In the spirit of giving (and with your tight budgets in mind!), this holiday season fusionSpan would like to help a small-staff association by giving away 8 hours of free netFORUM Pro consulting. fusionSpan is proud to be a Certified Implementation Partner with Avectra, an Abila Company and provides implementation assistance, training, consulting, and has develop customized software solutions for multiple... read more
There has been lots of buzz lately in ASAE’s Collaborate community regarding Salesforce based AMS/CRMs for associations. Since we’ve got our fingers on the pulse of new trends in the association world, we thought we’d share our thoughts and let you hear from an expert in this arena. (more…)
Salesforce, by its very name, sounds like a product that only for-profit companies can leverage. Yet, as Kristen Singleton – Director of Tools and Technologies at Education Resource Strategies (ERS) – explains, Salesforce can play a significant role in the information management at non-profit organizations as well. On this podcast we discuss how ERS is leveraging Salesforce, challenges they faced in transitioning to using... read more
“OMG – what is that smell?” Nothing seems to bring a company to its knees like a terrible smell in the office refrigerator. Within minutes the company wide chat/email gets flooded with demands for people to take personal responsibility, denial of any wrongdoing, and a full-on investigation that makes the Spanish Inquisition seem tame. Threats of everything be... read more
“Did I lose my special treat?” A frequent question from my son. We’ve created a system in our home where if he behaves, he gets a “special treat” after dinner – usually in the form of 22 minutes of TV. While there are some issues with the system (what’s the leverage for behaving once he’s lost this special... read more
PowerBI is a powerful tool that is able to handle both data transformation and data visualization. In recent years, the developers behind PowerBI have introduced PowerBI online: a new cloud solution where offline PowerBI Desktop users can upload their dashboards and share it with other licensed users. While the new solution is quite useful, PowerBI does contain certain... read more
Data conversion, or data migration, is the task of bringing over relevant data from your legacy system to your new CRM. This is one of the most crucial steps for a successful AMS implementation. Bad data will result in a failed project, no matter how good the features are within your new platform. As you continue your AMS... read more
Your organization has been hard at work throughout the implementation and data conversion phases of the project. The team has made great progress, but all the activity has been predominantly conducted by the core project team working on perfecting individual modules of the overall project. The testing that has occurred so far is unit/module level testing. It’s time... read more
The end of Your AMS Journey is in sight – you have undergone testing and training, and are now ready to prep for launch. In fact, preparing for go live is something the team has to keep in mind throughout the entire project. Here are some important items to consider: Constituent Communication We recommend that the association begin... read more
Your organization has put countless hours of work and research into your new AMS, and now it is time to introduce it to members and stakeholders. Go live day usually begins calm, but soon gets hectic and turns into a stressful few weeks. We warn our clients that AMS go lives are something that an association goes through... read more
You are live, have gone through the go live challenges, and have worked on the other phases whereby the implementation project can be closed. What now? Here are a few items to consider: Expand Training Spend time developing training materials, and put a system in place for keeping the training materials up to date as business processes change.... read more
This blog was originally published on September 18, 2013. Are you ready for a new Association Management System (AMS)? If you just answered ‘YES’ or ‘MAYBE’ then read on… Finding the right AMS for your organization can be like Prince Charming finding Cinderella. Sure, you have a glass slipper – you know what you want. Now, how do... read more
