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Overview

What is Workbooks?

Workbooks offers cloud-based CRM, marketing automation and business applications to the mid-market. Workbooks includes order management and fulfillment, invoicing, and supplier management. Workbooks aims to provide a single 360° view of customers, where the information is accessible anytime, anywhere.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Workbooks is used by a wide range of departments, including finance, commercial, fundraising, membership, communications, marketing, HR, …
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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

Popular Features

View all 31 features
  • Opportunity management (9)
    8.8
    88%
  • Customer data management / contact management (9)
    8.5
    85%
  • Territory management (9)
    7.7
    77%
  • Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail) (9)
    6.4
    64%
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Pricing

View all pricing

Workbooks CRM Edition

$30

Cloud
per user/per month

Workbooks Business Edition

$65

Cloud
per user/per month

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttp://www.workbooks.com/pricing

Offerings

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

Microsoft Office Excel Tutorial 2013 Workbooks 2.3 Employee Group Training

YouTube

worksheets demo: create workbooks

YouTube

ms excel 2010 how to save workbooks demo

YouTube

Merge the styles of the open workbooks.

YouTube

Merge the styles of the open workbooks.

YouTube

Neues in disy Cadenza Workbooks – Business Intelligence und Reporting – Live-Demo

YouTube
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Features

Sales Force Automation

This is the technique of using software to automate certain sales-related tasks.

7.7
Avg 7.7

Customer Service & Support

This component of CRM software automates help desk, call center and field service management.

6.3
Avg 7.5

Marketing Automation

This component of CRM software helps to automate and scale marketing tasks and the subsequent analysis of those efforts.

7.3
Avg 7.5

CRM Project Management

This component of CRM software helps users initiate, plan, collaborate on, execute, track, and close projects.

7.5
Avg 7.6

CRM Reporting & Analytics

Reporting and analytics in CRM software includes sales forecasting, pipeline analysis, and automated dashboards.

8.6
Avg 7.6

Customization

This addresses a company’s ability to configure the software to fit its specific use case and workflow.

7.7
Avg 7.6

Security

This component helps a company minimize the security risks by controlling access to the software and its data, and encouraging best practices among users.

7.5
Avg 8.3

Social CRM

This component of CRM software helps companies leverage social media in engaging with customers.

6.6
Avg 7.2

Integrations with 3rd-party Software

This involves the CRM software’s ability to integrate with other systems, whether external or homegrown.

6.9
Avg 7.1

Platform

4.2
Avg 7.5
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Product Details

What is Workbooks?

Headquartered in Reading, UK, with an office also in Connecticut, US, Workbooks offers growing companies a SaaS platform to run their business and engage with customers. Its core CRM services are aimed specifically at mid-market organisations and extend beyond sales, marketing and customer services to include a full suite of marketing automation tools, as well as event management, order management and fulfilment, invoicing and supplier management functionalities.

The vendor states Workbooks is not a departmental solution, but rather a true end-to-end CRM. Workbooks designs, develops and implements its own software, which is used by customers to grow revenues, streamline business processes, get insights and improve engagement with clients.

Workbooks Features

Sales Force Automation Features

  • Supported: Customer data management / contact management
  • Supported: Workflow management
  • Supported: Territory management
  • Supported: Opportunity management
  • Supported: Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)
  • Supported: Contract management
  • Supported: Quote & order management
  • Supported: Interaction tracking
  • Supported: Channel / partner relationship management

Customer Service & Support Features

  • Supported: Case management
  • Supported: Help desk management

Marketing Automation Features

  • Supported: Lead management
  • Supported: Email marketing

CRM Project Management Features

  • Supported: Task management
  • Supported: Billing and invoicing management
  • Supported: Reporting

CRM Reporting & Analytics Features

  • Supported: Forecasting
  • Supported: Pipeline visualization
  • Supported: Customizable reports

Customization Features

  • Supported: Custom fields
  • Supported: Custom objects
  • Supported: Scripting environment
  • Supported: API for custom integration

Security Features

  • Supported: Role-based user permissions
  • Supported: Single sign-on capability

Social CRM Features

  • Supported: Social data

Integrations with 3rd-party Software Features

  • Supported: Marketing automation

Platform Features

  • Supported: Mobile access

Additional Features

  • Supported: Lead, Opportunity and Sales Management Functions
  • Supported: Campaign Management and Marketing Automation
  • Supported: Case/Support Management
  • Supported: Order Processing, Quotations, Purchase Orders and Invoices
  • Supported: Reporting & Dashboards

Workbooks Screenshots

Screenshot of Activity ManagementScreenshot of Dashboard for Customer ServiceScreenshot of Dashboard for SalesScreenshot of Marketing CampaignsScreenshot of Organisation RecordScreenshot of Person Record

Workbooks Videos

Workbooks Integrations

Workbooks Competitors

Workbooks Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android
Supported LanguagesEnglish, American English, French, German, Spanish

Frequently Asked Questions

Workbooks offers cloud-based CRM, marketing automation and business applications to the mid-market. Workbooks includes order management and fulfillment, invoicing, and supplier management. Workbooks aims to provide a single 360° view of customers, where the information is accessible anytime, anywhere.

NetSuite ERP, HubSpot Marketing Hub, and Sugar Sell (SugarCRM) are common alternatives for Workbooks.

Reviewers rate Opportunity management and Pipeline visualization and Customizable reports highest, with a score of 8.8.

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

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Reviews and Ratings

(30)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Workbooks is used by a wide range of departments, including finance, commercial, fundraising, membership, communications, marketing, HR, ICT, policy, and research. It helps manage daily workflow processes and interactions with third parties. The software serves as a primary sales tool for pipeline and sales management, tracking renewals and providing an overview of services and channel partner support.

Users have praised Workbooks for its simplicity and affordability for small businesses without compromising functionality. It is most effective when used across the entire organization, enabling a complete picture of interactions with prospects or clients and resulting in improved efficiency and customer service. Workbooks also allows for the full management of customers, enhanced efficiency and productivity, and the ability to customize CRM solutions for companies integrating cloud-based software.

Dashboard: Users have found the dashboard of the service to be highly valuable, with multiple reviewers highlighting its effectiveness. It provides a centralized location for important information and allows easy access to pertinent data for sales calls.

Reporting and Dashboards: The in-depth reporting and dashboards offered by the service were praised by users. Several reviewers mentioned that these features help them stay on top of their business, from following up on sales leads to monitoring their pipeline.

Automation: Many users have appreciated the automation capabilities of the service. They have found it time-saving and efficient to create automated follow-ups and reminders based on updating fields or other criteria.

Unintuitive Report Building: Many users have expressed frustration with the unintuitive and confusing process of building reports in Workbooks. They find it difficult to navigate and understand, leading to inefficiency in creating the desired reports.

Difficulties with Managing Access Rights: Several users have mentioned that managing individual access rights in Workbooks can be quite challenging. This complexity makes it harder for them to assign appropriate permissions and ensure data security within their organizations.

Occasional Slowness and Downtime: Some users have reported occasional slowness while using the software, which negatively impacts their productivity. Although rare, there are instances when they experience downtime, causing interruptions and delays in their work processes.

According to user reviews, there are three common recommendations for Workbooks. Firstly, users suggest mapping out and re-doing existing processes when implementing Workbooks to ensure a smooth transition and maximize benefits. Secondly, it is recommended to set up Workbooks properly to avoid future problems. Lastly, users recommend connecting with Oliphant for excellent support during implementation and usage. These recommendations highlight the importance of careful planning, thorough setup, and utilizing available support resources for a successful experience with Workbooks.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-18 of 18)
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Adam Grieve | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Workbooks as our CRM, sales pipeline management, order book, invoicing tool, and marketing management system. Over the years we have slowly added more things to the list of things we use Workbooks for, but since moving our accounting away from Sage and on to Xero, we have begun to stop using Workbooks for things like supplier orders and collections.
  • Order tracking
  • APIs for invoicing scripts
  • User management
  • Can sometimes be slow
  • Sometimes the amount of customisation available leads to it being very difficult to change things you created a few months/years ago
  • The mobile offering is poor
As we have a relatively small pipeline, Workbooks works great for us as the whole team can see in real time which member is doing the best/worst. I would say if an organisation has a very large pipeline it may be much harder to keep track of this with Workbooks.
David Carter | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Workbooks is used for lead management for the sales team, the operations team use it to manage our current customer base and the support team use workbooks for support cases. It allows us to manage clients in one location rather than using a number if different systems for support, leads and customer management
  • Great flexibility. The system is very flexible and you are able to setup reports and manage screens in the way you wish, adding custom fields and hiding any information deemed not important enough. user access levels can be used lock down various parts of the system
  • Great support team and very helpful when doing our own custom integrations
  • Excellent for lead management and reporting on opportunities that we can then pass onto the sales team
  • Easy to use, the interface looks clean and modern and its simple to find your way around
  • We use it for support but find it difficult to easily link support emails that arrive to organisations, it requires a lot of manual input to open/close a case
  • The flexibility can be a hindrance as it can be difficult to work out exactly what you wish to see, especially in reports. Sometimes a simple report is all thats required but it provides a lot of information
  • Can sometimes be a little slow and goes down from time to time but this is fairly rare
Very well suited for lead management, the sales team can review and manage leads and opportunities through workbooks. It is also suitable for customer management, including support and linking support cases to customers. it also allows us to manage if customers have paid for support and then suspend or activate their accounts accordingly
Dianne Moralee | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Workbooks is used by the Sales and Marketing departments as well as the Finance team. We have integrated our 'contact us' page on our website with Workbooks so that all new visitors to our website can log a request for contact and we're notified by Workbooks straightaway that we need to reach out. Our sales team then manage the sale from initial contact right through to closing using Workbooks Leads and Opportunities management tools. We know where we are every step of the way.

We're also managing all of our marketing activities through Workbooks using Campaigns so we know every communication we've sent out to both prospects and customer and who has received our emails. We're also able to manage our trade show expenditure using Workbooks so we know where best to spend our money.
  • The Workbooks automated reporting works particularly well for us. We can send a weekly email to the sales team so they know exactly where they are against target.
  • The Dashboard feature is particularly good in Workbooks, it means that we can see, at a glance, the status of our sales pipeline and who is performing, who is not and what business we are likely to close for the upcoming months and quarters.
  • Being able to see key reports on login is also a really nice feature, it means that crucial information that can determine business decisions is displayed as soon as Workbooks is launched and we're forewarned at the start of the business day.
  • I'd like to see the multi currency handled better. If I want to see a view that contains customer finance data from multiple regions, I can't see a total in GBP unless I create a report.
  • We found it difficult to manage support cases in Workbooks and the support team has had to move to another platform. Maybe looking at what ZenDesk is doing would be a good next step here.
  • I'd like to see a way of adding multiple contacts to a lead record. At the moment, every person has to have their own record as there's only space for one person and that means multiple records for one company.
I think Workbooks is best suited for sales and marketing teams as there is really nothing glaringly obvious that it doesn't do. It probably is not best suited to a support environment where cases have to be tracked and customers communicated with automatically. It's probably too manual a process at the moment.
Andrew Cutler | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The whole company; and some key sub-contractors, use our bespoke version of Workbooks to track the flow/process of each of our opportunities/projects.
  • Transparency regarding the stage that each of our projects are at.
  • Excellent way of ensuring that each project has a current task against it, ensuring that someone within the team has control of the project.
  • Great data accessibility as many of the team work in the field or from home.
  • Excellent management reporting.
  • Uploading images (that we insert into our quotes or risk assessments/method statements) could be better.
  • Some kind of time sheet function would be great.
  • More data space per user and a better indexing of the upload library.
The ability to customize Workbooks makes it perfect for any company that would benefit from a more transparent/consistent process (marketing - quotation - order processing - product/service delivery - invoicing - management reporting/analysis - repeat business prospecting).
Jenny Spires | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We currently use Workbooks in a few different departments. Sales uses this to track sales cycles, as a CRM Database, and to track their target revenue. Finance uses this for orders and invoices to track who has paid, and Marketing uses this to send mail shots as well. We used to use this in support for support cases.
  • The opportunities database for sales staff, very detailed but still available at a glance.
  • Functionality with GatorMail, being able to receive data from email shots.
  • Reports are a great way to pull together different records within Workbooks, and being able to send these as automated emails helps with sales cycles.
  • Search functionality isn't great, could be more advanced.
  • Reports are hard to create if not familiar with the process.
Workbooks is best suited for a sales CRM, it has all the functionality to track sales cycles and targets, combined with GatorMail it's perfect for this. It also works well for marketing purposes. However I would not recommend it for support or finance as such. I use it daily for all of these departments.
December 05, 2017

Workbooks is a solid CRM!

Michael Carey | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The entire company use Workbooks including admin, finance, sales and management. In the sales department we use it to track web leads and manage KPI's and forecasting. It allows the team, who are not all based in the same office, to see what is in the pipeline and manage progress.
  • I can create views, which allow me to quickly access opportunities which require my attention.
  • I can check the history of an account, including emails, support tickets and transactions.
  • I can reassign leads and opportunities to other members.
  • I can log in from any device.
  • Searching for names can be slow.
  • Workbooks is a complex system and can take a little while to master.
  • Managing multiple user types can be tricky to get the right security access.
It works well in our business - for small to medium businesses it is a great tool. It is very sophisticated and can really improve the organization of teams within a business. It helps employees stay on track and management to record performance. Overall I am very happy using Workbooks.
Mark Cohen | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My client uses Workbooks across the organization for prospect and customer management. It is also used for:

  1. Contact management
  2. Contact tracking
  3. Campaign tracking
  4. Lead tracking
  5. Lead management
  6. Invoicing
  7. Statements
  8. Customer service
  • Contact management - by this I mean core CRM functionality. Workbooks does it as well as any other software we tested.
  • Pipeline management and reporting - again, Workbooks does this as well as any other software we tested.
  • Client management - From a holistic client management perspective, from contact management to sales tracking, invoicing, and service, Workbooks does it all.
  • Workbooks is not easy or as intuitive to learn as some CRMs and that is the primary reason I don't rank it as a 10.
  • Workbooks has quite a few built in reports and dashboards but to do more advanced reports and dashboards you need to utilize the services of a consultant.
  • Workbooks integrates with a few other software packages such as MailChimp but it is not an intuitive process to integrate.
Workbooks is an all-purpose, full featured CRM as powerful as Salesforce but far less expensive and with not as much bloat. I wrote that it isn't always intuitive, and you need a consultant to do advanced reporting as examples, but this is no different than Salesforce in my experience. The only place I can see Workbooks not being appropriate is for solopreneurs.
Peter Lindeman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller
Workbooks is being used as our primary sales tool. For both pipeline and sales management, as well as keeping track of renewals. Workbooks helps us keep track of sales and supports us in developing the business. Provides overview of our portfolio of services and helps support our channel partners.
  • Workbooks is intuitive, and provides the right type of functionality that fit SMB type organisations in handling their sales and business development processes. Workbooks provides the capability to deal with End-to-End processes, from Lead to Order to Cash. So including sending out invoices. Also allows to integrate with accounting packages, either through existing integrations or through available API.
  • Workbooks is easy to use and configure and yet powerful and flexible. Most functionality is available 'out of the box' and more is available through configuring the system yourselves or by being supported by Workbooks, who are very knowledgable and provide friendly and high quality support in delivering to your requirement.
  • Workbooks is priced right and cost effective. Allows to mix-and-match users with different requirements and corresponding licenses. Thus stays fit for purpose to the various types of users in your organisation, ensuring you are not overcharged.
  • Really like the scheduled reporting, so we can have automated reports in email telling us new leads in today not followed up yet when on the move. Also useful for weekly management summaries automatically prompting you to review exceptions.
  • The flexibility and wealth of functions does require good thinking and preparation before implementing Workbooks. At times it is rather complex to choose the right approach to the type of functionality to implement, as a multitude of options is available and could end up not choosing the right setup. This could cause some iterations in getting it right. Advanced insights may redirect your approach, but then the service is very flexible to modify to your need. Still it's easy to start off quickly and learn by doing.
  • Importing functionality is somewhat limited in feedback of where the import goes wrong. While the function works great when you have it right, and this protects from loading in wrong data, you are not getting much feedback where you go wrong in trying to import legacy data.
  • Limited planning and Calendar function, and limited synchronisation / integration with e.g. google calendar.
  • Need for language packs. Whilst Google Chrome provides an automated translate function when using Workbooks, and the ability to change the names of (almost) all your fields, as well as handle the data in Workbooks in your own language, it would be great to be able to have language packages in working with Workbooks fully in your native language.
Workbooks provides multi-currency, multi-tier functionality. Which supports the channel in being able to differentiate towards various partners and to leverage the functionality for the various communities and countries, using the same system/setup.
If you are very heavy on project management then Workbooks is somewhat limited, but then again its a CRM and not a project planning tool.
There is no limit to scale, although Workbooks aims and is most geared towards SMB.
Lots of functionality is available and can be added upon or modified using scripts and integrations.
It is recommended to do a good requirements gathering and use a phased implementation approach such that you stay on track. The Workbooks team is very happy to support with this.
Brendan Harris, MBA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Workbooks is used as an organisation wide tool. The finance, commercial, fundraising, membership, communications, marketing, HR, ICT, policy and research departments all use the product daily. It is used to manage daily workflow processes that surround any and all interactions with third parties, either organisations or people.
  • Flexibility
  • Ease of configuration to suit specific requirements
  • Inter-connectivity with other applications
  • Friendly user interface
  • Extent of capability to support multifaceted businesses
  • Integration with Outlook from cloud based business systems
  • Ease of dashboard creation
Workbooks is well suited for use by small to medium size organisations who do not want to employ sequel expertise to manage their customer data.
Andy Regent | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Workbooks does what most CRM’s don’t........make it simple and affordable for a small business without limiting you or the functions you get. No wonder they keep winning CRM awards.
  • Schedule activity
  • Add records
  • Sync with Outlook
  • Happy with all features
It is well suited for small sales organisations.
James Gray | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use workbooks across the whole organisation for all sales, support and marketing activities. Workbooks allows us to very closely manage and track sales cycles all the way through to close, invoicing, contract management and post sales support. We have also used many of the API's provided by workbooks to build further automation in many parts of the business.
We are 3 years in and are very happy with the product.
  • Report writing and automation to send reports
  • Data visibility
  • Sales Management
  • Integration to outlook.com
  • Mobile app
Workbooks works very well for small to medium size organisations that want the functionality of enterprise CRMs costing hundreds of thousands but do not have the resources or capital available.
Martijn Daalder | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I have worked with many CRM systems from a Sales perspective in various organizations (mostly media sales and publishing). The thing that stands out for me most working with Workbooks is the intuitive way with which it operates. Most of the people on my sales team are pretty tech savvy, and are used to working with CRM systems. We are however employing a team of administrative workers who are rather reluctant when embracing new technologies and change in general. I was truly amazed at how quickly they embraced working with Workbooks. The fact that it has a similarity with their Windows environment (start button at the bottom of the screen etc.) made the change that much easier. The fact that it is a cloud based service gave my sales team more freedom to operate and keep everyone informed on their progress even while away from the office. Because of this we have been able to quickly respond to developments in the field which has expanded our opportunities. The implementation of old data into workbooks went rather smoothly as well.

The general set up of Workbooks is also good. We worked with a local partner of Workbooks in the Netherlands, and they have helped us a great deal in respects to getting a clear view on what we needed etc.
  • Scalability of the service
  • Integration with Mailchimp and other solutions such as Google Agenda etc
  • The fact that it has a great dashboard was a big help to our sales team, as well as the ease with which reports can be produced on the fly as well as exporting reset data
  • Actually keeping tabs on the sales process per user is a great help for me to set targets or adjust course if needed
  • The simplicity and easewith which we can export PDF templates for offers, confirmation orders and invoices.
  • There really isn't all that much, what I would like to see is an app to use on iDevices. Our sales team all have iPads for presentations etc.
  • While Workbooks works rather well with HTML 5, I would still like to see an app. I know it's in the making, but haven't seen anything of this as of yet.
  • I am sure that would increase productivity even further (if it's of the same standard as the main environment).
Workbooks offers great support, as do ( in our experience) local partners. It works really well for our sales and marketing departments. Workbooks is really effective in tracking our marketing campaigns. It also keeps tabs on existing clients, and gives insight on how quickly potentials are turned to customers.

As with all CRM it strongly depends on how well it is being maintained and used by the user. We have found that with the ease of use of Workbooks its become much less of an issue. Where as before we didn't only look at the data produced but actually had to keep track of the system being used accurately. We constantly needed to keep tabs on the actual level of maintaining.

The fact that we see data being produced organically (naturally being updated and tracked) to me is a testament of the user friendly nature of workbooks.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Workbooks is being used across Lucid Switch to fully manage our customers, and improve efficiency and productivity. We are able to customize workbooks CRM to help companies integrate cloud-based software solutions.
  • Its very user friendly and has an interface that's easy to understand and use.
  • Its easy to customize layouts views etc.
  • The quality of service delivered to customers has improved.
  • Overall it has helped the company to grow and continue to do so.
  • No Complaints
-
Brian Walsh | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Reseller
Workbook is used as a CRM, Customer Service (Ticketing/Cases) and HR Tool. Our whole organization uses it to track incoming sales leads, effectiveness of marketing, customer service (we use the case module to track inbound service requests) reporting on Sales KPI's, etc. Although it's not actually an HR software, we also built an employee module to track applicants, employee vacation time, onboarding, etc. Workbooks allows us to have one central system to keep track of our leads, customers, orders, suppliers, etc. It allows us to save time, automate a tremendous amount of processes, and focus more time on building our business to new levels. We no longer duplicate data entry within our marketing modules (Email & Marketing Automation), accounting, and customer service systems.
  • Automation - It allows you to create automated follow ups and reminders based on updating fields or other criteria
  • Reporting - In depth reporting and dashboards allow you to keep track of your business from following up on sales leads to what is in your pipeline. You can even automate reports so that they are created and sent in real time so you don't even have to be in the system to get your reports if you so choose.
  • Integrating with other platforms. We have integrated Workbooks with things like Quickbooks, MailChimp, HelloSign and others to make our processes more automated and streamlined.
  • High amount of Customization - No limitations on custom fields that can be created, multiple form layouts per record type, create your own relationships between people and/or organizations.
  • It would be nice to have the google calendar integration now, but it's coming in Q1 of 2015 so we're happy to have that feature.
It's a really great system for small to medium organizations that are willing to spend some time thinking about how their workflow can be improved by designing processes which will allow them to streamline and automate their business. For people who are not serious about making a commitment to bettering their business, Workbooks may not be a correct fit. For instance there are a lot of features which many people think they don't need, but they haven't really spent the time to figure out what the needs of the business are. The nice thing about Workbooks is that you can turn off things you don't need, and then when the business demands, they will be there for you to utilize.
Phil Brooks | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Workbooks is being used across the company, both to track activities against existing clients, and for the sales team targeting prospects. Managing follow up calls, data management and tracking opportunities. We had no central place for our data, opportunities, and email stats. Having now integrated DotMailer, we have everything in one place, and so sending targeted email campaigns is far easier.
  • Relatively simple to customise the layout of the various screens
  • Support is very good
  • Opportunity management, tracking and reporting
  • Reporting, with a little help, is good. Particularly the scheduled emails, so no missed deadlines!.
  • Dashboards are a good idea, but take quite a bit of work to get right
  • Customising screens is not as straight forward as it can be, but after a time you get used to it.
  • If you already have a database uploaded to Workbooks, some of the integrations and APIs don't function in a way we would like. If a record is new to your database, then there are no issues.
Workbooks is certainly applicable for companies that need a good tool to manage their data, and track opportunities through the sales funnel. It can also be used for invoicing, sending documents etc... fully branded, forecasting etc... but at this time we have not used this functionality. Where it is helpful is giving individuals tailored rights and views, or subscribing them to groups, to ensure the right people, have the right access rights.
If we were going through the process again, I would focus more around how data is managed, and how we as Connection2 would like to work. The platform is good, but we are using it slightly differently to how it was designed.
Paul Reynolds | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Workbooks is used across the business specifically to solve the problem we had prior which was each department running their own tools. Now we have a hosted solution that bring our sales and marketing effort in line with our accounting practice saving time and money.
  • Simple to use and bring new users on to
  • Lower cost of ownership with no upgrades or patching to "have to do"
  • When you need support its there
  • We needed a specific function and were told that it would be available in a future release. We changed a process in the business and then the feature came out sooner.

How many application are you replacing near term or in the future, think about the costs of doing so even though the services work is a reasonable day rate.

This is a subscription cost so make sure you company benefits from the opex budget versus the capex costs usually associated with software and supporting hardware.

Chris Hood | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Workbooks is being used as THE sales and marketing tool across the company. The whole of the sales process is mapped and reported upon.
The area we wanted to improve was cross utilisation of a single database for sales, marketing and business development, hand-over from one exec to another, back up and support in the office for sales people on the road. This has allowed us to report upon the progress of sales and revenue vs targets and forecasts.
  • Sales process management from enquiry to delivery of product
  • This was previously on as many as 4 systems using excel and legacy applications such as the written word in log books
  • Automatic reporting for financial compliance: once built, the reporting process reduced the workload on a monthly basis from 2 days to 20 minutes
  • The FD loved it
  • The overall capability of the package enabled the sales force to rapidly pull our pertinent data for a sales call, plus managing time and resources better for increased efficiency
  • Business development and focussed marketing became so much easier, we noted that the process paid for itself many times over
  • I would like the report building to be more intuitive, but the support systems in place are a great help
  • Building dashboards with built-in reports is sometimes a bit top heavy
  • Managing individual access rights is sometimes a bit of a bear trap
Best suited in my experience to products with a set price list, although services and bespoke products can be catered for with some more work
January 16, 2015

Simple but effective

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Workbooks is most effective across the whole organisation. Anyone that has contact with any prospects or clients should be using the system. This enables everyone in the organisation to have a complete picture of any contact with that person or business. This results in efficiency and better customer service.
  • Connectivity to Outlook
  • Campaigns
  • Opportunity tracking
  • Enhanced outlook contact synchronisation - which is under way
Drill into use of use and flexibility. Software needs to be intuitive and easy to use for all levels of user. Screens are all tailorable and configurabel so you can tailor the screens for each user.
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