Observations from a Z CRM For Blackberry BETA Tester
I have been a BETA tester for the Blackberry mobile version of Zoho CRM for about 2 months. I am current using my thrid version of the product since I was accepted as a BETA user.
The application is taking baby steps right now. There is a good solid foundation and they seem to have created a solid, basic user interface.
My primary interest in using the mobile version is so that I can quickly access information about active Potentials and Leads while I am on the road and make updates to individual records quickly and easily. I also want to be able schedule tasks from my phone - such as follow up calls or new meetings and associate them with specific records. I do not want to review any reports on my BB and I don't need to see any vendors or create quotes or follow cases (yet).
As I said above, the foundation is very solid. The app is responsive and doesn't seem to hog memory. The UI is easy to read. I like having the ability to keep data on my mobile device, update it "offline" and then have it sync to the web later.
However, there are some limitations that they are working on that really keep it from being a fully productive tool at the moment.
Specifically, there is no way to filter the records displayed in a view. You can get either all records or "My Records". But no other filters are available. For our business that means we cannot filter "My Records" in the potentials module to show only the active potentials or the potentials that met certain criteria - such as closing date or Order Probability. You can search on the network to find specific records. The search works very well. the downside is that it takes a lot of time.
Also you cannot choose which fields are displayed when you have the "views" in any given module. Zoho has pre-defined the fields they will display. that means I cannot get a specific summary of any given potential, account or contact. Our company uses the Proposal Number for the Potential Name and currently there is no way to display the Customer's name in the Potential View. I have to select the record and then view all details. It makes finding a specific Potential record very time consuming and annoying. For me I have to drill down into each potential to even find out who is the end user or channel partner.
There is no automatic call logging. So I have to manually enter the call data after I hang up. If I am running through an airport or using a hands-free connection in a car it is not possible to do this.
One minor annoyance is that if you have re-named any modules (For example our company re-named the Potentials module) the customized names don't show up in the mobile version.
The good news is that the team appears to be responsive to feedback. They are currently working on adding the functionality that I noted above. I have a hunch that some of the features they are working on may have to be placed on hold until the latest enhancements to the main application are fully implemented.
The upshot of all of this is that our company may soon be switching over to Android-based mobile devices. If anyone has some feedback on Z CRM for Android I would love to hear it. Z CRM functionality will be a big factor in what mobile platform we select.