Blackbaud Award Management vs. Cirrus Insight

This system has all the intentions of being fantastic. It is a great system if you have scholarships that are blindly rated or scored, or if you have multiple users with a few scholarships each. However, as a college with hundreds of scholarships that have 200-300 qualified students for each one, it is difficult to have a blind process. Plus, if the university gave our college the ability to edit some things, they would have to give those permissions to every person with a login. Needless to say, the system is not quite equipped for multiple users within one university who all have different editing privileges. However, as cumbersome as it has been to learn and manipulate for our purposes, it has allowed us to award more funds than any year prior due to the ease of having all of the student data in one place.

Incentivized

For someone who uses both Gmail and Salesforce as part of their main role, this software is an invaluable connector for them both. Some of the features are also not Salesforce specific - such as the Meeting Scheduler, which has proved invaluable to me, and I would recommend to any Gmail user who frequently set up meetings (either internally or externally).

Incentivized

• Keeps awarding data in one central hub
• Allows users to easily review awarding history and application history
• Easily customizable for the average user

Incentivized

• Log email to Salesforce. You click one button and it logs for you. This is easier than adding the BCC email address that Salesforce provides as a way to log email.
• Track views and engagement on these emails. It's nice to know if the email was opened and if links were clicked.
• Update quick fields in Salesforce directly from their inbox using Cirrus. This prevented reps from needing to click into Salesforce, wait for it to load, then update fields like the phone number or name.
• If the rep did need to open Salesforce, Cirrus provides a quick button to navigate to the Lead/Contact/Opportunity page quickly.

Incentivized

• Our school is unique in that we require a minimum of two references to be completed per applicant and they must be the right references. One must be a teacher/instructor if the applicant has been a student in the last 5 years and the others must be professional level references. To date there is no way for the system to identify and qualify students based on their references, so this process falls to us.

Incentivized

• Outlook for Mac could use some work as an add-on because it's hard to read sometimes on my laptop. It's not a sidebar, like the Windows functionality, so it's harder to read.
• Doesn't always find an opportunity, even though I know it's in our Salesforce system.
• Randomly shuts down and doesn't log in properly at times. I've had to remove and re-download more than once.

Incentivized

While the price is a bit high, the software provides everything we need to effectively award and track scholarships and awards within our institution. The ease of use allows for everyday users and occasional users to both be able to access the information they need without wasting time or resources

Incentivized

It is the best google to salesforce integration on the market. support is incredibly responsive and very helpful. They are constantly adding new features, and the current feature set is well beyond anything else that is currently offered in the market

Very easy to use. Everything opens in a familiar interface right inside the google apps sidebar. It brings in salesforce records, so as long as you know google apps / gmail and salesforce you'll be all set. It's point and click.

Haven't had a down issue in the almost 2 years I've been using the product. Support is also super responsive.

Pulls in salesforce data very quickly, and syncs very quickly.

I lean on our centralized Foundation for support related to Blackbaud Award Management. However, any time I've had a question they couldn't answer, they were able to get the support quickly and efficiently. I give an 8, versus a 9 or 10, because our centralized office has had some requests in for changes to the system that have not been made. Some parts of the system are not working for our purposes, and we've asked for some changes that should be doable. However, the time it takes to get universal changes made is quite long

Incentivized

The plugin is installed inside your internet browser as an extension/add-on. It can be found in most add on stores and is easy to install. Usually just a few clicks. It handles authorization for you once you sign in, and then takes care of all the rest. It couldn't be easier to get working right out of the box. You're up in running in less than 5 minutes.

Blackbaud Award Management easily integrates with their other softwares but award management is more specific to scholarship and award needs and tracking. RE NXT is moreso for the fundraising and tracking side of things whereas Award Management is for the scholarship side of things. Making sure you're purchasing the right sofware for your needs is important.

Incentivized

Yesware regularly sent me alerts that my emails had been opened by someone who I hadn't sent them to, from locations they couldn't possibly have been. I also don't recall its Salesforce activity logging working as smoothly, though I last used Yesware more than 12 months ago so my memory isn't as fresh as it could be

Incentivized

• We had a 24% increase in applications received after the first year
• We had a 10% increase in scholarship dollars awarded
• We had an increase in scholarship funds opened, including companies we weren't able to accommodate before.

Incentivized

• Customer data is paramount and Cirrus Insight supports optimal data integrity.
• Ease of capturing updated customer information and sales activity helps in forecasting, operational insight, etc.
• Facilitates transition of sales opportunities by seeing a clear trail of correspondence and customer updates.

Incentivized