Worketc

What do you get when you’re on the hunt for CRM, project management tool, scheduling software, and an invoicing system?

You get really, really overwhelmed.

While there was once a time when people had dreams of seamless integrations between all of their cloud apps, that ship has sailed (but I hope it will come back sometime soon). Too much technical know-how, failed integrations and time spent troubleshooting.

Founded in 2009, WORK[etc] is a tool that simplifies workflows by providing users with a holistic view of a business’s processes, starting at the top of the funnel and continuing down to the bottom.

The system is versatile and robust enough to support any type of business, but is mainly geared towards SMBs and growing enterprises who are looking for a comprehensive solution that can handle each and every (or just each) business process inherent in their sales cycles.

WORK[etc]’s goal is to keep the cloud open and to enable you to operate your business however you see fit, using their tool to perform better wherever and whenever you need it.It’s very much a tool and not a cumbersome platform that limits what you can do with your existing systems.

With that said, let’s go through the system and see how a business can use it throughout the customer lifecycle.

The Contact Module – The Heart, Soul and the CRM

While WORK[etc] is so much more than just a CRM, I’ve got to say the CRM feature is pretty darn cool.

Think of it as the beginning of your sales funnel, where a person becomes a lead and the whole nurturing process begins.

Each of your leads, clients, companies, employees (whichever term(s) you use is a matter of personal preference and depend on your needs), and all of your actions are attached to everything you do within the system, in real-time (you’ll see what I’m talking about later on).

It allows anyone in your company (a sales agent in training, the resident marketing guru, or the CTO) to be a ‘johnny on the spot.’ All of the information you need about any person, client or company is just a click away, and there’s a running record of past activity in the “Activity” feed.

Everything you need to have a conversation or make a sale, all in one place.

Search It For Quick Access

When the data in your WORK[etc] account is fully populated, one can imagine how crowded the system can get. The search function lets you cut through the noise and instantly access the information you’re looking for, whether that be a contact, discussion, project, invoice or a file – it’ll pop it up for you so you’ve got everything you need to have a conversation or make a sale.

The “Full Edit Person” Form

While you do have the option to “Quick Add Contacts” from various points in the system, I really like the detailed nature of WORK[etc]’s full lead details form. It’s got quite a few features that some other CRMs simply don’t have.

Integrate the contact’s company details and social media accounts into the system, make necessary tags, add the contact/lead to mailing list(s), and even sent them up with their own limited account access (called the ‘Customer Portal’) if they have a part in any of your projects.

WORK[etc] goes so far as to generate its own “strong password” for these limited access accounts. Overkill? Maybe. But overkill that I would definitely use.

The ‘Create New’ Button

This button is your beacon of light in WORK[etc]. It’s a persistent feature that exists in all modules, enabling you to create and integrate various elements into the system on a whim without ever leaving your current page.

In essence, everything is just a click away from everything else.

This button embodies WORK[etc]’s goal of integrating all of your business processes into one easy, cross-functional platform.

For example: say you create a lead from within the Contacts Module, you can then create a project associated with that lead (from within that same module), or attach a knowledge base article to that project that’s associated with that lead, or invoice the lead, or sign them up for an event. The list goes on and on and on…

The Sales Module

The sales module is a super versatile, sales-oriented version of your CRM, dealing solely with your leads. There are tons of features, and below I’ll highlight a couple I found particularly useful.

Filtering the Visual Grid View

The visual grid view essentially gives you an overview of all of your leads that you’ve added into the system. The information it displays goes across the board, including things like lead status, lead value, lead stage, and so much more. All of these elements can be manipulated to your liking by creating custom ‘Filters’ that can be viewed, saved and shared amongst team members and collaborators.

Your “Sales & Leads” Settings
This settings area allows you to customize everything that has to do with your sales module.

One of the cooler, more useful customizations involves a setting a rule/automation that assigns leads to the appropriate “Lead Stage” depending on where they came from.

So whether you’ve got an active landing page that’s generating leads, or you’ve imported your leads from Dropbox or Excel, you can set custom rules that will place them in the appropriate stage so you don’t have to manually do it yourself.

Sending Emails Through WORK[etc]

WORK[etc] is an especially unique CRM in that it allows quite a lot of flexibility with regard to how email communications are handled.

Want to send emails directly through the system? No problem, create some ‘Standard Response’ templates and manage your campaigns directly from WORK[etc]. This template creator is deceivingly simple, but it offers every customization you’d ever need in an email service.

From ‘Auto Text’ generators and other fillable fields to integrating images, links, videos and company signatures. It’s a beauty – and the beauty is in the simplicity.

Plus, you can easily setup your own SMTP server, thereby granting you complete brandability with regards to email sendouts. It’s always a little annoying when you’re paying a company and you notice that their emails are mass sendouts from Mailchimp (which happens to be the email service you use as well). This eliminates that feeling, and promotes a sense of exclusivity and trust.

Email Plugins
But wait a minute…what if you’re not using WORK[etc] to send emails like a CRM? What if you really don’t have that much email correspondence going on, and the key factor for you is just to make sure you’re carefully handling those few client emails that you do email. WORK[etc] lets you easily handle and integrate all of your email communications through integrations with Gmail and Outlook.

By using either the Gmail or Outlook plugin, you can easily draw information from your inbox and integrate it into your WORK[etc] CRM. For example, say a new lead contacts you asking about a particular service, a couple of clicks and you can turn that previously unheard person into a new lead in your CRM … without ever leaving Gmail – that’s automation at its finest right there.

Projects Module

There are tons of features in WORK[etc]’s project management module. It’s a robust system, with a ton of customizable options with regard to the setup, layout, and industry-specific variations.

Creating Projects

WORK[etc] allows you to create an unlimited number of projects, sub-projects, and to-dos, all of which can be customized individually in terms of:

• Parties involved
• Tasks involved
• Progress stages
• Time periods & due dates
• …and a lot more

Here’s a snapshot of a general project creation window:

And here’s a snapshot of creating a ‘ToDo’ within a project/sub-project:

Project Types

Customizing project types allows you to make categorize your own personal project dashboard, and offer some additional filtering options to further narrow down parts any projects (e.g. if you’re a manager who’s curious about which projects are 90% complete, you could create a filter within this module to view this information).

Essentially, product types help categorize your projects in your mind to make navigation easier for you.

To better understand what I’m talking about, take a look at this snapshot:

The Two Main Project Views

Projects can be viewed from a lot of different perspectives. They all offer something a little different, and depending on your needs you’ll likely found different views useful for different things.

The First: The Gantt Chart

The Gantt chart acts as the guts of the project management module by giving you a waterfall visualization of your projects. It shows you what’s going to happen and when, including all of the project’s associated ToDos and sub-projects.

Here it is at a glance:

The Second: The Project Tree

While the Gantt chart essentially shows you a birds-eye view of any and all projects you’ve got going on, the project tree lets you dive a little deeper into the innards of each project. This view gives you a more visual display of the ToDos & sub-projects associated with the larger project, while displaying some more particular specs like project stage, type, progress, parties involved, and a lot more.

This acts as a way to view each project’s status in real-time so you and your team members can stay up to date and onboard with what’s going on.

Some More Focused Project Views

Plus you can view projects according to budget, progress, priority, and the people connected to each project.

The possibilities are limitless.

Some Project Bells & Whistles
Granting Client Access

WORK[etc]’s project management portal easily grows with your company and molds to your needs, and is ideal for companies working on complex projects that require constant oversight.

Consider this example:

Say you’ve got third parties (e.g. clients) involved in a number of your projects. You’re able to grant them access to view certain modules (relevant projects, sub-projects, support tickets, discussions, invoices, ToDo lists). Essentially, you’re giving them the ability to manage their portion of the project from directly within your own project management system. This way, everything is extremely organized and up to date.

Knowledge Bases

You can attach knowledge base articles to anything and everything. From projects, to events on your calendar, to specific leads, the options are virtually unlimited.

You can access any of these items either through the knowledge base itself, by clicking on an associated element (e.g. a project or a ToDo item), or by simply running a search query.

The Calendar Module

WORK[etc]’s offers a seamless integration with Google Calendar, and you can essentially integrate WORK[etc]’s calendar with Google’s calendar so the calendars become a part of your email inbox. Pretty sweet.

Helpful tip: You can easily create new calendars on Google (as well as WORK[etc]). You can then pick and choose which calendars are shared with which parties, i.e. maybe one calendar is your personal calendar, and maybe another is devoted to strictly your development team.

How you customize it is entirely up to you – just know that the capability is there.

Reports Module

The reports module is completed integrated with every other part of the system, and allows you to generate reports using whichever parameters you’re looking to dissect and analyze; whether that be financials, projects, sales, support, timesheets, or custom reports.

For example, perhaps you want to get a pie chart breakdown of the amount of leads each of your employees are bringing in. Simple – just press the “Contacts Creation: by Employee” report, and the system will automatically generate a pie chart, on the spot, in seconds.

The reports can be as simple or as complex as you desire, and each and every one can either be downloaded as a PDF, printed, or exported as an Excel file.

Creating Web Forms

It’s a super intuitive, drag & drop form creator. The fact that WORK[etc] even offers web forms really plays to the notion of this system being an all-encompassing solution.

Take lead capture, for example. A web form is where a lead capture happens (technically speaking), and WORK[etc] allows you to handle it from directly within the system, along with every other process that takes place further down the funnel.

After creating your form(s), WORK[etc] will generate the HTML snippet for you so you can place it wherever you like. From there, you can view form submissions in either the Reports module, or you can export the file as a CSV.

Financial Module

The financial module is where you can manage all of your monetary transactions . All projects, expenses, timesheets, items, and everything else you can think of can be expensed, recorded and tracked in both the Financial and the Reports modules.

This module has a lot of built-in flexibility – and rightfully so. Just like every other aspect of the system, all of the billing/expensing/invoicing features are completely synced to the rest of the modules. So say you’ve sold a piece of machinery to a customer and updated it in your WORK[etc] CRM, it will update in the corresponding project, sales, finances, and reports modules – no additional button clicks required.

Invoices (in a Nutshell)
There are some very versatile invoicing features in the Financial Module. No matter what currency, subscription type, or tax considerations, WORK[etc] has got it covered.

One simple, but really cool feature worth noting? The ability to easily customize invoices and product catalogues to your liking. You can even go so far as to edit the HTML/CSS if you’re capable of doing so (if you’re not, I wouldn’t touch it)!

You can also create custom email templates to be sent out alongside each invoice template you’ve create, further streamlining the business processes.

Integrations
While the Financial & Reports Modules are great ways to manage your company’s transactions, solutions like QuickBooks are specifically designed for accounting purposes.

WORK[etc] recognizes this, which is why they have integrations with QuickBooks, and exports available in CSV, Adobe, and even Open Financial Exchange (OFX) formats.

WORK[etc]’s Quickstart Onboarding Program

As we’ve seen, WORKetc has a lot to offer. People can easily get overwhelmed when they begin using the solution, and may even feel dissatisfied because they feel like they’re not using it to its full potential.

WORKetc provides a “Quickstart” program that helps new users with both migrations & implementation. This includes help with data synchronizations, team training and individual training seminars and a whole lot more.

Remember, when you get ready to implement, the WORK[etc] team will place a laser focus on what you need – only once you get familiar with the system will you grow into the bells & whistles

This program costs $499, but once you’ve paid for it, your WORK[etc] account will be credited back this $499 so you can use it to pay your monthly WORK[etc] subscription fee. Awesome deal.

Mobile App

WORK[etc] released their mobile app and it is now available on Google Play  and the App Store. This enables you to access your WORK[etc] account on the go.

WORK[etc] CRM + Projects + Billing App for Android from WORK[etc] on Vimeo.

Some Parting Words

Many companies simply don’t have the time or the resources to make huge switches and implement all-encompassing systems, especially not when their legacy systems are so industry specific that they still fit the needs of the organization, regardless of their aging capabilities.

For that reason, WORK[etc]’s biggest competitor is the status quo. But by making the migration process as seamless as possible, and by offering a plethora of integrations atop a very simple UI/UX, the company is gaining headway on the status quo.
There’s a lot to think about when you’re on the hunt for business software, especially if you’re looking to solve multiple problems at the same time. But consider this: we’ve now entered an age of dynamic software solutions that can proactively manage as many processes as your business requires.

So if you’re looking for an all-encompassing solution, try WORK[etc] out because you may just be impressed…and if you’re not, at least the trial was free!