies, contacts, opportunities, projects, tickets, and time entries — so ConnectWise stays the financial system of record while Current owns the scheduling. Time logged in Current flows back for billing, and won quotes from ConnectWise CPQ walk into projects. The dependency graph itself stays in Current, since ConnectWise has no field to hold the richer relationships; what flows back is the computed dates.