GreenRope vs. Insightly vs. Microsoft Dynamics 365

The price point and full featured application of GreenRope makes it perfect for small and medium sized businesses. GreenRope is an excellent alternative to some of the higher priced, better known CRM systems (Infusionsoft, AWeber, Ontraport, etc.). If you have specific requirements for your industry or business, GreenRope support will help to ensure that you get set up properly with what you need

If a business has a simple workflow for purchasing a product or service for a customer and they want to keep track of this workflow then Insightly is very useful. The more complex a business operation is then Insightly starts to become difficult to use. I would recommend Insightly for small and medium sized businesses. Large businesses might have issues delegating tasks across many different users in a large company

Incentivized

Based on user experience, I would like to recommend this software to my friends or colleagues on the AP Handling. I like AP recording the most because it makes my work easy. I have been using this for the past 2 years, and it's one of the best for this task. Easy to use and user-friendly.

Incentivized

• Easy to get going with. They were great help in importing data from infusion soft. Great people to work with in training.
• Low cost. This program is affordable for us little guys. Does what you need. Cost less than half of infusion soft for more.
• Powerful. It lets me do all the things that I want. They are responsive to new feature requests too. When you make a suggestion you feel like it is heard and appreciated.

• As mentioned, Insightly integrated with Google Suite so all of our communications, and especially our analytics and metrics, didn't miss a beat.
• Slack integration was helpful too, as a number of tools I investigated prior to choosing Insightly, had third party apps used for integration. This is better than nothing, but Insightly's native integration was a real relief.
• The project management feature was a life saver, not just for the DEV team, but also for the Sales team. This allowed us to skip service tickets and go right from us or a client, directly to DEV. The clients just got a much more personal touch and the turn around time was increased.

Incentivized

• Some useful out-of-the-box features, like mass uploads of Leads from trade shows or when qualifying a Lead, CRM automatically creates the Opportunity, Contact, and Account for you, etc.
• Really powerful customizations through the user interface to improve user experience. Things like Business Rules, for example, if Field A = 1, then Field B = 2 and Field C = 2, if Field A = 2, then Field B and Field C don't apply, so automatically hide them.
• Or other functionality that improves user experience, like Business Process Flows. These walk users step by step through our business process, helping them know when certain actions should take place, and at what point other data is now required. We've used this extensively with our Lead to Opportunity to Quote to Order process, helping users understand the business process each step of the way.
• Customizations built on top of the platform now called model-driven PowerApps. You can have connections to "typical" data, like Accounts, Contacts, or Opportunities, for example, but then connect that data to custom entities, records that only apply to your specific business. This is all done through the user interface and allows you to customize and automate specific line-of-business applications for your specific needs.
• Behind the scenes, D365 CE is built on SQL. So the data conforms to industry standards and makes it much easier to interact with. Your developers and IT team will thank you.

Incentivized

• The only thing I can say is that it has so many features that I do not think I have had the time to use and evaluate. I think I am probably missing out of a lot of great features.
• GreenRope has many email templates but seem to be directed to specific industries like retail, restaurants, etc. Would like to see more email templates.

Incentivized

• Customization has both positive and negative aspects. Some fields cannot be customized, and I've run into some issues because of this.
• Misleading features. I suppose it is the quickest way to describe it. I'm trying to get my team away from having five windows open simultaneously to go through one process, and Insightly's "reply to email" function is misleading. You can't reply to the email; it creates an entirely new email without the previous thread. Due to this feature not working as expected, my team has to return to their inbox and reply to the email.

Incentivized

• Microsoft Dynamics 365 storage & license cost can prohibit some large deployments or even cost-sensitive small projects from using the platform (although I'm certain most deployments would realize a positive ROI if implemented correctly with process automation).
• The cost and licensing document for Dynamics 365 is 61 pages and will take a rocket scientist to understand it. It's better to just have your Microsoft help estimate the cost if they are willing to help you that.
• The documentation on how to first fully understand the Out of the Box default solution and settings is lacking or even non-existing. This has the potential to derail Dynamic 365 launches and implementations from the gitgo. Want to use an out of the box entity?.. well it's probably related to 5 other entities that require configuration and full understanding of it to successful implement. And you ask where is the laymen guide or instructions?... User groups and forums. In Summary, Microsoft can up its game in deployment training and supporting documentation.
• Microsoft needs to incentivize more external platforms to build app connectors for easy integration, such as ZenDesk, Slack, Tableau, etc. Even the current connector apps such as Salesforce, MailChimp, Docusign are useless or don't work at all.
• Several limitations inhibit successful Dynamics 365 deployments such as: limited number of Rollup field calculations (summarizing fields on child/related records), limited number rows that can exported to Excel via advanced find, Dynamics 365 files, log and database storage size limit is extremely small and will always require purchasing additional storage (for Online deployments).
• New user buy-in or acceptance or system platform changes can be difficult if a solid change management plan isn't enacted.
• Don't expect much help from Microsoft on implementation or solutions unless it's a technical flaw with the platform. Microsoft relies on their MVP partner network to consult for implementations at a hefty cost. Hiring a knowledgeable and savvy Dynamics 365 System Administrator can reduce the need for consultant support; of course, this is dependant upon many many variables.

Incentivized

They have monthly renewals, so at any time you can cancel and not feel like they are holding your money. Their customer support is easy to work with. Their ticketing system to communicate with you about service issues is fantastic(which is included in the monthly fee) allows you to track issues. We use the ticketing system and add it to our website. This gives people the ability to communicate with us 24/7.

Insightly offers a great product; it's the right fit for our company at this time. We were, however, considering moving to Contactually due to their cost effective automation features. However, they lacked the project management capabilities of Insightly. As our company grows, we would love to stay with Insightly - and if they can nail the automation and add the ability to customize a little bit more, it would be the perfect solution for us. For a larger company with a more involved sales team, you might find the metrics/reporting to be a bit basic. Insightly offers great customer service even to free customers

CRM has allowed us to keep all of our data in one place that is easy for all users within the company to view. I came into the company after they had been using CRM for about 4 years. They have all said that since we have used this it has helped us control work processes better, it has allowed us to be able to track things so much better, and has been something that has helped unite many processes that used to be all over the place. We are currently using CRM 4.0 and are planning on upgrading in the next 18 months to the 2011 version. Support for 4.0 is almost all but dried up. Understandably so. Some of the customization we have done, and a plugins we use, are now contained within the 2011 version so we are looking forward to that upgrade. We use an email marketing company as well, and they primarily support the 2011 version, but their product connects and is integrated within CRM. This is a great benefit as well so that all of our marketing information can be contained in one location.

It takes time to learn this system. It is not going to happen over night, but once you master it it will be worth it. I am already seeing some great results, all I have to do is keep learning.

Some items are not easily accessible as an admin, and the number of available resources is outdated (video from 2017). For basic tasks such as updating prospects or contacts, it is fine. However, when you change the screen size, the system becomes less responsive, with tables often being difficult to read.

Incentivized

The system has a generally easy to use interface. This is from log in, to switching of environments, to switching of user roles. Even the Business Central reports are relatively easy to use in comparison to other systems. And knowing that the data in Business Central can easily be made available and reports generated via the Microsoft Power BI makes it even a better a system.

The provider is 100% available, with no downtime, maintenance, or unexpected outages. We have been able to perform solid continuous services for 12 months without any interruptions. We have backups as well, unlike the in-house backup that they keep on their end. I believe they have a very good redundancy and backup infrastructure in case they get any outages.

Incentivized

Pages normally load quickly, but every now and then, as entering updates to fields, it take a while to update. Sometimes even after refreshing the screen, we have to exit and go back in to get the fields or queries to update.

Incentivized

Many times I have to repeat the issue several times before the person understands correctly. There was also an instant where support was not available when help was needed, had to wait for a response and it was a business day.

We have used Insightly for almost 2 years now. We have always been able to get in touch with support for a variety of reasons and they have never disappointed us. The support staff have always been very understanding. They have assisted with answers to our questions and have provided great tech support. We would highly recommend them.

Incentivized

Our partner, Ledgeview Partners has been FANTASTIC to work with. They are always timely in their response and have taken time to understand our business and our specific needs. We've made a lot of advanced customizations and they have been a great help in making those updates.

Incentivized

Well, we didn’t get the chance to do this in-person training but rather one-on-one online training with HR in-house. There were PowerPoints to discuss as well as video instructions on how to use the app, so it was okay. We were able to play around with it during the training or onboarding session.

Incentivized

I've used Insightly's online training &/ or learned as I went. I've found the blogs and online written material helpful. I've also attended a few webinars, which can be useful if you use a J-I-T approach so as not to overwhelm you (or your staff) with functionality that you are using just yet. The fact that it's all available on their website and you can learn at your own pace is invaluable

Incentivized

I think there are some cheat sheets and best practises lists that could be created that would save a business a lot of time and frustration. BUT, even as it is, the frustrations and challenges disappear as things start working. I am going to be offering up a few of the tricks I have learned to the team at GreenRope to share with other users because when customers offer valuable work arounds that they find helpful to others, we accomplish a few things. The coders get an idea of things that aren't working quite as expected so they can look into fixes, other customers get benefit and we all win

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Incentivized

We used a data warehouse to house our data, and our IT team and implementation vendor worked diligently ahead of time to construct idea implementation plans. Out of millions of records- we had less than a dozen errors, which is remarkable. My major insight is simply having a group of completely devoted individuals working towards your goal who fully understand the desired outcome. Focused resources for implementation season are critical to success.

I use some of these softwares in conjunction with GreenRope. Simply put, one software cannot do everything. So I still like to use a combination of WordPress-centric software for my ecommerce. I use Edgar to schedule my social media only because it allows me to keep a library of posts -- otherwise, GreenRope replaces HootSuite. Outlook integrates (and RingCentral will soon). My business is too big to not have separate accounting (Xero) but GreenRope would be adequate for solos. GreenRope reduced my software quite a bit. It replaced Zoho, Infusionsoft, Mail Chimp, Access, Wufoo, Basecamp and InstantCustomer. It's not a great project management software, but it serves my needs for managing the pre-engagement process and nurture processes. GreenRope is best as a CRM and it forms a central part of my overall business technology machine.

I have used a large amount of CRMs in the past but many of them are not on your list. Most of them have been great but have not allowed us to have as much customization as we have had with Insightly. We chose Insightly because it had most of what we needed and a way for us to customize the database as we needed it

Incentivized

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is much more robust, with more customizable features, such as user-specific settings and customer customization options. The system is easy to us,e and all modules can be customized to the exact need of the user. The standard version includes everything you need for a small business that is starting out. Additional features can be added as needed.

Incentivized

(+) Being able to download my LinkedIn connections was a huge benefit. (+) I use the task function to stay on top of my follow-up activity which is another positive feature. (+) The sorting capabilities also help me pinpoint the contacts that I need to stay on top of. (-) When I add a new lead from an existing organization, I would like the organization's information to automatically populate the fields like address, website, description. I enter all that information manually. (-) My mass mailing experience has been tedious due to the email function being interrupted and crashing due to bad email addresses in some of my records. (-) Many of my leads do not have current email addresses. I wish Insightly offered a tool to help find email addresses. I spend too much time researching to find email addresses.

Incentivized

• GR has made our company much more organized from client details/history, sales work flow, email campaigns, website tracking and lead conversions.
• We have grown our business 60% in the last 12 months. GR definitely helped us reach that growth.
• Prior to GR we did everything the old fashioned way. I don't have anything to compare it to because we had no prior experience with another CRM provider. I can say that I am truly happy with our progress in GR and learning the program was pretty easy.

• While I am working in a capacity that does not involve my input into the licensing or cost side of us having Insightly I can see that there is certainly a good ROI.
• With 9 account managers utilising the system at any one time we can instantly keep track of our own sales and client data while also being able to see what others do.
• Being able to track key KPIs as well with graphs and charts enables us to see where we sit within our targets and easily adapt to areas that need more attention.

Incentivized

• If you know your stuff, this product does just fine. They are always adapting (aren't they all, always?), so expect it to grow and for you to grow with it.
• Don't expect new employees, or places with high turnover, to ease into this product quickly, or even on a moderate time table.

Incentivized