Item: Bonterra Apricot
Rating: 8
Author: Toni Higdon

Overall Satisfaction with Bonterra Case Management

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Client tracking of services, assessments, consents to treat, and group attendance. The software creates more staff efficiencies and we have better data integrity.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Variety of field options
Easy to create or customize forms for anyone, don't have to be a computer tech to do it
Easy access to live support through the chat bubble
Being able to link multiple services to 1 service note

Cons

Real-time reporting using classes and terms. Currently if I add attendance today and want to pull a report today of today's attendance, I can not. I have to wait until tomorrow to pull today's attendance b/c of syncing that only happens in the evening. This delays reports.
Reports: clients with multiple program enrollments (can be either open or closed enrollments) will duplicate (inflate) numbers. There are some tricks to reduce but they are not foolproof and still require labor to weed out duplicate cases.
Training and set up support at purchase: when we purchased our subscription 3 or 4 years ago, we received 8 hours of assistance to help set up. That is completely unreasonable for people who don't understand how it works. You have to purchase additional training to really get a good understanding of how to use it. That's almost criminal for someone who is investing in the product. I'd like to see Bonterra add 2 seats to Boot Camp as part of their initial subscription. Or at least 1 year of a training package at no cost for the first year. If they want people to be multi contract users, you must invest in their understanding of how to use it. Otherwise they get frustrated and look at other options.
Using sort in the Terms A - Z doesn't work. You have to select another sort option (like Z - A) then go back and select A - Z for it to sort correctly.
We purchased Apricot b/c it had the VOCA reporting already in it. As we started to learn about the system and how reports were being pulled we found that reports were not pulling correctly based on VOCA requirements. This was brought to our rep's attention and rather than fix the issue for all users, we created new reports so it fixed it for us. I tried to get her to take this to developers (I sent her emails from VOCA funders with proof of the way data was to be pulled) b/c it meant anyone using the reports was not reporting correctly, but she wasn't interested.
Although linking services is great for the user, the reporting side makes it labor intensive. If I pull a report for services in a reporting period, example 6 service dates with 20 services provided, the report is not going to give me 6 lines it's going to give me 20, one for each service. It would be nice to get the 6 lines.
We are expanding our Emergency Food Pantry to include such items as clothing, hygiene products, housewares items, etc. We are trying to figure out ways to track visits, what was taken, etc. It's been challenging.
Related to the initial set up and training, we had state legislative staff talk to us regarding services and one of their questions was related to our client management system. Feedback these folks had received was that Social Solutions was difficult to use and they were looking for other options. I am currently working with a local organization who is using Apricot and is not happy with it. I've told them they don't understand how to use it and the right people aren't the administrators (currently the IT department). I’m doing a 1 day over view of Apricot to save them from looking elsewhere b/c I believe it can be done. I shouldn’t have to do this, Bonterra should have done this from the beginning.

Return on Investment

Better data integrity
Easier access to pull data for board, managers, funders, etc.

In grant writing, funders want to us to show experience we have in providing the service we are asking money for. AVS makes it easy to grab those numbers. One of our senators requested data on Hawaiian victims so she could put funding into the congressional spending. Information was easy to pull from AVS.

Diversified Funding

Ease of reporting makes it quicker to provide numbers for grants.

Alternatives Considered

We selected Bonterra Case Management b/c VOCA reporting was already within the system.

Key Insights

Do you think Bonterra Apricot delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Bonterra Apricot's feature set?

Yes

Did Bonterra Apricot live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Bonterra Apricot go as expected?

Would you buy Bonterra Apricot again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

Best suited for tracking clients individually. When it comes to managing a family record it becomes more difficult. The household is a nice linking tool however with each family member (we could have anywhere from 2 - 6 people in a household) you have to duplicate everything for it to show in the individual record. Example for a family of 4, that's 4 assessments, 4 consents (we have 5 different consents so that's essentially 20 consents being done), etc. When it comes to service notes it's even more difficult. If we visit with mom and student about student school and mom getting a job, that's notes in different files. We can't link that 1 visit to do 1 note in both mom and student's record.

The class and terms is a great tool to track group services however it doesn't link to the individual file. There are quick notes but using that means if I want to report on students who received tutoring I'd have to pull a report from service notes in the individual file and class and terms for our after school program then add the numbers together.

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