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Penelope

Penelope
Formerly Penelope by Social Solutions

Overview

What is Penelope?

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.

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Recent Reviews

Not very happy

6 out of 10
May 25, 2022
Penelope by Social Solutions is our case management system. We use it for case notes, for calendars, and even for reporting incidents and …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

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Pricing

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Basic

$400

On Premise
per year per user

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee required

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Details

What is Penelope?

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.

  • Track each family’s service history in a single file that contains all of their information.
  • Configurable forms to save time with automated workflows, scheduling and billing tools.
  • Reduced data errors to improve reporting, measure outcomes and secure more funding.

Penelope Features

  • Supported: Forms Management
  • Supported: Reporting & Statistics
  • Supported: Appointment Scheduling
  • Supported: Charting
  • Supported: Claims Management
  • Supported: Compliance Tracking
  • Supported: E-Prescribing
  • Supported: Employee Management
  • Supported: For Mental/Behavioral Health Practices
  • Supported: Initial Assessments
  • Supported: Medical Billing
  • Supported: Self Service Portal
  • Supported: Task Scheduling
  • Supported: Treatment Planning
  • Supported: Case Management
  • Supported: Child Welfare Management
  • Supported: Document Management
  • Supported: Reporting & Statistics
  • Supported: Scheduling
  • Supported: Time Tracking
  • Supported: Training Management
  • Supported: Activity Dashboard
  • Supported: Activity Tracking
  • Supported: Appointment Management
  • Supported: Billing & Invoicing
  • Supported: Calendar Management
  • Supported: Case List Management
  • Supported: Document Management
  • Supported: HIPAA Compliant
  • Supported: Medical History Records
  • Supported: Patient Management
  • Supported: Patient Records Management
  • Supported: Payment Processing
  • Supported: Referral Management
  • Supported: Reporting & Statistics
  • Supported: Task Management
  • Supported: Treatment Planning
  • Supported: Case Notes
  • Supported: Client Management
  • Supported: Document Management
  • Supported: Forms Management
  • Supported: Goal Setting/Tracking
  • Supported: Program Management
  • Supported: Referral Management
  • Supported: Reporting/Analytics
  • Supported: Scheduling

Penelope Video

Penelope Integrations

Penelope Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based, On-premise, On-premise, On-premise, On-premise
Operating SystemsWeb-Based, Mac, Windows, Linux, Chromebook
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported CountriesUSA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, Ireland
Supported LanguagesEnglish

Penelope Downloadables

Frequently Asked Questions

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.

CaseWorthy, ClientTrack by Eccovia, and FAMCare are common alternatives for Penelope.

The most common users of Penelope are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).

Penelope Customer Size Distribution

Consumers0%
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)40%
Mid-Size Companies (51-500 employees)60%
Enterprises (more than 500 employees)0%
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(35)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-19 of 19)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
May 25, 2022

Not very happy

Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Penelope by Social Solutions is our case management system. We use it for case notes, for calendars, and even for reporting incidents and hazards, or any change in clients' profiles. It lets us interact with medical, legal, behavioral, and other reports, and keeps the team updated, always promoting confidentiality. Penelope by Social Solutions is structured in an understandable way, letting us set our daily tasks as a to-do list in the handover.
  • Integrates different systems
  • Keeps confidentiality
  • Helps you to identify who posted what
  • Collects information linked among families
  • The plus, ok, or accept buttons are not consistent. It is easy to forget it at the beginning.
  • Sometimes is unstable and it makes you lose all the work you did not save.
  • It does not have a "memory" of your previous answers, which is annoying for daily tasks.
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.
Shaeleen Power | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Penelope is used in our organization to replace all daily documentation, scheduling and booking, and intake management of participants in our programs. We have approximately 80 participants and 30 staff with 7 departments and it allows us to easily manage staffing ratios, attendance, and programming at three separate locations. Penelope allows us to easily track data on individuals or as a group and generate reports to send to our funders, etc. It allows us to track progress and regression for individuals which is essential to our mission as an organization. Penelope provides us with an easily accessible bluebook of all of our contacts and resources. It is a one-stop-shop for all of our documentation needs. Penelope offers a direct connection to staff individually or in groups through a messaging system within the program. Staff can easily log in and see any relevant information for the day. It saves us so much time as an organization and avoids a lot of running around and daily meetings that we had in the past. Before Penelope, finding participant reports, data, and information meant time spent searching through files in different departments and talking to multiple staff to track down what we were looking for.
  • Provides time-saving features by automatically compiling data to an individual file from multiple areas.
  • Allows staff to be updated on important information in real time.
  • Provides a user-friendly experience and ease of access for staff with all levels of technical experience.
  • Accessibility for anyone with visual impairment.
  • Ability to adjust font size when printing.
  • Ability to send files as email from the program.
Penelope would be ideal for a clinic setting or an organization providing individual or group support to many individuals and from multiple staff members. It is perfect for the service field to track bookings and schedules. It allows for easy reporting and tracking changes for an individual. As a non-profit service agency, it is the perfect database for us, from individual and group service to informal and anonymous services, the features allow for easy tracking of data.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Manage data and track client services.
  • Data Reporting
  • Customer Service
  • Identify issues and problem solve solutions.
  • Some of the fields seem redundant.
  • I think beta testing new databases should be at a significantly reduced rate due to the amount of time needed to work out the issues and refine the product. Both organizations have carrying costs during this phase of development.
Industry specific reports designed to meet the requirements of our specific funding entity. Addition of tracking tools to better understand our clients and measure marketing tools.
December 11, 2021

Penelope for Non-Profits

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are a small-midrange size non-profit organization that uses Penelope for our client database. We use it for 1:1 in-home caseloads, group-based parent education, and group-based child and youth programming. Penelope is a user-friendly system that provides clarity, ease, and simple processes for our frontline staff to use the system in a clear and efficient way.
  • Configuration and design process.
  • Help articles.
  • Standard processes yet able to customize.
  • Standard reporting could be expanded and more complex.
  • Improve functionality of groups.
  • Higher level training on how to use Penelope in a more complex way.
Penelope is well designed for casework. We find it is well suited for staff who have caseloads of families or individuals and are doing one-to-one work with them. I find that Penelope is not as well suited for registered programming in a group fashion. The reporting for groups is almost non-existent and the Groups List page is unwieldy and difficult to navigate efficiently.
Rich Nichols | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We switched to using the Penelope database a few years ago because we realized our current platform was ineffective at tracking and producing needed outcome metrics. We needed a system that had the capability to track a network of client relationships, allowed for the exchange of multiple initiatives, and had tools for team members to work collaboratively on cases. Our organization helps families create action plans to accomplish their goals. We believe strongly in the power of community and finding solutions through generating informal supports. This system is designed to understand and capture the dynamic of how family members, community stakeholders, and professional resources work together to empower wellbeing. Penelope's default platform provided customization that allowed the database to align with our service model, specific strategies, and language. Penelope's form and reports are flexible enough to meet the requests and reporting demands of both foundation and government funders.
  • Organization a network of relationships.
  • Integrating various projects.
  • Customized reporting.
  • Increased standardized reports and filter features.
  • Better training on the ODBC.
  • Mac support.
  • Better ability to report on individuals within the family.
Penelope is well suited for social service case management operations. It also looks at whole families as a unit but realizes each member has different needs and brings something unique to the solution. It manages client relationships and resources well. If you need to monitor service units, time with clients, and interventions, it has various tools for this. I think the system is too complex for donor management and not needed for client interactions that are one and done.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are a nonprofit agency that case manages Families in the community while we work to help them achieve goals and solve problems. We use Penelope as our case management system. We use Penelope for everything in our agency. It is where we store our data, write case plans, schedule meetings, run reports, and collect resources. Penelope was a serious upgrade from the previous Susy that we were using. It is very detailed and not overwhelming.
  • Case management-places to store multiple data points in organized manner[.]
  • Scheduling client meetings and the ability to connect to clients through the system
  • Great Customer service- implementation team was super helpful in setting up the system and answering our ongoing stream of questions. They are still helpful answering questions 2 years later whenever they come up.
  • [A] minimal number of [ready-to-use] reports [using] to pull data from [the] system. The reports are helpful but hard to get all that we needed. We did pay to have a custom report created for our needs.
  • My only real complaint: I am not a tech-y person so I find the OBDC connection setup and data [pull-out] kind of complicated and also there is no easy way for a Mac computer to connect without purchasing another program to help. There was minimal assistance with helping us get that set up which was frustrating.
  • Long onboarding process[.]
We looked at lots of systems before we signed on with Penelope. For the price, we didn’t find anything better. Overall we have been very happy with our choice to use Penelope for our case management system. Our staff has been happy with it as well. I would recommend this product.
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it as a case management tool for digital and remote service delivery.
  • Digital management and review
  • Remote access for consultants
  • Accessibility overall for persons with a disability is nonexistent and not being addressed at all. That is for both clients using engage or client connect and consultants using the system for case management.
  • Navigation bars non-responsive to screen readers
  • Lack of tags and descriptions for navigation tools
  • Inability to move within the system in a straightforward and free fashion
  • Lack of ability to share questions more than once in a form
  • Form building tools are not accessible
  • Reports are not straight forward, do not coordinate with forms
  • Tools for making a financial form are limited and not easily used
  • Background colors are non-AODA compliant, font too small, no ability to enlarge, navigation tools are hidden behind multiple boxes, and impossible for a blind person to navigate.
  • When purchased in 2014, promises of accessibility were made by company salesman, management, and staff. It has never transpired.
  • lack of support when trying to learn the system and set it up. Instruction is by Wrote for a "To Be" designed process but no examination about how the setup affects things such as searching, reporting, outcomes.
  • Blue Book is not accessible, Engage is not accessible, Penelope Mobile is not accessible, Client Connect is costly and not accessible.
  • Updated attachments must load multiple times and result in needless storage issues and extra work.
Although I like some of the functionality of the program, it is archaic in development, lacks inclusion for persons with a disability. Lip service has been paid for addressing AODA accessibility rules and access. Product is exclusionary towards persons with a disability. It is designed for an American medical model and false promises have been made. No one is addressing Canadian concerns about default information collection that is against our privacy legislation and compliance with our accessibility legislation both federal and provincial. I would not recommend it to any service provider based on the lack of accessibility.
Tom Cass | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it to document client services provided at our non-profit.
  • It rarely crashes
  • Make batch editing a function
  • Give better access to data
  • Fix the external communications
  • Four words: Client Account Merge Function
I have spent so much of the last year describing specific scenarios based on an awful experience I really don't want to write [about] anymore. Feel free to read the dozens of help tickets I've sent in, most of which were never resolved.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Penelope to keep client information and store client documents. We also use Penelope to communicate with other staff safely about clients.
  • organization of information
  • ease of use
  • security features
  • difficulty running a client list with the information we need
  • bugs, particularly around MS Exchange
Well suited for organizations providing social services to vulnerable clients.
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Penelope [by Social Solutions] to track programs, attendance of programs and make notes regarding clients at our facility. I use this product every day. It is a way to track participation and gather statistics about programming.
  • Provides us with statistics regarding programming
  • Allows us to track each program
  • Allows us to make Case notes regarding clients.
  • The organization of client data-base
  • Booking clients who participate in multiple programs
  • Make it more user friendly (very hard to understand at first)
  • Better privacy settings on client information
It is great for tracking statistics, however, it is very hard to understand. Took me a long time to understand the system
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Penelope [by Social Solutions] as our client data base, client information, clinical counselling notes, attendance tracker for individual and group program sessions,accumulating data for reports
  • is a powerful system that offers a lot
  • easy access to pulling the reports
  • Trigger warnings to share with and between manager and employee
  • There is more than we can use on this system
  • Some learners watch by video and others need to have a verbal walkthrough so providing a training or support package that is reasonable to a non-for-profit of 18 staff members and really only 12 using the Penelope by Social solutions system
Clinical notes documentation, attendance is working for us well. Our issue is the complexity of the system for our small agency and the time it's taken for staff to acquire the knowledge to use the system to its fullest range
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it to document services and invoice for social services and financial support we offer to individuals living with a mental illness or disability.
  • coding for different engagements rendering services and costs
  • storing demographic information
  • storing collateral contacts
  • assigning workers to people served
  • we are a private pay company - so we need invoices that make sense to private payers not managed care company's. Penelope by Social Solutions has been exceedingly difficult with this goal.
  • Too many logins our admin also has cases she /he supports so that's two log-ins right there. Then there are log-ins for tickets, online training sites for basic Penelope by Social Solutions functionality, sandbox instances, and training databases mocked up like our system. We are constantly stymied by this as it feels impossible to track.
  • Also, there are way too many contacts that "handle" our organization - we are never contacting the right person for whatever issue we are experiencing.
I have done that in the previous questions.
December 06, 2021

Customizeopolis

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Staff enters in their notes and statistics. We use the information they enter in to complete reports to the funder and other reports like annual reports, to monitor staff statistics, to submit funding proposals.
  • Captures the data we are looking for
  • Although a bit complicated, we can run some reports to collect the data
  • There is ample space for case notes
  • Report running is complicated in Penelope by Social Solutions, would be great if it were simplified by giving us categories with date ranges that we can click on to run reports
  • Would be nice if we could 'turn on' automatic reminders/pop-ups if a client hasn't been served in a while.
There is ample room for the case notes, however, we are unable to find key information to run reports on as the system does not scan the content of the case notes. Much simpler if there were dropdowns where key information that is relevant to our organization could be clicked to pull that as data.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We have to use Penelope to document our clients' information as well as any related services that we provide to the clients. We also use Penelope to book appointments and to keep track of client expenditures.Our entire organization is required to use Penelope. I would not say that it addresses any business problems but Penelope helps our organization keep track of the services we provide to our clients.
  • It tells the exact documents that need to be uploaded.
  • It also has the ability to track the enrollment status of a new client.
  • Refresh buttons.
  • I would like to be able to remove documents.
  • I would occasionally, get an "error" message and it would not save my work.
Penelope by Social Solutions is well suited for offices that have high caseloads and need efficiency and ease of use along with security and a fully digital store of information. However, Penelope is only less appropriate when it is time to delete an error that has already been uploaded and the user is unable to do so, which is not time management friendly.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Penelope by Social Solutions is being used at my job every day. We do not approve any of our cases unless we enrolled them into Penelope. The program is self-explanatory and so simple to understand where our documents need to be uploaded. Before Penelope, our company had to handwrite documents over and over, but with Penelope, we are able to save time and trees with just a push of a button.
  • Uploading Documents for cases
  • Step by step for creating a new case
  • Reminders of what need to done for a case
  • Able to see coworkers progress
  • Slow at loading documents
  • very case sensitive
  • Coworkers should be able to delete their own documents instead of waiting on Adim
I would love to recommend Penelope to other companies because it is efficient and there are no real bad hassles. Being able to upload documents and already having documents uploaded in the systems helps coworkers and clients to be organized for the future. The only downfall to Penelope is when mistakes happen such as uploading the wrong document, may take forever to get removed because you have to wait on your supervisors to remove it.
August 02, 2021

Nonprofit Penelope use

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is used in our Georgia and Alabama offices in order to track our casework working with homeless veterans. We recently implemented Penelope by Social Solutions to assist with our transition away from paper files into digital storage of information. Penelope assists with reminders and keeping the office structured and organized for our appointments and data storage needs.
  • Penelope provides reminders to complete tasks eliminating human error.
  • Penelope allows a user friendly interface that allows easy data access.
  • Penelope provides more security than paper files.
  • Access to multiple tabs within browser.
  • Customizable backgrounds
  • [I would] highly stress [getting] access to multiple tabs
[Penelope by Social Solutions is] well suited for offices that have high caseloads and need efficiency and ease of use along with security and a fully digital store of information. This may be less suitable for smaller operations that may not need as much functionality. I believe Penelope by Social Solutions is a very solid program so it is hard to find many reasons for a company not to use it.
July 30, 2021

Penelope Promise

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It’s used by the company for case notes, financial tracking and contact information.
  • 30-day notifications
  • Storing information
  • Creating reports
  • Allow for “.” in attachment file names
  • Allow user to delete workflows
  • Allow for a group of documents to be attached at the same time versus only to be able to attach a single document at a time.
I think for tracking clients' progress and funding authorization, [Penelope by Social Solutions] works as well as it is designed to. I do get frustrated when I have to attach multiple documents and can do it only one at a time. As well as having to delete the period or substitute it in the documents’ titles.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use Penelope by Social Solutions for our case management system for multiple federal grants centered around homelessness and prevention. Our services are offered to veterans and non-veterans experiencing homelessness or are at-risk of homelessness. Our programs cover multiple states and counties across a large geographical area. Penelope by Social Solutions allows us to have a web-based database to create case files, case plans, and case notes on a daily basis without the hassle of paper files.
  • Workflows
  • Action Triggers
  • Custom forms and requirements
  • Addition of workflows related to referrals from within other programs in our organization. Inbound referrals from external program workflows is possible, but internal to internal is not currently aviailable
  • Case Complete profile report- does not pull attachments that users upload to the case file. Only includes case notes, service events, service units, and documents that are created within Penelope by Social Solutions.
The workflow and trigger abilities along with customizable forms and projects allow an organization to utilize Penelope by Social Solutions with different programs, funders, and management trees. Overall excellent system that can be utilized in the office setting or in the field via multiple platforms.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is being used across the entire organization. Our reliance on it increases each year in the clinical and administrative areas.
  • Scales very well to growth with both users and clients being added to database
  • Electronic billing to insurance works very well. Excited for integration of 835 claims back into penelope
  • Robust reporting through Tableau is a must have for us
  • 835 integration (which is being worked on)
  • E-prescribe for our MDs. Managing prescription issues for patients is cumbersome and e-rx would resolve 85-90% of our issues
  • Would like to have the ability to customize the note template based upon the service file, and not have a uniform template across services.
Great for case management and outpatient behavioral health in the US. I don't believe systems that are more medical in nature could use it well.
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