Penelope is A-Ok with Me
July 31, 2021

Penelope is A-Ok with Me

Erin Garzelli | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Penelope by Social Solutions

VOASE’s VA-funded SSVF grant in Birmingham, AL, uses Penelope to track our client load from day to day and annotate how much funding they’ve received for housing and other benefits through the program. We also keep track of client notes and notes about community outreach. We use it to digitally sign off on VA-mandated paperwork as well. All SSVFs in VOASE utilize Penelope. However, outside of that purview, I’m unaware if other VOASE programs use it.
  • The calendar function allows employees the ability to keep track of their work schedule and allows program managers to know where their employees are in the event they need to reach them.
  • The automatic calculations on the documents populated takes the guesswork out of adding or subtracting government funds spent.
  • The ability to track clients’ new enrollment iterations under the same client file is extremely convenient.
  • The lag time between a client enrollment and when their documents populate in the workflow is particularly lengthy.
  • The log out feature is great for confidentiality purposes but also becomes a pain if you haven’t save a document and become distracted from completing it in a timely manner.
  • The ability to sort through numerous clients’ files with ease.
  • Keeping track of large amounts of paperwork per client in one filed location.
  • The ability to communicate schedules, file progression, and community outreach events to upper management are key.
  • It’s much harder to lose client paperwork when it’s in one consolidated location.
  • Saving time and money for paper (as well as trees)!
  • We can spend more time getting to know clients when we aren’t scrambling to find the paperwork.
  • Needle
My last job at a law firm used Needles and, although it was user-friendly, it wasn’t as pleasing, aesthetically. I wouldn’t say I “selected” Penelope, as it was upper management who chose the program. However, both programs are equally viable options in an administrative arena. To me, Needles strikes me as better for larger caseloads. For instance, I oversaw 2,300 cases with needles. Whereas at my current job, I have about 20 on average.

Do you think Penelope delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Penelope's feature set?

Yes

Did Penelope live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Penelope go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Penelope again?

Yes

It is a wonderful program for case management and I could see it being used in the legal or medical fields as well. For jobs that have more administrative roles, this would be well-suited but not as much for hands-on, tactile workers say, for example, a railroad worker or someone like a doctor. However, their administrative assistants would find it appealing.