AMS vendors often point out that, when considering the selection of a new AMS, the association needs to look at the big picture and consider things from a strategic level. This is true. But very often, it’s the little things, the nickels and dimes, that most directly affect user adoption. And it’s the nickels and dimes that most often irritate my clients.
For example, how easy or difficult is it to add fields and change screen layout? Even though this is relatively simple and doesn’t come up very often, this an example of a “nickel and dime” that makes users crazy when they are UNABLE do it.
Another common example is querying and report writing. The most common complaint I get from ALL of my clients is something along the lines of “I can’t get the data I want out of my database, even though it’s IN the database!” Very often the tools provided by the AMS providers will allow certain data to be pulled, but not all data. When the client wants that, they have to go back to the vendor for help. More nickels and dimes.
So while understanding the strategic goals of the association is important when selecting an AMS, it’s just as important to provide a tool that will allow staff to do their jobs with as little frustration as possible.
Hey Wes – totally agree with you and users about making their job easier to do rather than finding a fancy way to solve a technology problem but making the actual workflow more difficult in the end.
I’m interested in your thoughts on reporting – one of the hardest things to do is to anticipate how users may want to visualize data in things like reports – so it’s difficult to create a one-size-fits-all set of reports. In your experience, is the preference to “just give me everything” and I’ll use some tool (Excel, Crystal, PowerPivot, etc) to come up with the report that I want? It’s definitely an easier approach if you have the technical experience…
Jef
Hi Jeff,
Re: reporting, you’re right, it’s nigh impossible to create all reports for all clients. What’s most important is that the product has a tool that allows the end-user (at the desktop) create, at the least, queries that can be exported into Excel. Short of that, yes, giving them everything is better than restricting access.