Blackbaud eTapestry vs. Jotform

As we are a small Foundation with only one Administrative Assistant, eTapestry is perfect for me to keep all of our CRM. Once I got used to how it worked, I found it to be user friendly. If I have any problems, I can either try to find the answer for myself in the extensive library, chat to support or email our Customer Service Representative with questions. I cannot fault either the Support team or Customer Service Representatives I have dealt with over the years as all of them have been knowledgeable and extremely helpful. I would prefer to have better options within the Email section as the templates are very basic. There is another option to use an eTapestry partner, but there are additional costs involved in that. The email templates are OK to use if you wish to send quick information to your database.

Incentivized

We use it for mostly community surveys and I absolutely prefer it over any other survey program out there. It is easy to create, easy to understand and easy to navigate. I love the QR code option it creates for you to share your form/ survey with others. It really is the best out there!

• Report Scheduling is great. Reports can be scheduled daily (even on specific days of the week), weekly, or monthly) and auto-emailed.
• Reports can be displayed on the screen, downloaded, or emailed in CSV, excel, or pdf and can have columns pre-sorted in your preferred order.
• Online donations are automatically added to the donor's account and automatically create an account for a new donor.

Incentivized

• Gathers information on my clients
• Gathers and organizes information on my prospects
• Enables my Team to use the form I create as a Template so they don't have to re-create it which saves them valuable time.
• Educates clients about the benefit of supplementation
• Educates my prospects

• When I started using eTapestry, you had to pay for courses to learn how to do more complicated things in the database. These courses were fairly expensive and our small organization couldn't afford that. I had to figure a lot out on my own or using the tech folks in chat or the odd free thing. Not sure if the courses are still costly or not.
• It is not particularly user friendly--for example, you would think the drag and drop email template would be pretty straightforward but it is not! And there aren't built in instructions to help as you try to use things.
• Figuring out how to organize queries and reports and communications in folders in order to find things again has been challenging. It is possible to search on keywords, which is very helpful. But finding something in a list of queries that is not alphabetical isn't particularly easy.

Incentivized

• The price is too high for casual users like myself
• The automation took some time to figure out (that's understandable)
• Making the forms look uniform took a lot of time to setup
• Some parts like the approval emails, notification emails can be confusing

Incentivized

We do not always get positive solutions from Etapestry. There are a lot of resources and solutions that you can read about and reach out to. I participate in Community Forums and trainings to see what we can be doing differently.

Incentivized

I need this software to run my business, it's built around it.

Incentivized

eTapestry was the first donor database I had ever used and always found it to be much easier to use and administer than the databases I was used to (patient care and payroll databases). The rare times I can't figure out how to do something, I just hope on the chat and someone from the team pleasantly walks me through the process. If it's something that database is incapable of doing, they encourage me to log my suggestion in the idea bank so it can be considered for enhancements. On top of that, the regular training provided allows you to continue building your skills within the database

Incentivized

As a seasoned user who relies on seamless online forms for a multitude of purposes, I can confidently attest that JotForm has not only simplified the form creation process but has also elevated it to new heights.JotForm's interface is a masterpiece of intuitive design. Even if you're a newcomer to the world of online form creation, the platform's user-friendly layout will have you crafting professional-grade forms in no time.

Incentivized

I have never had an issue accessing eTapestry. It does occasionally go down for maintenance. When that happens, they give you a lot of notice and generally schedule maintenance for hours between midnight and 6am so that business won't be disrupted.

Incentivized

The product does what it is supposed to, although there are downsides. There are positive and negatives for every product. This is less expensive alternative for a small organization tracking minimum information.

Incentivized

My favorite feature is the Live Chat. If we get stuck, we can get immediate help, download the chat and save it for later so if we need help again we have it on file. The Knowledge Database is also extremely helpful.

Incentivized

I honestly have not used the support feature with Jotform. From what I can see when I look information up, everything I want to do something that I can't figure out myself it seems to not be a possible solution or edit that Jotform is currently capable of.

Incentivized

In person training is always helpful for a new product however I think that the online tutorials would do just fine.

Incentivized

They explained everything well to us throughout the process. It was easy to find resources needed to answer any questions that we had. Support was also available should we need further assistance from the resources found online. They were also quick to respond to our teams inquiries, which was much appreciated.

Incentivized

I was not there for the implementation of this platform. Unfortunately I am unable to just skip this question as it requires a response, which needs to be fifty characters, so here we are. At thirty four, I need to add a few more words to satisfy this requirement. Done.

Incentivized

the most valuable things that Jotform give free trial, so the resistant users can get the experiences of the easiness and more handling to the digital things

Incentivized

We have researched 2-3 other donor platforms and we just aren't at a place to change, although we are very tempted. eTapestry is getting us by for now and we don't look forward to the day when we have to change platforms and have to change things for our monthly donors. We worry about attrition if our donors have to change platforms.

Incentivized

Typeform is better hands down [in my opinion]. It's not even a comparison as [I feel] JotForm doesn't work properly and [from my experience I think] their support is very problematic. I would suggest using Typeform or using GravityForms as an alternative to JotForm. Whatever you do, [I feel you shouldn't] depend on JotForm for something that is important to your business or research project.

No, I would not change anything

Incentivized

The product overall is not too bad but I would not suggest for a large nonprofit organization.

Incentivized

We didn’t use professional services

Incentivized

• Increased our capacity to fundraise.
• Allowed more opportunity to know our donors (tracking and data collection).
• Limited users - due to steep learning curve - as such less of our development staff know how to use the system to its fullest potential.

Incentivized

• It saved me time. Within minutes I was able to create and share forms to collect demographic data.
• While struggling to use another software, I thought of Jotform and it was able to assist me with collating the data I had to confirm results previously obtained.
• I could not easily identify what new information was provided in a resubmission by a respondent.