Accelo

Opmerkingen: Business scaling
Quality control
Task management
Utilisation
Transparency for clients
Cost management

Pluspunten: We are able to fully process our business with the detailed project plans, scheduling and capacity tracking which gives us very detailed and accurate forecasting for capacities. The whole business now trusts the reliability of the system and the data in it so much that we report daily on the state of play with task management and capacities to move resources around which helps us deliver work quicker for our clients. We are forecasting for hiring new resources based on the system data, conducting price reviews and making lots and lots of continuous process tweaks with the confidence that Accelo is our living process documentation via the templates. Also, with the detail in the project plans is something we are able to leverage in the sales process to show prospects we have robust processes that will ensure the best quality content creation.

Minpunten: There are still some more features we would love to see in the future which would help us automate more and reduce admin but the revamp on the community ideas page gives great confidence to everyone at Digital 22 that if it will benefit enough people then there is a good chance we will see these and more great updates in the near future.

Opmerkingen: They have tried to satisfy so many requirements in enterprises. This became their system complicated and difficult to work.

Pluspunten: 1. It Supports a comprehensive variety of activities in an enterprise including CRM, Sales, Projects, Tickets & Requests, Contracts & Retainers, Tasks & Activities (Operations)
2. There are good API’s for integration with other systems.
3. It seems that they have published their API code in GitHub, so programmers can join and improve their API Code.
4. There is good integration with Google including google contact and google calendar
5. Very good Setting for “Module Titles” so a variety of users can customize the application based on their own industry and literature
6. Supporting the concepts of “Default Billable Rate” and “Default Cost Rate” for any user is really nice for having a costing system and evaluate the profitability of every customer.
7. A task can be against so many concepts including Project, Period, Ticket, Sales, which provide great flexibility for software.
8. The Idea of Task Board is really nice and this is a very good tool for monitoring tasks and keep them in mind
9. Mentioning about their blog is good for creating loyalty

Minpunten: 1. They tried to have a good responsive web application, but they were not fully successful in this case. Some of the icons on the upper toolbar will not accessible when the size of browser is in its minimum width. Alternatively, when the “List of Activities” is open and I change the width of browser, some of the texts will be override on each other.
2. Defining tasks is not very user friendly. For example when we want to define a new task and we don’t enter anything in the textbox of “Search Accelo for Company or Work” the Error Message is “Against field is required” this is right that the empty field is marked by a red box, but it is not very clear and user cannot guess which is the “Against Field”; because even there is no tooltip for it.
3. Some of the Help Videos are not updated based on the last version of the application. For example, a Video about timesheet just shows Weekly Timesheet and not Daily Timesheet which it seems that this menu has been added recently.
4. Application Setting is really complicated and full of different options for everything. Learning this comprehensive setting is difficult. It was better; there would be a “Search” to find whatever an administrator is looking for it.
5. A task can be assigned just to one person. It means that there is no common task for team members.

Opmerkingen: ordering and keeping track of our client base - with specific notes and stream or history of conversations and emails with each of them attached.
Easy tracking of support or maintenance tickets and conversion to invoices from a few simple filters.

Pluspunten: We transitioned away from an Excel Spreadsheet to Accelo and the transition was amazing. Just forcing us to cleanup our accounts in order to transition saved us thousands in internal errors, missed billing etc.
Accelo keeps you organized and has a wealth of options that you can take advantage of depending on the package you select with them.
For us the most useful things were 2 way integration with QuickBooks Online - and being able to track time on tickets and tasks in Accelo then fairly easily filter and convert those completed tickets into invoices within QuickBooks.
We liked how easy it was to enter time on a ticket and we loved being able to filter on staff for customized time periods in order to see hours worked by project for billing purposes.
Overall this is a robust CRM software that helps you keep track of your clients all in one place, make detailed notes on your relationship with them, track your historical conversations with them and integrate with your Accounting software.

Minpunten: Our biggest issues with Accelo were integration and Price:
At first everything worked fine but after a provincial PST increase we had to create a new Combined tax rate in QBO and it stopped working with Accelo. Customer Service chased this down for months but we never got a reolution - just updates that they were working with QBO on this. After several months of not being able to push invoices through - it became clear we needed another solution.
Secondly was the price. That was just too high for us in the end. We found other software that was not as robust, but fit our needs better, integrated with QBO more reliably and charged us a flat rate rather than a per employee rate - which makes MUCH more sense for us.
One last thing we didn't like that they may have already updated was that filters were not able to be saved. We'd have a staff meeting and load up a page with 3 or more filtering specifications then click something and the results of the filter were lost. We'd have to go through all the steps to get back there again. Same thing next week. It would be nice to be able to customize your filter selections and save them so you can run the same evaluations or reports repeatedly and easily.

Opmerkingen: I enjoyed working with both the Tech and Sales reps. The tech rep was awesome in answering any questions I had at any one time. We did several webinars where the tech and I worked through questions/issues I was having. They have great learning videos, and although I wasn't a part of it, they had a good setup and training program for the end user I was recommending them to. Not once was I told that I was asking too much and would need to purchase before getting answers.

Pluspunten: I loved the analytics of this product. I was demoing several products for a client that was looking for a PM software that handled a lot of their issues. This software fit the bill. They let me demo it for over 2 months, as I also had a full time job at the time that interfered with my daily testing/playing time with it.

Minpunten: I pick up new software fairly easy. I did have a major learning curve with this software. But once I got over that it was smooth sailing from there on out.

Opmerkingen: In our business we can have a long sales cycle, we also have consulting work, training, software we resell, support level agreements, adhoc support tickets, and we have larger project work as well. It is a lot to manage with a small team.
I tested many software solutions before we chose Accelo. Many packages were great in one area of our business but couldn't transition work as required. That is what really attracted me to Accelo. In Accelo you can start with a sale, migrate it to a project or a support ticket or a support ticket to a project. The system has the flexibility to work with the systems you are already used to and at the depth you want to go.
Accelo is a great all-rounder for a small business. It also integrates with the major accounting packages to ensure the tail end is taken care of as well.
When it comes to support, I've found the Accelo team to be supportive, encouraging and tuned in to their customers. The software is also evolved and improved regularly to respond to customer needs and to fine tune functionality in this worthwhile tool.
The time tracking functionality in the tool is excellent, and one of the features which sold me on the tool. I love the integration with outlook as well, creating that audit trail for future reference. In some ways though I think activities should come through with an aggregate cost, to simplify reporting to clients - sometimes too much information is a bad thing. It also takes longer than I would like to complete a time sheet and sometimes time is missed because work hasn't been approved. Also as updates are always happening, the time isn't static and this can be an issue when auditing time spent against an invoice down the track.
Customer facing reports/dashboards are also sourly lacking in the tool and my number one frustration right now. When a client calls me up and says how is my SLA tracking. I want to be able to produce a report which gives them the 5 key pieces of data they are after on the spot and send it to them, or at the very least screenshot it - at the moment we will export a detailed list of the support tickets and projects in progress for a client into excel, aggregate and manipulate the data manually and a create a dashboard front page which we then send them. It's a lot of work.