Not ready for the prime time
Updated June 27, 2015

Not ready for the prime time

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 4 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Professional Edition

Overall Satisfaction with Apptivo

Apptivo was and still is at the time of writing very much a beta product. While the app promotes having 40+ apps that cover the spectrum of business requirements, once you dive deep you quickly discover that most of these apps are not integrated with the other apps and are almost islands within the overall application. The very basic items are just about ok but the UI and UX is I am afraid only a work in progress rather than usable in a real world business. If you are a one person entity dealing in one currency and only do business in your home country then Apptivo can manage the basic address book crm type basics well.

Support is class leading on this product. Its available within the app through the chat window unfortunately however any big issues (items that impede productivity and cost you a days work) cannot be addressed by support directly as they only pass information to the development team. But for simple training on how do I do this questions the built in support is excellent.

The app has been evolving but in the last year the 100+ items highlighted by us still remain unfixed. They are many and cover things such as....viewing the homepage calendar. Any item such as a meeting or phone call. If the tag that shows the linked contact or opportunity has more than 5 letters in its name then it gets clipped. This leaves you with a screen full of items listed in nice colours but you cannot read any of the information without clicking. If you then click an item it opens a new page and you cannot get back to where you came from. The UI and UX for power users is deeply frustrating. This puts people off from using it....which is why we stopped using them and went elsewhere. They messed up our contact data on numerous occasions and we had to wait for days to for them to fix it. Not acceptable!

Pricing is very economic but unfortunately this is reflected in the product. You get what you pay for. Their website says they are launching version 6 soon. They spent over a year attempting to launch version 5 which never worked properly at all. But one cannot predict the future.

  • Built in support for new users.
  • Basic crm works...just dont expect it do anything well beyond the basic.
  • Price.
  • Google Apps integration is better than a lot of the competition who charge and anwful lot more.
  • They are open to and try adapt quickly based on customer feedback.
  • Homescreen claims to be the center of the application however the sub sections are mostly flawed or do not function as one would expect.
  • The built in email client kinda works but depending on which section of the app you are in the default font will be different from your signature. Also you cannot add a cell phone to staff signatures. I asked about this for months. It was never fixed. When will CRM companies learn that email is STILL the center of many business. It is unacceptable to have different fonts in the same mail and signatures that change from client to client.
  • They frequently messed up our contact data.
  • Multi currency exists on invoices but not on other apps.
  • Fragmentation with their apps....some apps are still on version 3 some on 4 and some on version 5. This means you are forced to deal with 2 or more different user interfaces within the same app.
  • No consistency between the apps.
  • Often there is little or no integration between the apps inside Apptivo.
  • It cost us money.
  • We lost a few hundred man hours on this. We stuck with them for a while based upon the promises received and the excellent speed at which support would reply to concerns. However fixes to the big issues still have not arrived a year later.
  • worketc,sellsy,affinitylive,solve360
Sellsy is the app that comes closest in terms of feature set. It is a lot more expensive but even with its flaws and terrible Google integration is still is a measurably better product in terms of taking care of your business. Unfortunately for Apptivo it tries to do everything with its 40+ apps but not one of those apps succeed in being great when compared to the competition. The competition in all cases are much more expensive than Apptivo but it is a case of you get what you pay for.

Solve360 is probably the best Google integrated crm product on the market today however it is not a business management platform. Work[etc] is another great platform with excellent Google integration but doesn't do stock management or multi-currency. Also way over-priced!
(UPDATE: Please note that my review was for the Version 5 of their apps. They have recently updated 2 of their main apps to V6 which show a lot of improvements. The sad thing however is that many of their 40+ apps never even made to V5 let alone V6. V5 to V6 has taken over a year and only the core apps are getting attention.)

As it stands Apptivo is only useful for one person or sole trader type entities. If your business wants to use all the apps and works internationally then Apptivo will create headaches and frustration rather than increasing productivity.

They may solve many of the 100+ items we provided them with free of charge in an upcoming release, but we left with a bad taste in our mouth. Countless hours lost in our business while we acted as bug finders for Apptivo while paying for the product.

Apptivo Feature Ratings

Customer data management / contact management
6
Workflow management
5
Territory management
5
Opportunity management
5
Integration with email client (e.g., Outlook or Gmail)
7
Contract management
Not Rated
Quote & order management
1
Interaction tracking
2
Channel / partner relationship management
5
Case management
5
Call center management
Not Rated
Help desk management
4
Lead management
5
Email marketing
5
Task management
5
Billing and invoicing management
5
Reporting
5
Custom fields
7
Custom objects
7
Scripting environment
Not Rated
API for custom integration
Not Rated
Role-based user permissions
6
Single sign-on capability
10
Marketing automation
Not Rated
Compensation management
Not Rated
Mobile access
6

Evaluating Apptivo and Competitors

Yes - Solve 360 because we wanted an app that could serve our business model. Solve 360 is amazing but it purely focused on crm and requires a lot of third party apps to deliver a business solution. We knew Apptivo was a work in progress when we started using it based on promises made by support to eventually fix things and get it right.
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
On the surface the product looks to offer all the customization and features a business needs. That plus the too good to be true pricing.
We spend and invest serious time before rolling out any product in my business. This cannot be done in the 30 day trials offered by many as serious business people are busy trying to run their business. The majority of vendors are only interested in selling product and push features down your throat instead of highlighting issues in software that might affect you as well as benefit you.

Apptivo Implementation

If you are starting a business and want a free app or nearly free app that can grow with you....then apptivo could be for you. However if you grow faster than them then you will be quickly seeking alternatives
Yes - crm first then build out into other business areas such as invoicing etc.
Change management was a major issue with the implementation - The software failed to deliver as expected and UI issues made users hate the product.
  • Contact data getting corrupted by the vendor.
  • User complaints due to basic functionality within Apptivo not performing as expected.

Using Apptivo

Our uses kept running into bugs that stopped them from doing simple things like creating a contact or selecting an item from a custom drop list which is required to save the contact or item. This of course is after time was spent filling out all the previous data which gets lost when you cannot complete the form. This is just one example of many.
ProsCons
Relatively simple
Technical support not required
Quick to learn
Do not like to use
Difficult to use
Not well integrated
Inconsistent
Cumbersome
Feel nervous using
Lots to learn
  • Contact managment.
  • There are simply too many UI and UX inconsistencies to list here. We found 100+ during our time with the product.