January 12,2012 by kwells • Leave a Comment 
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We're excited to announce that we will be releasing the latest version of Workbooks this coming Saturday, the 14th January.

Our latest release includes some much anticipated functionality, including Workflow and Automation Features and Mailchimp integration.

Read on to find out more about the new functionality...

Workflow and Automation Features

Workbooks now includes the ability to automate common processes using a combination of the Process Manager and the existing Workbooks API.

This release include the following features to support automation:

• Scripts:  Workbooks allows you to run scripts which are hosted in the Workbooks environment. Scripts are built using PHP and the Workbooks API and can be used to automate a series of processes such as updating fields on a record or creating new records.  Scripts can automate pretty much any task in Workbooks. 
• A Scheduler: This enables you to run Scripts on a defined schedule. e.g. hourly, daily, weekly, or Monday-Friday.
• Process Buttons: Process buttons allow you to run a script in the context of a specific record.  A new button is added to the top of the record which can run one or more scripts when the button is pressed by the user.  You might for example add a process button to a case, which closes the case and automatically sends an email to the primary contact using the relevant email template. 
• Script Library: You will be able to install example scripts into your database which can be tailored to your requirements.  We will publish example scripts over the coming weeks.

These features are included in all editions of Workbooks, excluding, however, the free edition.

Improvements to Custom Fields - Linking Records

We have added the ability to create a new type of custom field which links one Workbooks record to another, this is called a Dynamic Linked Item.  This new field type looks like a pick list, but instead contains a list of records that already exist in Workbooks. 

The list presented in a Dynamic Linked Item is actually created using reports, so you can use the full power of reporting to select which values appear in the list.   As well as joining the two records, you can also 'pull through' values from one record to another.

Examples of where you might want to use this functionality include:

• Creating a primary contact on an opportunity.  You could link a specific person and also populate their contact details such as email, phone number and address onto the main opportunity record.
• Adding a partner onto an Invoice.  The invoice already contains the details of your end customer, but you could add a Partner field and pull through the relevant organisation record and contact details onto the Invoice.

The Dynamic Linked Item can link any records in Workbooks together to suit your business need.

These improvements are included in all editions

Status Improvements 

Many records in Workbooks such as Cases, Opportunities and Activities have a status value .  These values can already be customised to meet your needs.  We have extended this for some records so you can map each status to either an Open or Closed state as well.

For example you can now map each Opportunity Stage to either Open or Closed.  This simplifies reports and views, enabling you to run a report or create a view of all 'Open' opportunities without having to specifically include each Stage.

The functionality is available with the following records

• Activities (Activities Status)
• Leads (Leads Status)
• Opportunities (Opportunity Stage)
• Cases (Case Status)
• Campaigns (Campaign Status)

These improvements are included in all editions

Security Improvements

The existing security framework has been extended to include Products.  This means you can restrict which products are available to users using the existing Permissions model. Each product now has a 'padlock' and you can set the permissions using sharing policies.

These improvements are included in all editions

Audit Extension

Workbooks is now able to audit every change to a Workbooks record.  Using Audit you can see a history of who changed which record, including the specific 'before' and 'after' values of each field.

You can use Audit not only to track record changes, but to measure your performance against SLAs.  For example you can write an Audit report which shows all cases which haven't been processed within a specific time period.

Audit is an additional Extension costing £36 per user, per year (£3 per user, per month).  For existing customers we will add the Audit Extension to your account for free, until the end of your existing contract term on request.  If you would like Audit enabled let us know at support@workbooks.com

MailChimp Integration

The MailChimp Integration is now completed.  This enables customers to synchronise records between Workbooks and MailChimp automatically.  Within the campaign screen you can 'connect' a Workbooks campaign to MailChimp and all campaign members details will be synchronised with a MailChimp List.  You can also see the MailChimp activity within a Mailchimp tab on the person or lead record.

 Watch the following video to learn more about how the Workbooks/MailChimp Integration works:

November 16,2011 by jcheney • Leave a Comment 
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10 years ago, advertising was the preserve of large businesses with big marketing budgets.  In fact a whole ecosystem of marketing and advertising agencies would make money designing, testing and implementing expensive advertising campaigns. 

Today however things are vastly different and you can spend much less money, and still reach millions using search engine advertising. In line with these changes, Google and Bing, in particular, have made online advertising easy to use and available to all businesses, even those with smaller budgets.

In fact I would go as far as to say that being 'On Google' is increasingly seen by many businesses as something they need to do to be credible and Adwords is the quickest way of getting there.

But does search engine advertising actually work? Does it create more sales opportunities and drive more business? According to a recent survey we ran with YouGov, only 18% of SMEs who use Google Adwords can actually recoup the cost of their investment.  82% either don't make enough sales to cover the cost of advertising or just don't know.

This chimes with our own experience.  Last year we spend £36k on Google Adwords, which generated around 13'000 visits to our website, which you might is feel is good.  Indeed our Marketing agency was pleased with the results, especially in a market which is pretty competitive. However because we actually track the number of leads we generate, along with the lead source, and which of these actually convert into sales, I know we actually made sales of just £5k from our Google Adwords campaign, by far the worst performing marketing activity in our business.

What was most interesting in the survey we put together was that over half of businesses really didn't have any idea if their online advertising was working or not. This indicates that these organisations are just spending money, not knowing if it is worthwhile or not.  Considering the vast number of tools available to businesses today, this is just foolish. By implementing a CRM tool like workbooks.com it really is very easy to track which leads are generated from online advertising and then measure the return on investment.  If you are using Workbooks already and want to understand how to track online leads, we would encourage you to read this article. (http://www.workbooks.com/forum/integrating-workbooks-crm-google-analytics-web2lead)

If you are spending any significant money on Google advertising you really need to look beyond the data you get from the Adwords tools, to see if the leads generated really turn into sales.

If you use a marketing agency to run your Adwords (or SEO) challenge them to justify the spend and really measure ROI.  We even provide a free 2 user version which allows agencies to use our service for free so they really have no excuse.

The ROI on our Google Adwords campaign this year is better, we are now getting about x1.5 our investment, not great but definitely an improvement.

October 24,2011 by kwells • Leave a Comment 
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Friday evening saw the successful deployment of our Autumn 2011 release, which included some major new functionality, addressing a number of customer enhancement requests and making Workbooks even more flexible to use.

Some of the new areas of functionality include:

Custom Page Layouts

It is now possible to customise the appearance of Workbooks records and share the customised layouts with specific Users or User Groups. This is particularly useful if the same record is used by different Users for different purposes as you can specify which fields appear on a record and their position on the form, as well as specifying a default value. For forms with editable grids, such as transaction records, you can control which columns are shown, hidden or excluded. You can also specify which tabs are displayed. This functionality will help Users to focus on the parts of your business process that are most relevant to them.

Pinning

If you want a particular record, Landing Page or other form to be displayed on your desktop every time you open Workbooks you can ‘pin’ it so that it’s automatically displayed when you login. You can pin more than one window, giving you instant access to the areas of the system that are most useful to you.

Landing Page Views

We’ve added functionality to the Landing Page views including:

• Default Views - You can control which of the views in each Landing Page opens by default when opening that Landing Page, which gives you quicker access to the records that you use most frequently.
• Sharing Views - If you’ve created a view of records that you want other Users to see you can choose to share the view with them rather than them having to login and recreate your view.
• Managing Views - Individual Users can manage saved views more effectively and can now rename them, rearrange the order in which they’re displayed and ‘hide’ any that they don’t want to see, rather than deleting them.

Custom fields on Products can be added to Line Items

Now when you add a custom field to a Product you can add the same custom field to the Line Items within Opportunities and other transaction records and the values entered on the Product will be pulled through onto the transaction record. This will make displaying information such as a part number, nominal code and so on, much easier.

Re-ordering Line Items

Sometimes when you’re adding Line Items to a transaction record you need to see them displayed in a different order from the one in which they’ve been entered. The new release enables you to re-order Line Items easily by amending the number in the Display Order column.

Re-ordering Picklist values

Previously Picklist values have been displayed in alphabetical order so it’s been necessary to prefix the value with a number in order to control the order in which they are displayed. We’ve improved this functionality so you can now specify the order in which the values should appear, which is helpful if you want to force the most frequently used values to the top of the list.

Opportunity Stages

Depending on your sales process, you may want to prohibit users from being able to ‘downgrade’ an Opportunity (ie, move its Opportunity Stage backwards). We’ve added a capability which allows you to control which, if any, of your Users can downgrade an Opportunity in this way.

Security Changes

This release includes two enhancements to the security features of Workbooks:

• Exempt from Password Expiry - It’s now possible to exempt specific users from having to enter a new password after a specified time. This will be particularly useful for API client users to ensure that access to Workbooks doesn’t fail due to an expired password. Of course, we recommend that general Users are not exempted from password expiry.

• Lock down access for users to a set of IP addresses - Whilst one of the benefits of using a CRM system delivered via SaaS is that Users can login anywhere, some customers have requested that they can retain control over where their Users can access Workbooks so we’ve added the ability to restrict Users’ access based on the IP address they’re using. This restriction can be applied to just some or to all of your users (except System Administrators).

Assigned To Field in Campaign Membership

When managing Marketing Campaigns it can be useful to see who the Person / Sales Lead / Organisation is Assigned To so we’ve added this to the columns that can be displayed within the Campaign Membership tab. You can sort, filter and group the records based on assignment making it easy for the relevant person to follow-up the campaign members.

If you have any questions about this new release, please don't hesitate to get in touch and as ever, please continue to help drive our roadmap by contributing your suggestions to the ideas section of our community site.

October 11,2011 by kwells • Leave a Comment 
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Philip James, Partner, and Carolyn Butler, Solicitor at Pitmans LLP examine some of the legal issues you should consider when moving to cloud computing and selecting a vendor.

1. Know the Flight Plan (negotiation and contract)

Carefully review the terms on which you are intending to contract with your cloud provider. Is the contract open to negotiation or are you expected to contract on the cloud provider’s standard terms? If the former, consider your specific requirements, and ensure your contract:

• Adequately reflects your requirements in unambiguous language in a layout that's easy to follow (in other words, don’t bury your specifications across numerous schedules);
• clearly delineates the roles and responsibilities of both the cloud provider and your organisation; and
• has quantifiable metrics or KPIs to verify the performance of your cloud provider.

If the latter, review the terms carefully to ensure, firstly, that they are fair and that there are no unpleasant surprises lurking and, secondly, that they cover everything you need them to. If not, seek to vary the

• What limitation should apply?
• Are there risks for which liability should or should not be excluded? E.g. does the supplier exclude liability for loss of data (this is not much good if you are outsourcing your CRM database!)

2. First Class, Business Class or Economy Class? (service levels)

Before you sign up, ask your cloud provider about any extra costs and charges, work out which of these are relevant to your business and budget accordingly. You should also ensure your future as well as your present needs are taken into account: find out how quickly and by how much your cloud provider can scale up the services it provides, and, if you plan to expand your business abroad, whether your provider has the capabilities to meet your needs in other jurisdictions. 

It is important that the ramifications of failing to meet the agreed service levels are clearly set out (often a service credits mechanism is used) and that the parties agree a process of escalating remedies in the event that problems supplementary to the agreed remedial mechanisms arise. The resolution of disputes can be a costly and time-consuming exercise, and it is in the interests of both parties to have workable and effective escalation processes in place to ensure problems are worked out amicably, the business relationship is preserved and any disruption is kept to a minimum.

3. Security Checkpoints (security and data protection) 

It is essential to verify with your cloud provider what responsibilities for security lie within the remit of your organisation and which are their responsibility.

While your cloud provider may be unable to give you precise details about the security measures it has in place (since a detailed disclosure of the systems in use could impair their integrity), a high-level description of those measures should be given, for example, the extent to which data encryption is used, whether anomaly detection systems are applied, the protocols in place to deal with the theft of user credentials and the physical security used to protect the locations where data is stored. Your cloud provider should also be able to tell you whether it meets any of the existing web standards and give you details of the security features on offer for users, such as user authentication and authorisation/administration controls. Find out whether your cloud provider offers any guarantees that customer resources are fully isolated from one another, and to what degree data, metadata or other traces of use by your organisation is erased before machines are reallocated. You should request sufficient information to allow you to make a sensible judgement about the adequacy of the security measures offered by your cloud provider, whether additional measures are required and need to be agreed in your contract.

Further, your cloud provider may intend to outsource or subcontract any of the operations that it is contracted to supply to you, and, if they do, find out who those third parties are, where they are based, what procedures are used to verify and monitor the quality of services they provide, and the security controls in place to protect your data. For instance, it is not much use having contractual protections in your agreement with your provider if the ‘subbie’ to whom the service is sub-contracted is not subject to the same terms agreed with your supplier (you may also not have conducted due diligence in respect of that subbie).

4. Final Destination (location) 

Just as importantly, find out where your cloud provider will physically hold your data. Your data should be stored in a jurisdiction where an acceptable level of protection is mandated by law. Data protection standards vary from one jurisdiction to another and, although efforts are being made to harmonise the requirements across the EU as a whole, outside of the EU they may be non-existent. Nevertheless, if you are a business based in the UK, and the data in question is being processed in the context of that business, the full extent of the UK rules will most likely apply.

Further, if you are intending to store personal data in the cloud, such as HR records, take note that the transfer of personal data to a country or territory outside of the EEA is prohibited, unless equivalent protection in that country or territory is assured (and in this respect, if it is to be stored outside the EEA, seek specific legal advice on this issue as there are a number of compliance requirements which may need to be dealt with). Where this is concerned, it is always easier from a data privacy compliance perspective to engage a supplier whose data centre is located in the UK or Europe than enter into an arrangement with a supplier whose servers are in the US or China (or worse still, in a virtual data centre i.e. you don’t know where it is stored!).

Note also that, where HR data is concerned, it is also likely to contain sensitive personal data. As such, there are a number of more stringent restrictions as to how this type of data may be processed and specific consents may need to be obtained from the data subjects (i.e. the person to which such personal data relates). Ideally, find a cloud provider based in your jurisdiction that can provide assurances that data (and at the bare minimum, personal data) will not be transferred outside of the EEA.

It is important to ensure your contract with your cloud provider clearly states the choice of territorial jurisdiction (that is, the country in which any dispute in relation to the country will be heard) and the choice of law that the courts will apply in determining any dispute. Ideally, this should be a jurisdiction in which your organisation operates. If a dispute arises, and the choice of law and jurisdiction has not been specified, under EU law a defendant may be sued where they live, or where the contractual obligation was performed. The applicable law, however, will be the law with the closest connection to your contract. It is easy to see how this can create problems in a cloud computing environment where there are cloud providers all over the globe eager for your business, and where your data could potentially be stored anywhere in the world, so explicitly state in the contract what’s intended.

5. Take a Moment to Find the Nearest Exit (transitioning)

September 09,2011 by • Leave a Comment 
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 Over the past few months we have been integrating Workbooks with Google Apps.

The 1st phase of the integration is now done and we have put together a little video to showcase the functionality.

We hope you like it.

August 30,2011 by kwells • Leave a Comment 
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With so many CRM vendors available, offering broadly similar products, choosing the right solution for your business can be an overwhelming task. We look at 10 questions you should ask yourself before committing to a CRM system.

1. Should we choose a web-based or on-premise solution?

Before committing to one or the other, you should consider several factors, including how much you want to spend and how accessible you want your CRM solution to be. Although on-premise solutions can have advantages, a web-based system will make it much easier for your sales team to enter data remotely, and web-based solutions also have the advantage of being much less expensive, as they do not demand large up-front investments that on-premise solutions require.

2.What does it cost?

August 29,2011 by jkay • Leave a Comment 
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We are pleased to announce that the Summer 2011 version of Workbooks is due to be released on Friday 2 September 2011. It includes a number of significant new features.

July 19,2011 by jcheney • Leave a Comment 
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19th July 2011 - Workbooks.com has secured a total investment of £5.4m from Angel investors. This business was able to raise the additional capital in less than 60 days, in part because Angel investors were able to take advantage of the recent EIS tax relief changes, which makes investing in business like Workbooks more tax efficient for private investors.

Following the commercial launch of the company 18 months ago, and an initial £4m investment, the latest £1.4m extends the commitment from investors to a total of £5.4m.

The funding will be used to accelerate sales growth in the UK and online, driving toward Workbooks main business objective to transform the IT landscape for SMEs.

John Cheney, CEO of Workbooks, commented: “Workbooks represents an ideal opportunity for an investor to be part of a start-up that is fuelling economic recovery in the UK. The majority of Venture Capital is investing in later stage businesses that offer lower risk and the Banks just aren’t lending. For Workbooks and its investors the EIS scheme and recent increase in tax relief was a major factor in this latest round of additional funding.”

Ian Calcutt, non-executive director and founder of Integralis Ltd, commented: “Workbooks.com is a business that has a clear understanding of the needs of the SME market, because it is a SME itself. The CRM solution it has developed can help businesses increase sales, improve customer retention and streamline business processes. By extending my investment I have the opportunity to help Workbooks sell more of its solutions to the SME market. This will in turn offer SMEs the opportunity to work more efficiently, encouraging success and growth for the UK. At the same time, the EIS tax relief on offer makes this an attractive deal for me.”

Workbooks has an incredibly strong offering for SMEs which has the potential to take advantage of a huge market. It is a sound example of the sort of technology-based innovation that the UK excels at.

“It is clear that many small and medium sized businesses want a better platform to manage their business success in the way that large enterprises do. There is a chasm of opportunity between what many SMEs are being sold as a CRM solution and what many SMEs actually need,” added Chris Howell, founder of DriveTech. “Workbooks fills that gap.”
 

July 05,2011 by kwells • Leave a Comment 
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The expectations and requirements of a CRM system for small and mid-sized organisations are similar to the deployment of a CRM system for a large corporate. The difference is that unlike larger organisations, smaller businesses tend to have limited resource available to them, in terms of both budgets, and time available to ensure the implementation of the CRM project is a success. 

We believe that there are a number of key factors that every SME should look for when purchasing a CRM solution. 

1. Usability

Consider how much time and money you are willing to spend on the implementation of your chosen CRM solution. An easy-to-use and intuitive system is likely to require less training, and therefore less money spent on ensuring your CRM deployment is a success. An intuitive solution is an effective solution, as it enables your salespeople to become competent far quicker which in turn helps your company benefit from a quick return on the investment. 

2. How easy is it to customise

Look for a solution that you can customise easily and one that enables you to capture all the information you need it to, without having to change your working processes too much. Organisations often have different terminology and terms for ultimately the same thing and although you should be open to change and new ways of working, having a solution that seamlessly integrates into your current working practice is priceless. 

3. Accessibility

Consider how accessible you want your CRM solution to be. Although on-premise solutions can have advantages, a web-based system will make it much easier for your sales team to enter data from anywhere, for instance at a trade show. A web-based solution will also enables them to access the system when working from home and on the move. This flexibility is key.

4. Easy to use reporting tools

Reporting forms an essential part of a CRM solution, helping you to make better, more informed decisions. Make sure your CRM solution not only allows you to quickly and easily create reports, but also allows you to generate and view the data in a useable format. Bear in mind that you may want to use your data elsewhere to perform further analysis, so a system that does not allow you to export your data into formats such as .XLS, .TXT or .CSV may prove to be very frustrating.

5. Scope for growth

Make sure the CRM solution you choose has the flexibility to grow with your business. Having a solution that is well equipped to deal with your needs as a ‘one man band’ is great, but as you grow and your business changes the last thing you want to be doing is starting the process of implementing a new CRM solution all over again. 

6. Easy to use data import and export tools

Most organisations will have existing customer data or information held somewhere. Whether this be spreadsheets or an existing CRM solution, it is probable that you will want at least some of this data imported into your new CRM system. With this in mind, a solution that supports an easy import of data is crucial. Similarly, the ability to export your data into a useable format, such as Excel or .CSV, at the click of a mouse is something every CRM solution should have. 

7. Availability of training

Regardless of how intuitive your chosen CRM solution is, many of us are naturally somewhat reluctant to change, and therefore training is key to ensure quick adoption throughout your workforce. It is important to identify whether training is available to you, and at a reasonable cost. 

8. Hidden support costs

Some CRM solutions can be deceptively inexpensive. Carefully consider the level of support that is included within your contract and make sure you are comfortable with the costs associated for any support that falls outside the terms of your contract. Too often organisations are lured in by low prices, and are shocked to discover several months later that they have to pay extra when they run into a problem they need help with.

9. API Integration

It is common for smaller organisations to run their business on multiple applications, for instance Microsoft Outlook, Google Apps or Sage accounting packages. Make sure your chosen CRM solution can integrate with the other applications your business uses to help create a streamlined approach.

10. A solution that caters to your business needs

As much as it’s important to ensure your CRM solution meets all your key requirements, as the saying goes, you also do not want to end up ‘using a sledgehammer to crack a nut’. Choosing an extravagant solution to solve a minor problem will prove overwhelming and will ultimately result in incurring unnecessary cost. Make sure you choose a solution that specialises in businesses of your size, and is ready to grow along side you.

June 06,2011 by kwells • Leave a Comment 
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Last Friday (3rd June) saw the successful deployment of the latest Workbooks release. The Spring 2011 release includes some fantastic  new functionality, including the ability to bulk update records using the import tool as well as ‘right-click’ functionality to support copy, paste and spell-checking. As always, the release also included a number of enhancements made to existing functionality and the resolution of several bugs. 

Some key areas of new functionality include:

Update through Import

You can now use Workbooks Import functionality to update fields on existing records. For example, data that has been taken out of Workbooks for cleansing can be imported and the amended data used to update  the existing information. Using the update mode you can choose between simply updating existing records or updating existing ones AND, if a record doesn’t already exist, creating a new one. Click here for more information.

Full Database Export

In response to customer requests it’s now possible for users with the appropriate capability to download their entire database. The data will be exported as a TGZ archive file, which is a compressed file, containing multiple CSV files which holds all the data about your different record types. Of course, we’ll continue to backup your data and keep it secure but now you have the added benefits of being able to choose to export your data too. You’ll find information on how to do this here.

Export to Excel and CSV

Previously there was a limit on the number of rows that can be exported to Excel  or to CSV (1,000 rows). Again, in response to customer requests, this limit has been removed so you can export data from grids much more easily.

Quick Start Guide

To make the initial set up of Workbooks easier, we’ve added a Quick Start Wizard to guide you through setting up your Own Organisation, including your Tax Regime, Home Currency, Foreign Currencies, Company Registration Number and Accounting Periods.  If you’ve already set up your database you won’t see this Wizard, although it will be available if you create a new database.

Spell-Checking functionality

One of the most popular enhancement requests we receive is to include a spell checker.  We’ve added access to the browsers right-click functionality, which allows you to copy and paste (rather than using Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V) and gives you access to the browsers spelling checker (Note, availability of spell checking is browser specific, a spell checker is included in Chrome, Firefox and Safari, for Internet Explorer you need to install a third party plug-in). To access this functionality on standard fields, use right click however when using the rich text editor you need to hold down the Control key (or Command key on a Mac) and right click the mouse.

Internet Explorer 9 support

Workbooks can be used with any of the main browsers:  Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari or Opera and up until now, for reasons of speed of performance, we’ve recommended using either Chrome or Safari.  This release adds support for the recently introduced Internet Explorer 9. Significant Performance improvements within Internet Explorer 9 allow us to now recommend it for use with Workbooks.

Email Roll-Up

On an Organisation record, we have extended the email tab so it now shows all emails sent to or from Employees of that Organisation. This allows you easily to see email correspondence between your staff and your customer in one place.

Other Enhancements

In addition to the aforementioned enhancements, many parts of the service have seen incremental improvement, often as a result of customer feedback. Where we have addressed specific customer requests our customer support team will be in touch to inform you that these changes have been implemented.

As ever, please continue to help drive our roadmap by contributing your suggestions on our Community site.