Clearview InFocus

Opmerkingen: With hundreds of projects and five offices our managers need to stay current on the status of their work and have the tools to develop new proposals. InFocus is indispensable for personnel management and project performance. Plus it provides financial statement and accounting data that is crucial for senior management and independent accountants. The data available and the variety of the reports are limitless. Also, our clients want their invoices and reports in a wide variety of styles. The open structure and adaptability of the InFocus system is a constant marvel at design and intuition.

Pluspunten: Its flexibility, power and data retrieval ability. We have forty-five people in our company, with five office locations and six profit centers (disciplines). Of these forty-five people, more than two thirds are field personnel that are often asked to work in various disciplines or support the work in our other offices. At any one time we have a couple hundred projects open for scores of clients. Keeping track of this is incredibly difficult. We worked with Clearview for a couple of months in order to transfer our existing clients, projects, time records and accounting records to our new system. With over 16,000 historical projects and a current work in process in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, we matched to the penny. Working with them is a pleasure. Not only is the InFocus package all that it claims to be, the folks at Clearview are great to work with. Sure there is a bit of a learning curve, but the answers are so intuitive you can’t believe you did not think of it yourself. Their support literature, training videos, white papers and support site are extremely helpful. There may be comparable products out there, but I seriously doubt there is anything better. If there was a better product or solution, these folks would match or exceed it. We all have competition; we need competition to push us to do a better job.

Minpunten: Getting others in our organization to appreciate and better use this management too.

Opmerkingen: Choosing InFocus is one of the best decision we've made. Training can be a challenge when adopting any new system. Clearview offers extensive training videos, consultations, and webinars. Considering most software products continue to improve and implement client-suggested upgrades, I appreciate Clearview's workshops, where users can continue their InFocus education on advanced levels. Having the opportunity to attend has helped me to really hone in on configuring our InFocus database in ways that are compatible with my company's workflow. I also picked up tips and tricks other users developed for their needs.
Customer service is also very important to me. I appreciate responsive, knowledgeable technicians and staff members who listen. They do not over promise, over-sell, or mislead when discussing requests, issues or customization. They believe in empowering their users. I LOVE THIS!! They offer a workshop for those wanting to learn advanced report writing. Support staff will work through any issue or request until it has been satisfied.
InFocus demonstrates its value. Invoicing is fast. Communicating project details flow more smoothly. Preparing invoices in various formats are easier. All this and more are offered for a low monthly cost per user. They even offer a training version of our data for a very low monthly fee, and any user can access it. This has been crucial when I'm working through project setup options and need to test my ideas.
Overall, I love it.

Pluspunten: It's easy to navigate, more intuitive than other products we've used, and customizable. It's difficult to pick my favorite aspect; it's such a great product overall.

Minpunten: I wish user's could change the color of the Sandbox (training environment). Having it the same color as the live version can make it a bit confusing when training others.