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Ilija Studen Staff | Oct 23. 2009. 2:41 pm | #2 |
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Nick Crossman Pro | Jan 12. 2011. 7:28 pm | #6 |
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Ilija Studen Staff | Jan 14. 2011. 8:05 am | #7 |
activeCollab is a fine product of A51 d.o.o
activeCollab name and logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of A51 d.o.o.
I'm constantly trying to improve my "paperwork" workflow and as a result have been extensively testing SaaS applications and reconsidering how such tools can streamline the day-to-day business chores that I hate doing. As a result, I've arrived at some conclusions I think are important enough to share with the team that built the Project Management tool that helps run my business.
The problem:
Your users will become your worst enemies. The majority of people who rely on AC to help run their businesses will constantly be clamoring for improvements to extend the base system far beyond what it was originally intended to do.
The result:
Sooner or later, AC will become a bloated beast of modules and extensions that will in all likelihood do what they are intended to do well enough, but will almost certainly fall short in other critical areas. There are already dozens of Project management tools available to users that cost too much, try to do too much, and in the end, fail miserably in areas that would be far more beneficial to the business owner.
I already see this happening with the addition of the invoicing module - The moment you introduce a feature like this, the calls start piling on for an all-encompassing solution.
My two cents:
There are dozens of invoicing specific SaaS tools available that are already years ahead of AC in development. Freshbooks and Xero are two excellent examples. Why reinvent the wheel? Utilize their API's and provide AC users with a viable, well-developed invoicing option they can use immediately instead of wasting precious hours developing a new system from scratch.
My situation:
I recently adopted Xero for my accounting and while their invoicing feature is quite good, I am testing the connection between WorkFlowMax and Xero specifically for WFM's superior invoicing and quoting capabilities. WFM is a project management app and invoicing tool that is able to push invoices directly into Xero. **This simple integration is an unbelievable time-saver in terms of workflow.**
Note: I am not particularly fond of WFM for project management ... AC is a better tool, but their invoicing integration with Xero is absolutely terrific.
Ideal Workflow:
CRM >> ActiveCollab >> Invoicing App >> Accounting App
The ideal solution for me ...
• AC allows me to send tracked time/invoices directly to Xero.
• AC allows me to send tracked time to Freshbooks which will push my invoices to Xero (is working on Freshbooks integration).
In Summary:
I love AC and have been a loyal user for years, but I am afraid that your desire to please all of your users will unnecessarily detract from improving the basic task of the tool which is Project Management. There are many features I would like to see improved simply to make AC more valuable to my business as a PM tool.
AC does not need to be everything to everyone. Get on board with SaaS integrations and extend AC using other well-developed tools for features like accounting, invoicing, CRM, etc.
I apologize if this has come off sounding overly critical, but my recent research has shown me that AC is behind the curve and as my business grows so will my need to convert to a fully integrated SaaS application workflow and I would like AC to remain a critical part of that process.
Thanks for listening.