A READER ASKS: Email Correspondence Integration Products

From Dwayne Wright PMP
Certified FileMaker 10, 9 & 8 Developer
WEB: www.dwaynewright.com
EMAIL: info@dwaynewright.com
TWITTER: dwaynewright
YOUTUBE: FileMakerThoughts

A READER ASKS (and owner of a number of our InBizness products)
Email as part of Correspondence module. What would you suggest as an email sender-- a plug-in or what? Do you like the program from Proof group that lets you send mass HTML emails, or is this overkill given that fundamental correspondence tracking for letters, etc is already built in to InBiz CRM. I definitely want to do email marketing.

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DWAYNE RESPONDS
I don’t feel there is a single correct answer for this one. The SeedCode / fmSpark FileMaker Mail Merge product isn’t something I’ve used yet. I have looked at the six minutes of instructional videos on their web site but haven’t downloaded the demo. Their FileMaker Mail Merge products seems way too heavy for most of my customers needs. Thing is, if you have heavy email / mail merge needs, this certainly looks like the best product on the planet to address those needs.

A link to their product below ...
http://www.seedcode.com/cp-app/ste_cat/fmSpark

That is the rub isn’t it? What are the requirements of the database in regards to correspondence? Another thing to consider is what is your audience willing to do? If you look at the two minute introduction video of fmSpark, you will see well over two dozen mouse clicks. That is pretty heavy but again each of those clicks is leading up to an impressive end result. Will your customers / users take on that much overhead for correspondence? Are they already doing that much overhead manually today?

If you are considering using the fmSpark product with InBizness for your customers needs, I’d recommend this simple thing. When you are sitting with the customers, pull up the two overview videos and look at them together. If the customer is pretty jazzed about what they see, you have your answer. If they are not jazzed about it, I wouldn’t suggest trying to sell them on fmSpark.

I wouldn’t point them to the web site but go over the video together. This helps facilitate the discovery process of needs analysis and ultimately the product acceptance criteria. I would try to go over this with the sponsor and some of the end users. It is a wonderful product but don't let its impressive feature set dissuade you from good old needs analysis interviews!

In regards to email plug-ins, incremental enhancements to FileMaker have really reduced the need for email plug-ins for sending email. They haven’t done a thing for receiving emails into a database and that might be something to consider. If you have a need for receiving emails, then you might consider a plug-in for both tasks. If you are considering a plug-in implementation, download the demos first. Some of the plug-ins you see recommended by developers out there, I would NOT recommend for the casual FileMaker developer. Although these products are powerful, their documentation is sparse, confusing and time intensive to consume.

Personally, I’ve had good luck with mailit from Dacons LLP.
http://www.dacons.net/fmplugins/mailit4/
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More info about the author and FileMaker in general, contact me at info@dwaynewright.com.

© 2010 - Dwayne Wright - dwaynewright.com

The material on this document is offered AS IS. There is NO REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY, expressed or implied, nor does any other contributor to this document. WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT ABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED. Consequential and incidental damages are expressly excluded. FileMaker Pro is the registered trademark of FileMaker Inc.

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A Bunch Of Customization Inquiry About InBizness Property Manager

I left you a voicemail and thought that I would also send you a email of what I am looking for in a program.

Your "Open Business Empowerment Tools" demo designed in FileMaker Pro looks great and it may possibly be what I'm looking for.

Here is what I'm hoping this product has the ability to do:

Database
Tenant Info
Owner Info
Building Info
Vendor Info
Work Orders
Invoices
Estimate/Bids
Staff Info

Accounting System
Payables
Receivables
Registers
Budgets

Reports
Owner's Property Cash Flow (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)
Owner's Property Profit & Loss (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)
Owner's Property Income & Expense Statement (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)
Owner's Property Tenant Registry (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)

Overall Combined Cash Flow (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)
Overall Combined Profit & Loss (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)
Overall Combined Income & Expense Statement (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)
Overall Combined Tenants (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)
Overall Combined Owners (Monthly/Quarterly/Yearly)

Tracking
Owners
Tenants (Payments, Work Orders, Notices, Activities, etc.)
Vendors (Invoices, Estimates, Payables/Receivables, etc.)
Staff (Emails, Timecards, HR, Background checks, etc.)
Budget
Contacts (Cold calls, prospects, etc.)
Transactions

Organization
All of the above - Real Estate, Property Management, Accounting
User Friendly
Administrator privileges
Capabilities to add additional features designed for our business
Calendar capabilities
Management forms
Scan documents & payments into individual records

Sharing
Going Green - no more printing and mailing reports.....
I would like individual property owners to "view only" their property online maybe thorough a link on my website or I could set up a server for this purpose.
Each owner and each property/building would need to have security password access to "view only" their property/building.

Does your product include the - also the cost for you product:
Basic CRM
SOHO
Classic
Property MGR
Real Estate
Money

It sounds like a lot but from looking at your demo most of this is covered in your demo program. I am currently working out & bouncing between a few different softwares to achieve most of the above. It would be much easier if I had a program to handle it all in one, but because of the cost involved in most of the software that I have looked into I needed to go this route.

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DWAYNE RESPONDS
Sorry about missing your call, I am a bit hard to find these days. I'm glad you took the time to write your question down though because it gave me a better opportunity to go over it in detail. Out of the box, InBizness Property Manger does not have all the features you mentioned. Since it is sold as an open FileMaker framework application, the missing pieces can be added. Better yet, they can be added in such a way as to best met your individual business needs. Here is a listing of what is NOT currently in the current version of InBizness Property Manager ...

Database
Invoices & Estimates / Bids

Note: Variations of these can be found in the other InBizness products. Depending on your needs, it wouldn't take that much to add this functionality.

Accounting System
None of these features are currently available in this version of InBizness Property Manager. We could add these features in or build a conduit to QuickBooks that would allow you to leverage these features there.

Reports
None of these reports are currently available in InBizness Property Manager. They all could be added as customizations. If you were considering connecting to QuickBooks, it would make sense to leverage the reports they have there. We can add the reports that are not in QuickBooks in FileMaker.

Tracking
I'm not sure what you are defining here but I suppose it is a set of saved searches per modules. These can be easily added and this is something users can do as well via FileMaker 10 Saved Finds.

Organization & Sharing
Many of these features are available, can be customized in or purchased to work with other FileMaker framework products. For example using 123Sync from SolutionMakers for QuickBooks integration or the calendaring applications from SeedCode. That is the wonderful thing about using FileMaker to power your business, the options are practically endless in regards of getting the business tool you need.

Want An Estimate For Customization?
What I would suggest is to narrow the list down or organize it by your priorities. Remember, we can customize the database in a series of elaborations over time. For example, adding the missing database elements and the reports would run about $500. We can then setup a timetable for the other elaborations. You can hire local developers to do some work for you as well. Again, this product is an open environment development tool for your business.