Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review We use Salesforce Lightning Platform in everyday business as sales coordinators. By using this tool, we are able to send new requests to clients and communicate regarding pending proposals in real-time. This also tool holds many of our client accounts where we are able to monitor their sales and revenue.
Read full review Pros 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. Read full review Reporting and Dashboards are thorough and can show a wealth of important data to inform and scale processes. It's helpful in a high volume sales cycle to be able to quickly identify weak points in performance and productivity so that adjustments can be made. Highly customizable. We are able to customize just about everything which allows us to track very specific things and in theory create better efficiency. Parent/Child account hierarchy exists which is helpful. Contact records can be associated with multiple accounts and opportunities. This, in theory, should minimize duplicates and mismanagement of contacts. Console helps a lot with data nesting. Having a fairly comprehensive look at an account without searching through various tabs and sections speeds up an otherwise cumbersome platform. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review Can be cumbersome: takes multiple clicks to get where you need to go Lightning is slower than original Salesforce, and it is very noticeable The UI change means sometimes I can't find what I need, so I have to switch back to the Classic version to find it Read full review Likelihood to Renew 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.
Read full review Usability 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
Read full review This builds off a number of things I have already mentioned. This question completely depends on the competence of the developer. This makes the user friendliness of the UI 50/50. However if you have the ability I would say it is quite UI friendly.
Read full review Reliability and Availability 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.
Read full review Performance 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.
Read full review Support Rating 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.
Read full review Salesforce's support is top-notch. They have subject-matter experts that are accessible at all times to address needs as they come up. They let you know in advance when there are system updates and enhancements so that you are prepared for upcoming changes. I've never had an issue that wasn't addressed immediately when reaching out for support.
Read full review In-Person Training In person training is always helpful for a new product however I think that the online tutorials would do just fine.
Read full review Online Training The online tutorials were easy to follow and explained in detail steps. I was able to put together an organization SOP for best practices in case I was not in the office or no longer there.
Read full review Implementation Rating 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.
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Read full review We were previously using an older version prior to it becoming Salesforce Lightning Platform so we were well adverse on the advantages of using a CRM, to begin with. It made sense to convert to Salesforce Lightning Platform after we were given a free trial of the platform. Certain reps were chosen to experiment with it and from there a decision was made to move forward. We've been customers ever since.
Simon Vargas Director Of Business Development - Operating Room, Vein Therapy, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Read full review Scalability The product allows us flexibility and scalability for our team.
Brittany Beltz Assistant Director of Annual Giving and Stewardship Manager
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review Better visibility of Accounts and Contacts interactions makes it easier to maintain during employee transitions. Tracking of current jobs and relating them to past jobs is very useful. More efficient use of Sales Reps time. Sales Managers have good visibility into how their people are working. Read full review ScreenShots Blackbaud eTapestry Screenshots