MindGenius vs. Simpro

[It's] Wonderful for small group or individual planning, brainstorming, explaining, projecting etc. It is also great for reporting or sharing findings of outcomes whether research or business related. It has a free viewer so that if you are presenting on a different computer, the viewer will allow the visuals to be shared. It is not ideal for collaboration unless everyone has this software.

Incentivized

Simpro is well suited for job and team management, tracking inventory and the workflow is very logical. The mobile app for our field technicians works very well to clock on and off and then being in a position to report to a customer based on factual information has made invoicing a breeze! Reporting can be a bit frustrating especially on materials used on different cost centre numbers as you can only specify a job number, but not a cost centre number.

Incentivized

• GOAL SETTING: Because of the available templates, it is easy to set goals and then revisit them for revision or follow through. I like to brainstorm while I set goals and then come back and annotate my goals with changes, improvements, or add/substract them as needed.
• STRATEGIC PLANNING: MindGenius is terrific for working through ideas and parameters. I can either use a freelance screen or a template and brainstorm through the goals that I need to meet. Then I can branch out from each objective with the required facets of each one. I am visual so color coding and using shapes to organize the parts of the objective (i.e. the resources needed, people/stakeholders that are involved, missing pieces etc.). When organizing a project or research, I find it invaluable.
• BRAINSTORMING: MindGenius is a wonderful visual to use in a small group or classroom to brainstorm or record ideas. I also adjunct teach and I find MG a wonderful visual for planning a paper or demonstrating how to support ideas in a paper or to verify that research is completed properly. it is a teacher's must-have.

Incentivized

• Billing: straight from a closed, complete job. Carries overall equipment, hours, takes one click to bill.
• simPRO retains notes on all emails; notes can be entered by anyone to track communication with clients.

Incentivized

• MindGenius is not as intuitive as I would like it to be. Although there is a quick-key stroke or movement that will replicate a shape or field if I want to make a parent or child block, I never remember what it is. I always use the manual insert by clicking with the mouse and it takes longer. If CONTROL ENTER created a new shape field like "the last one" or the one where the cursor is blinking, that would help considerably.
• Changing the default visuals for a template or making a new template is overly time-consuming. Although I understand these details may only matter to someone as ULTRA-VISUAL a I am, if the font is too small or the shapes need to be visually altered, there is not a way to quickly grab those boxes and change the settings in one fell swoop. Although there is a way they can be changed, I have to navigate inside this and then inside this to get to the screen and then I have to figure out which changes the lines or the inside color of the shape etc. These details are a little overwhelming.
• It would be great if I could make one shape in the font and layout I want and then replicate that pattern to other shapes or apply a different color scheme to it entirely. If these features already exist, i cannot find them and I consider myself to be rather tech savvy.

Incentivized

• Ability to create leave forms for the employees (to my best knowledge, this doesn't exist).
• Ability to color code jobs, quotes by criticality.
• Assign status to equipment (e.g. "ordered"; "arrived").

Incentivized

As mentioned before, materials reporting could use some work as one cannot report by cost centre number, only by job number. It makes it difficult with large jobs with multiple cost centre numbers to easily extract information for reporting. Other than that the system is user friendly and easy to understand.

Incentivized

It is a great option for solar project management. It needs some improvements for real-time one-page reports, inventory management, scheduling and custom views. I believe these will come because they listen to their customers. I would also like to see some better training and not be expected to pay out of pocket for it.

Incentivized

I have not used another product like MindGenius. Although I use Microsoft One Note for sometimes making lists that sync across my PC and my devices, I do not have another mind-mapping programming. MindGenius only has an app for iPad and without accessibility on iOS, I have not been able to use it for my daily TO DO lists etc that I would otherwise do. I use One Note for that role since MG does not have a phone app

Incentivized

monday.com was easier to set up and you can create boards with loads of subtasks which helps manage a project. Also, the ability to integrate with google was much better as we could link it to the calendar and also store documents that the engineers could see easier onsite. Overall we could make monday.com work better for our business based on how we are set up but simPRO will be great for other businesses with more specific needs.

Incentivized

• I have not tracked the positive or negative impact of MG on my overall business objectives. I have successfully used it in the aspects of my personal and professional management.
• MG helps me stay on track with my research and personal editing. It keeps me accountable so that I meet my deadlines. Although I have not applied a dollar value to it, it helps me signficantly.

Incentivized

• Increased team collaboration.
• Increased inventory awareness.
• Decreased down time between jobs.

Incentivized