Item: Kintone
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

My department is responsible for developing training for our dealer network (not comprised of company employees). Historically we created training (whether online or in-person), delivered it, and moved on. We did not have a good method for keeping track of projects or when content needed review. We were unable to search a database for keywords to determine if the content on a particular topic already existed. Thus we often found ourselves creating new content (even though older content may have existed) or maintaining content that had outlived its usefulness because we didn't really know what we had. We tried to adopt other tools used by our company, such as DAM (digital asset management) platforms, but those are designed to manage and deploy video and images to websites, not to manage a database of information ABOUT an asset. Kintone allowed me to easily build a simple database that I could use to track product IDs, related course titles, intended audience, language, course fees, contact, info - myriad data points that were never tracked before. An attachment field enables us to include documents related to the record. Bulk updates are easy and apps are easy to modify once created.

Pros and Cons

App creation is simple and intuitive, easily modified
Exporting and bulk updates simplify data management
Help documentation is thorough and well-written
Populating apps with data from other apps is easy with related fields
Searching apps by key word is fast with accurate results

Reminder notifications are not intuitive to set up
Notification on the home page can't be deleted in bulk
Sometimes Japanese appears when setting up app fields

Return on Investment

Data visibility saves time and money - no more recreating content that already existed
Content is aligned across all platforms because apps are linked
Project status is highly visible and individual workload is easy to track
Data visibility in Kintone enables users to go to Kintone for information instead of waiting for a response via IM or email

Support Rating

Kintone's support has been fantastic. Mike and Steve took the time to get us up and running with our apps, ran down the answers to questions, and even helped develop some of our apps on the fly. Everyone at Kintone is responsive, friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. and if they don't know the answer to a question they'll find it and respond quickly. I appreciate the availability of the Kintone team to hop on a call and work through a problem with app development, billing, anything. Very easy team to do business with.

Product Configurability

Kintone has been instrumental in helping us develop solutions. It functions as an effective content management system for our needs - we don't need a full-scale CMS - and enables us to really see what content we have and perform analysis to determine what gaps there are. Project management apps, linked to content apps, ensure visibility across teams and consistency across platforms. Calendar scheduling enables instructors and others to plan schedules months in advance and provides management with an easy-to-read overview.

Alternatives Considered

Airtable

Kintone allowed me to test its product more fully than other platforms. Scalable pricing was an incentive, as was the ability to create apps to perform diverse functions, like scheduling and project management. Kintone's help documentation enabled me to really play around with the app and determine whether it was going to be good for our needs.

Key Insights

Do you think Kintone delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Kintone's feature set?

Yes

Did Kintone live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Kintone go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Kintone again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

As described Kintone is great for quickly setting up databases and tracking content life cycles. Its intuitiveness meant I could create exactly what I needed in minutes, affordably. Kintone is searchable so we can easily determine what content exists, how old it is, who it was designed for, and more. My apps are linked with colleagues' project management apps so we never have to re-enter data. Processes and information sharing are streamlined. The database can be exported and shared as an Excel file for others to use. Though Kintone has a reminder notification feature, it is difficult to set up and assign tasks to specific users or groups. The design of this feature is clunky and not as intuitive as app creation. Linking apps was not as easy as I had hoped and required the assistance of a third-party developer.

Kintone Delivers on Expectations

Overall Satisfaction with Kintone