Bonterra Apricot is a cloud-based solution for nonprofits of all sizes. It's designed to bring data to the forefront in order to bolster a nonprofit organization’s impact. Apricot helps organizations to save time and resources because the tool makes managing data more efficient, so that users increase the time spent delivering the mission. Apricot offers configurable forms and fields so organizations can customize their experience to their clients and mission. It allows…
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Penelope
Score 6.7 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Bonterra’s Penelope is a configurable and secure case management system designed to help social good organizations save time for their staff, improve data quality and reporting, and better serve and connect with their participants.
$400
per year per user
Pricing
Bonterra Apricot
Penelope
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Basic
$400
per year per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Bonterra Apricot
Penelope
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
Required
Required
Additional Details
Pricing for Bonterra Case Management is driven by individual usage and needs of the nonprofit.
Organizations aren't one-size fits all, so neither is Bonterra's pricing.
Penelope software is priced on a Named Active Users model, with a minimum of 25 users. There’s also a one-time fee for implementation of the software, and our Tailored Services team is available to quote on additional services as required.
Penelope by Social Solutions did not have flexible reporting, did not have import capability, and was less flexible to configure. However, Penelope did have billing tracking capability.
When doing research for a case management system I looked at a variety of options including some not in your list (Charity Tracker, Sumac, and Notehouse). In the end, the decision was between Apricot and CaseBuddy by CaseWorthy. Ultimately, a large part of the decision came …
While I'm not familiar with using many other systems, we did perform an exhaustive database search before choosing Penelope. We liked Penelope because while it wasn't the cheapest, it offers an abundance of features that aligned with our operation and seems the simplest to …
We looked at many different programs available and we felt that Penelope met our needs the best. It was also in the right price range for our organization. Penelope’s staff were also the nicest, most helpful of the sales staff that we talked with. We also had really liked …
Our team has a lot of different steps to take in regard to their jobs. Apricot is very helpful in breaking everything down into separate folders that makes everyone's job more organized and flowing. Everything has a specific place, which also makes it easy to recognize if someone on the team is doing their job well or if someone needs additional training. The biggest flaw in Apricot is the Connect system, as I stated in a previous question. A big perk to Apricot in the beginning was being able to send out resources directly to a large group. However, not every resource is applicable for all families. We manage a large population of families, so it's very hard to organize it manually. There needs to be a way to filer out who we want to send things to right through the system instead of having to do it 1 by 1
Even if Penelope by Social Solutions is useful for case noting and any other file management, coordination and reports, it is not user-friendly. It does not let you delete your mistakes easily, it does not let you go back, and all the other issues mentioned, which are minor, added too much for a system that is supposed to support your work. However, some of the characteristics have been chosen by the system administrator and are not Penelope by Social Solutions's fault.
There are several things in the "suggestion" area that have been there for a while. For instance, to be able to see the client's age instead of just the birthdate. Many people want this, but I don't understand why it can't be done for us.
Luckily, whenever an issue arises, it's not there for long, as you have a fairly quick turnaround for resolving them.
Being able to view notes and other information sources with just a drop-down, instead of opening the entire note, would be preferred.
There are times when the system is just slow or doesn't work at all and it takes a little extra time for it to be resolved. This causes some stress.
I went to the Summit a few weeks ago to learn about the future expansion and vision of Social Solutions. I already been with Apricot for 5 years and researched other products I still come back to Apricot and where it can grow with us.
Penelope is saving us so much time and providing us with much-needed consistent regular data tracking and documentation. It has been a game-changer for our organization and we should have had it years ago. It has allowed us to have an efficient organized system to use daily in our non-profit agency.
Without any formal IT education, I was able to utilize their articles and videos to teach myself how to configure and customize the software to our organization (although I do recommend their Apricot Admin training to polish your skills). The majority of users are able to adapt immediately with minimal training.Staff that have challenges with technology in general do adapt to using the system once you can create buy in and engagement (although it does take time and training)
Penelope has a lot of features and options which is one of the reasons why it is so great. With a lot of features also comes a lot of time to learn all of them. For someone who is part of the development and implementation process, it is a lot of learning to fully understand how everything works. This is good to know in advance when choosing a team to develop your database. The great thing about Penelope is that you can customize the features for each level of staff that will be using it so the staff only have access to the parts of Penelope that they need and will be using regularly. This makes the training process for staff a lot easier.
This is a difficult question to answer because when I hear the word "support" I think of this in multiple levels. The customer service on the front end, with my account manager is pretty good. There was a time for about a year and a half where I didn't even want to get to know this persons name because they wouldn't be there there long enough for me to get to know them. For the past 8-9 months we've had the same account manager, and this is helpful as a way to grow our trust in Apricot social solutions as well as the account manager understanding the needs of our organization. The technical support is also fine. The issues we most have problems with is how the technical support is calculated and the lack of roll-over of technical support time. If our account has 1 hour of technical support per month, but we don't need any technical support for 4 months, it would be great to have the ability to use those 4 hours (as time allows per the IT calendar) when we need them, even if it falls within one month. We've also had instances of working with IT persons who didn't seem to care at all about our issues, and seemed eager to put our call behind them and get onto the next without much thought as to why we were calling them in the first place. We've also had instances where the IT person didn't seem to really be listening to what it is we needed, and was heck bent on what they THOUGHT we needed rather than listening to what we actually did need. While we also have had experiences of working with IT persons who were absolutely great at working through issues. They were patient and understanding and would explain why a solution (c)would or (c)would not work. We even worked through those options in real time if they were unsure whether a data solution would work or not. That was great because we felt heard.
Our support person with Penelope has been a dream to work with since day one. She is accommodating to our ever-changing schedule and has worked around us for training and Zoom meetings. She is always available via e-mail and is quick to respond to our many inquiries throughout the development and implementation process. Our Zoom meetings have been like talking to a long-time staff member. She explains things in a way that everyone can understand and will review with us as needed. She has been innovative in ways that Penelope can work for us and our needs and we have been so pleased with the support we have received.
There need to be specialists who know how to best work with an organization developing a new program, not just transferring existing forms to a digital format.
Be sure to have a good team of staff that will be on board with the training and will dedicate time and energy to the process. You want to have people who are motivated and excited about the new program that you are investing in.
We also use a state database called ETO that tracks case notes for our families, but doesn't give us the ability to analyze things like gross annual income growth for our families during their time in the program, # of housing applications completed, etc. It is solely used to track case notes regarding case management meeting content. Apricot allows us to generate statistics we can use to source funding and prove our efficiency as an organization as we continue to market our coaching model. ETO does not have this benefit.
Penelope is more controlled, well designed, and easy to use. We like that Penelope has some structure to it while having a decent amount of opportunities to be configurable to our own specific needs. Our staff finds Penelope easy to navigate and enter their data into the system in a reliable and easy way. We valued that at the time of purchase, Penelope was a Canadian company that understood our specific needs as a Canadian nonprofit.
