by Kathleen Lamphier under QuickBase News

If you’re using QuickBase to manage projects, here’s a chance to help others searching for online project management tools make the best purchase decision they can by sharing your experience.

Please take a few minutes to post a review of QuickBase project management at onlinepmtools.com.

About onlinepmtools.com
Onlinepmtools.com is a user review website (launched March 2009) that provides user reviews of – you guessed it – online project management tools.  At onlinepmtools.com it’s all about user reviews: “Hearing straight from people and companies who have used the tools is the best way to get a feel for quality and fit for your own needs.”  So please help others in their search for an online project management tool by posting your review of QuickBase.

Posting your review
Went you get to the QuickBase listing on the website, just click either the leave a comment or the write a review link to share your thoughts.   You’ll be asked to rate QuickBase in terms of features, support and ease of use using a five point scale.  Then, write a short review in your words of why you chose QuickBase for online project management.  You can also choose to be notified by email when additional reviews are posted.

I’m a user too!
Personally I don’t just work for Intuit QuickBase; I’m a user too. I use the product all the time.  I’ve worked at other software companies where I’ve used their product a tiny bit internally – or at least taken a training class on how to use it (that was back in my enterprise software days).  But at QuickBase I actually use the product a lot – more than I’ve used the product of any other company I’ve worked at.

I think it’s pretty cool that we use QuickBase so much at work.  I use QuickBase to manage marketing projects and budgets, report on program results and submit/track website work requests.  I also use it to submit and track projects with external vendors.  That’s just a few uses off the top of my head.

I like how QuickBase is easy to use like a spreadsheet – it’s got that familiar rows and columns look to it – and the grid edit feature is near and dear to my heart.  I also like the fact that I can quickly create and share reports – and export them to a spreadsheet when I need to.

It’s about you
Sure I use and like QuickBase but onlinepmtools.com doesn’t want to hear from me, they want to hear from customers like you, so please do post a review.  Thank you!

by Kathleen Lamphier under Industry Trends, Uncategorized

I’ve been thinking about my last post and figured if I’m asking you to share your spreadsheet story why don’t I share mine too. I admit it, I was a shuffler. Don’t get me wrong. I like spreadsheets for number crunching — even making lists or schedules when I’m the only person working on a project. But, I’ve not a fan of the shuffling thing.

Prior to joining the QuickBase team I worked for several companies where I have been locked out of team spreadsheets that were posted on a shared drive – because someone else updated their information and left the spreadsheet open. That resulted in the rest of the team – or at least the most frustrated member – hunting that person down to close the spreadsheet so the rest of us could update our respective sections before our team meeting that day. That was definitely frustrating. Other times it was like an update roll-call. I’m done. Who’s going next? Ok, I’m done. Next. And on and on till we each got our updates in.

In the past I’ve also had to spend time consolidating spreadsheets. One time I had a list of leads from a seminar and I needed status updates from various sales reps. Because each sales rep could only see their own information I had to create about 10 versions of the spreadsheet – one per sales rep. Then email one spreadsheet to each rep requesting an update on the list of prospects. Followed by reminder emails and phone calls to get the information back, then consolidate that information back into one spreadsheet for a program report to management.

With QuickBase reporting on leads is so much easier. Our concierge team (think inside sales meets customer service) uses QuickBase to get their leads – each rep sees only their information – and I can easily report from the same system. I just pull a report of leads by their campaign code in order to get just my program. If I ever needed to remind the concierge team to update information I could set up an email notification to remind the whole team – instead of having to send out an individual email to each person.

I can’t tell you how nice it is to have all the information I need all in one system and accessible through an internet browser. I can pull reports from home, from the road. I don’t have to be in the office or using a VPN to do it.

One more confession.
You know when you send out a spreadsheet to a few people for updates and at least one of them messes with the formatting so you can’t just cut and paste information back into your master spreadsheet? Well, sometimes I’m one of those people who reformat a spreadsheet to make it work better for me. At my last job, I drove my manager a little crazy with my spreadsheet tweaking. But that’s all behind me now because with QuickBase I don’t need a spreadsheet, I can just create or edit a report in my team’s QuickBase application to see just the fields I need to see and then use grid edit to update my project information. I love grid edit – it looks just like a spreadsheet. I get to see the information I need the way I need it and I haven’t messed up any formatting for anyone else. And there’s no cutting and pasting, my information is updated along with my co-workers all in one place. No fuss, no muss and no frustrated managers.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Ok, enough about me. Tell me your story.
Remember the first five people to reply to my last post will receive a Starbucks gift card.