Printer Friendly Version

Intranets.com has made several ease-of-use enhancements to its online database tools, and once again it's following the suggestions of its users.

If you've tried to use Intranets.com's customer relationship management (CRM) database in the past and were frustrated by the lack of integration with other tools in the company's online suite, you'll be pleased by the results.

Intranets.com was founded in 1996, and has grown over the years into a major player in the online collaboration space. While its first product was a boxed all-in-one solution, it now offers entirely hosted tools. With the promise of no hardware or software to install, it's grown to where it now has 9,000 clients and more than 250,000 end users. It's online collaboration suite includes tools for document management, online calendaring, group scheduling, database management, Web and audio conferencing, task management, and more.

This recent group of improvements came after Intranets.com managers noticed several user feedbacks requesting better integration in the CRM database tools. Users could create a customer database quickly using the CRM template, but couldn't easily see the activity associated with each user. Further, the CRM tools didn't tie in with other tools in the suite, such as the address book and task manager. Users said that they liked the tools, but that performing simple tasks was cumbersome because the tools didn't mesh together.

Those users got what they asked for with this release, which makes several minor improvements that add up to a much easier CRM solution. The activity log, for one thing, is no longer buried beneath customer's names. Previously, users had to click on a customer to see the latest activity associated with him or her, an awkward system that was both time-consuming and likely to introduce mistakes, since users could easily miss crucial activity. Now, an additional column has been added to the main CRM screen, showing the most recent activity associated with a customer.

Integration has been a watchword for this group of enhancements. While little new functionality has been added, tools are now more conveniently placed. Users can now send e-mail reminders directly from their CRM database and can assign tasks, as well. The e-mail form can be sent to up to 500 recipients at once. While it has a blind carbon copy (BCC) field, it also has a clever option that hides the recipients from one another without making it a BCC message so that it won't get filtered our by corporate e-mail servers that prevent BCC messages.

Other improvements include a new tabbed interface, smart buttons that let you quickly save your information and add a task, an activity log export option, one-click quick access buttons, and an advanced search tool.

Intranets.com is primarily used by small or mid-sized companies or individual departments, and has pricing plans for every level. Licenses start at $59.95 per month for five members; larger workgroup or enterprise licenses lower the cost per seat. Nonprofit groups get a heavily discounted rate. If you're interested, sign up for the free 30-day test drive.

Intranet.com's CRM template now provides recent activity columns, so users can see at a glance the activity status for each person.