Salsa CRM

Essential Operating Tool

Pros:

Salsa CRM has been essential in making sure that our organization has run smoothly since inception. The product allows us to grow into new features as we grow as an org.

Cons:

Reporting and corresponding can be tedious at times but improvements to both have been made over time.

Good, but needs fine tuning

Comments: Overall I have enjoyed setting up and implementing Salsa. My biggest complaint (other than the alphebetical order issue) is that the person inputting the data should have more of an understanding as to the inner working and fields available in Salsa. There are many fields that I have (and still am) currently modifying/getting rid of because the fields already existed in the system so I am moving the data. All someoned needed to request was to use the existing field to upload against but I was never told or given the option. I can see the issue possibly being from me not seeing the fields but in my mind, you all are the experts and are helping implement the system the best way possible.

Pros:

The options in the reporting system are great and I find it superior to most query/reporting tools.

Cons:

The fact that NOTHING is in alphabetical order. Why and how this has happened is ridiculous.

Disjointed, kludgy, unintuitive, overly-complex, and outdated on the CRM side

Comments: We gave it our best shot. We spent days and days trying to import people - without ever really succeeding. I worked for DAYS trying to master the reporting interface. Which looks (and probably is????) extremely and outlandishly powerful. The only trouble is - its SOOOO powerful (and complicated), nobody even uses it. I finally contacted the company to ask if there were any training videos on it - and they (literally) told me that virtually nobody writes their own report definitions. "Most of their customers hire consultants to do that," they said. When I finally DID succeed in writing a couple that worked, they seemed somewhat surprised. Lots of little things just didn't seem to make sense. For example, even -- if I was logged in, and two hours pass, it logs me out, providing the log-in credentials to log back in again - which is fairly common. But if one tries to put in credentials on that page and log back in, it says, in tiny print on an otherwise-white screen upper left, "Forbidden." The one thing NOT to do to a customer who has just paid $4500 for a year's worth of use of a software platform is log him out - and when he tries to use the log-in page to log back in again, tell him it's forbidden.

Pros:

Salsa Engage is a new product. If they had built a CRM from the ground up, incorporating Salsa CRM components, I have a hunch it would have been better. Salsa Engage, for its part, allows one to do online forms, email groups (in a matter of speaking), and some social media integration. (But wow - they didn't.) It will indeed do those automated sequence emails (though not dependably; and strangely, when I informed their customer service that the 'drip' sequence wasn't always working, they literally said, "Yes, if

Cons:

For the CRM side (Salsa CRM), they just bought an off-the-shelf product from another vendor. (DonorPro.) It's a dated interface. (Like - 1965 maybe?) (I jest. But not by much.) Then they tried to figure out a way to cobble it together with their [better] efforts in Salsa Engage. The trouble is, if a person doesn't buy access to Salsa CRM, there really is ZERO CRM. For example, one can generate a group email, of sorts, from directly in Salsa Engage. But there's really no way to jot down a mailing address with a phone number in Salsa Engage, solely. (It only accepts contacts with emails.) The whole thing seemd Kludgy, actually.

Easy to Use

Comments: We are a local chapter of a national nonprofit organization, and manage roughly 50,000 records. I use it daily with little to no issues, enter and acknowledging donations and keeping details records of constituents. My favorite part is the ProPortal where you can get resources such as software upgrades and video tutorials.

Pros:

Easy to use. Tons of online resources. Open to user input.

Cons:

Getting more complicated issues resolved can be a chore. But I think this is an example of growing pains. Hopefully more staff will cure this problem.

Great product!

Pros:

Is super easy to learn how to use. Great registration pages for events that promote individual fundraising.

Cons:

Not many options for social media marketing. I wish it allowed for more cross promotion across different social platforms.