Mixed Review
Updated April 26, 2019
Mixed Review
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with ETO by Social Solutions
It is used by the entire organization. ETO quantifies our results for reporting to funders.
- Lots of customization available
- Clean design
- Frequent performance issues.
- Many features feel 'grafted' on without a full scope consideration of how they could be best integrated into the existing interface. The result is a congested array of settings UIs that require the primary user to develop and maintain workflow checklists off of the site itself.
- Reporting tool has numerous performance and design flaws.
- We are not a business (non-profit/NGO), so none.
A high degree of customization, poor performance, and design. I did not select ETO (predates my time here), so I can't speak to that.
Using ETO by Social Solutions
200 - Front line staff, Case Managers, Program Managers, Program Directors, and assorted administrative staff. In terms of business functions this means direct service providers, their managers, and teams of support staff. ETO is used by the direct service staff to record provision of services and as a field notebook to support case management, while admin teams use it to quantify and report out on the key metrics of interest to funders.
1 - Just myself! I am the only admin at our agency, and am responsible for training, maintenance, support, and improvements. My manager has some knowledge but at the moment I am the only FTE capable of executing the above functions. These functions require attention to detail, project management skills/tools, customer service orientation, an iterative approach (for design and redesigning improvements), and public speaking (for the trainings).
- Quantifying program outcomes
- Reporting out key metrics to external stakeholders
- Field notes for frontline staff
- Supporting supervision conversations between managers and reports
- Digitizing workflows (requires add-on)
Evaluating ETO by Social Solutions and Competitors
Yes - A single excel spreadsheet, which had gotten far too difficult to work with across our growing agency, and a SQL database system which we still use parallel to our use of ETO to track a few slightly different metrics. The excel spreadsheet was simply a vestigial relic of the days our agency operated at much humbler scale.
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
While I was not with the agency at the time of selection, I know that ETO was especially appealing to us as a platform that was grounded in the work of other non-profit service providers and was set up to best facilitate that sort of work. Additionally, it includes features such as alert functionality and reporting that we knew we needed.
Difficult to say as someone who was not present for the actual process itself, but if I were able to go back in time and be present in the conversation I would raise some of my concerns about the reporting tool (ETO Results) and make sure we had done our due diligence evaluating other platforms with reporting functionality.
ETO by Social Solutions Implementation
- Imposible to say, as I was not present for it
ETO by Social Solutions Training
- Online training
- Self-taught
Definitely not! This is a highly complex software with labyrinthine and interlocking settings UI's that require a carefully established workflow, as making changes to one part of the site can adversely impact others without warning. I find the product difficult to use even WITH training, let alone without any! I do frequently need to self-teach new features, but it is my grounding in the rest of the functionality (achieved through taking online trainings) that gives me confidence to do so.
ETO by Social Solutions Support
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | Slow Resolution Poor followup Difficult to get immediate help |
Not Available - It is included in our license
Yes - I report bugs frequently. Often, the support team can identify a setting that needs to be toggled, which is fantastic. Sometimes they need to escalate the matter internally which can lead to a few days lapse between bug reports and resolution. More problematically is when bugs require backend fixes by the dev team, as this can easily become a prolonged fix taking weeks (or months) to see movement.
Yes! Recently my account representative went out of their way to set up a time for a "reverse-demo", where I took them on a tour of our instance. They asked some thoughtful questions, and by the end of the 30minute demo had achieved a deeper understanding of some of the idiosyncratic design choices we made with our instance. This will enable them to better advocate for us internally during the development cycle, and anticipate how new features might impact our work. On a deeper level, this demonstrated an ownership and partnership mentality that I am grateful to have in support staff.
Using ETO by Social Solutions
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Consistent Feel confident using | Unnecessarily complex Difficult to use Not well integrated Slow to learn Cumbersome Lots to learn |
- Participant lookup
- Switching between programs
- Reporting! (ETO Results)
- Creating new programs
- making changes to existing data objects - not much clarity around what metadata survive these changes or what parts of ETO will be impacted by changing naming syntax etc
ETO by Social Solutions Reliability
Relationship with Social Solutions
I don't have sufficient knowledge to speak on this matter
Very important to be persistent! I sometimes need to send follow up one or more follow up pings to get issues resolved. Also, use the Ideas Portal for any issues that don't get addressed and post the link on their internal forums so others know to go upvote your ideas (otherwise they'll never go anywhere).