All SmartSimple Cloud for Grants Management Reviews

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User Profile

Mel

Verified reviewer

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed November 2017

They've been great at applying their technical expertise to making our business more efficient.

SmartSimple has drastically reduced the time it takes to complete tasks. Being able to complete what once were sequential tasks concurrently with the press of a button has made us more efficient and also reduced human error. We are constantly looking at ways to incorporate the tool into our daily activities and we look for ways to improve our processes.

PROS

The ability for a non-IT user to make configuration changes. There is always a good transition when there are new upgrades and I have yet to have an issue when the system is upgraded. I like the simplicity of the portals and the user interface.

CONS

Not having a back button/previous page button within the system, which can sometimes extend the time it takes to make configuration changes. Not having the option to apply changes in the backup system to production while in backup.

User Profile

June

Verified reviewer

Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

3

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed March 2019

SmartSimple - innovative technology making top grades for its grant making software GMS360

SmartSimple GMS360 has enabled our foundation to move from paper process to a cloud-based digital solution. SmartSimple developers worked with us closely to customize an excellent system which allowed us to manage our grant making processes and workflows more easily. Contracting is now a breeze and highly secure, automated configurations eliminate manual staff tasks saving time, and our external users find using SmartSimple pretty intuitive. We are excited to add on other components which will help our program team organize their work in the field, track collaborative interactions, and house a library of documents and materials for sharing. Most importantly, the SmartSimple team promotes strong relationships with their clients. They are dedicated to continue to improve and expand their software based on client feedback and needs, and to provide excellent support coverage.

PROS

I especially like the newly designed user interface upgraded in the past year. It's clean, simple, professional, more intuitive and aligns well with our website branding.

CONS

As someone who moved into a system administrator role with no previous experience in a cloud-based system, it took awhile to learn system configurations. GMS360 is a very robust system with a lot of features. If you're not tech savvy, the learning curve can be steep and challenging.

John

Political Organization, 51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

2

EASE OF USE

1

VALUE FOR MONEY

1

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

1

FUNCTIONALITY

1

Reviewed July 2022

Just don't

It was okay but required full time staff to manage the product. Bluntly there are better cheaper products out there then this dumpster fire - use them (eg Wizehive)

PROS

Very little - it did work but dealing with the admin on this product is not worth the hassle.

CONS

It was expensive for what it did. The support dept I spoke to were useless and at times bent the truth.

Reason for choosing SmartSimple Cloud for Grants Management

I inherited SmartSimple so it was not my choice.

David

Non-Profit Organization Management, 51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed June 2017

Highly flexible platform to model business processes, workflows, and notifications.

Automation of transactions through integration; increased management visibility into critical business processes, greater productivity through process standardization and centralized data access.

PROS

Great for business process management, data collection and retrieval, report generation, configuration options, security controls, and ongoing platform improvements. I appreciate that a non-programmer business analyst can configure and adapt the system to meet most all internal business process models and needs.

CONS

Would like to see additional features to support forms import capabilities and standard excel like budget management capabilities.

Vendor Response

Hi David, I just wanted to take a few moments to thank you for submitting a thoughtful review. It's always valuable to receive feedback and hear from our client base. Most of our enhancements are as a direct result of feedback from users like you. Let's connect to further discuss your ideas on the additional features you mentioned. Regards, Eric Lauer, Director of Customer Experience

Replied August 2017

Anonymous

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

3

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed June 2018

SS continues to get better and better!

PROS

The biggest appeal for GMS360 when we signed on was that it offered so much potential for the development of an excellent multi-faceted system to serve our foundation's overall needs moving forward. I was also taken by the ethical and moral values of the founders to fulfill their goals in providing high quality, cutting edge technology solutions to help their client's achieve their purpose and goals. This relationship trust was major in our decision on choosing a company we knew we would have a longtime relationship with.

CONS

I did not like how much the system had to evolve over the last 3 years in order to provide the functionalities that we needed. I still think better solutions are needed to create end user reports for presentation. The vast improvements in the past year in design, navigation, and configuration tools have made me feel better about all this!

Greg

Philanthropy, 51-200 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed July 2019

SmartSimple is our new GMS!

PROS

SmartSimple is fully customizable and scalable to our grantmaking needs. As an organization that processes almost 2,000 grants a year, we needed a robust grants management system. So far, we are very pleased.

CONS

There were some challenges with the inital porting of our legacy grants prior to launch (information not being captured) but now that my organization is fully dedicated to SmartSimple, our data is secure.

Reasons for switching to SmartSimple Cloud for Grants Management

Our previous grants management system had become outdated.

Price

Verified reviewer

Philanthropy, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

3

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

3

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed March 2019

Versatile Software for Managing Many Processes

PROS

SmartSimple can be configured in so many different ways to manage any process. I like that we can use the same platform to manage our grants and contracts. The workflows are a great feature for moving items through our process. Once you are comfortable configuring in SmartSimple it is easy to adapt forms to many uses. The SmartSimple team is great to work with and they really care about their clients.

CONS

Creating workflows is complex. They are such a powerful tool but it is challenging to build them without support. Since the platform is so configurable there are often many solutions to a problem and depending on who you are working with you may get a different solution which may not be the most efficient approach. Configuration can be intimidating since there are so many features available. It is important to have a system administrator who is comfortable with basic coding.

Mark

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

3

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed June 2017

Hard to build user interface that meets all our workflow/reporting needs w/o becoming system expert.

PROS

Its flexibility and its complexity which means it can accommodate most of our workflow needs and querying needs

CONS

Its slow response time and the shear number of clicks needed to accomplish simple system tasks; the "behind the scenes" functionalities for building the workflows, the screens, the reports - in short the setup portion of the software is complex and difficult to learn

Vendor Response

Hi Mark, thank you for taking the time to write a review. As we believe deeply in a client-centric approach, receiving feedback directly from our user community is the best way to improve our platform. A key focus in our current development roadmap is to enhance our administrative screens and increase efficiency for users performing system administration and configuration tasks. This began in our May 2017 upgrade and will continue on an ongoing basis. I'd be more than happy to connect and walk you through these enhancements. Also, please attend our upcoming August 2017 upgrade webinar where I'll overview our latest platform functionality and enhancements. Regards, Eric Lauer, Director of Customer Experience

Replied August 2017

Celeste

Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed November 2017

The use of SmartSimple's GMS 360 has revolutionized our grants management processes in many ways.

Having a grants management software that is easy to configure and continually improving has enabled us to elevate our processes and streamline our contact information management and reporting protocols, which makes it easier for our grantees to ultimately get back to their work with an easy reporting experience.

PROS

We particularly like the various user portal options, configurable options for every single application and object, and the premium support option as well as easy ongoing improvements.

CONS

We dislike the workload that testing causes for our staff, but we understand that this is necessary with all software because a positive user experience is very important to us.

Mustapha

Government Administration, 51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed April 2018

The block party was overall great, especially for the client demo.

PROS

Upgrading existing features on the system and introducing new ones through the regular upgrades. The system is flexible in term of the configuration. Most of the time there is more than one way to configure something on the system.

CONS

Sometimes, some enhancements take a lot of time which might not be convenient in some cases. Also, transitioning to new features for an old system might be a bit challenging, maybe if Smartsimple could come up with a way to help its clients to make that transition a lot easier and smother, that would be very helpful.

Catherine

Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed March 2019

Grants application system

This has provided major time savings for us. From hours sending out notices after a grant round down to minutes. It also provides a permanent record of applications and reports. Finally, the SmartSimple is able to keep us up to date with data formats and requirements for data security.

PROS

Ease of use and user friendly. Other than some access issues (primarily because of firewalls and security at outside institutions trying to apply) my users have been overwhelmingly positive about the ease of use of the platform. It has also been very helpful and efficient for internal use and saved us considerable time in the office.

CONS

My concerns deal more with the initial construction of the system and the fact that we are a thin organization with few staff - thus we don't have the insights into the workings of the system that a larger firm might have with multiple users working with it from multiple different vantage points. Initially, we struggled to learn it all and all of the various uses of the system.

Nestor

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

3

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

3

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed April 2018

My experience has been satisfactory overall. Flexible system.

PROS

The ability to customize and shape to our needs is great. Flexibility of its use. It has definitely helped streamline processes that would slow our operations greatly in the past

CONS

Due to its flexibility it can create lag based on the extreme customization done. Having most of my experience in classic mode, it appeared not as intuitive as expected. Reporting tools could be improved.

Kim

Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed April 2018

Easy to learn; however there are a lot of items and features to learn. Sometimes overwhelming.

Grantees receives their payments faster. We receive our reports and contracts quicker. Less manual work. Automated checks and balances.

PROS

I love the flexibility and expansion capabilities of the software. Love all the workflows and automation to help reduce manual work.

CONS

If there was an update to make pulling variables into templates , workflows, etc. instead of writing a syntax. I can never find the right syntax.

User Profile

Ramkumar

Verified reviewer

Non-Profit Organization Management, 51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed May 2019

Right product for Grants Management

PROS

The application can be customized to any business process where you would like to track an entity. This flexibility to seamlessly customize the application without depending on the vendor is a big win for non-profit companies.

CONS

There is really nothing I can say as a drawback of this application as they continuously are evolving with technology.

Ramkumar

Verified reviewer

51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed November 2017

We are glad to have right product for our Grant Management.

PROS

The ability to configure most or all of the features with very minimal code knowledge. The ability to deployment changes under tight timelines due to the ease of the configuration option is great.

CONS

There is really nothing that we like with this product. The user experience has been one of our focus and glad to see that the SmartSimple developers are now addressing it.

Ann

Philanthropy, 51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed March 2019

Smart Simple Review HU

Tracking outgoing grants, grant applications, grantee reporting, compliance, organizations and contacts.

PROS

Its configurable and no customizations are necessary. There are lots of choices and the customer support is the best in the business.

CONS

Its totally configurable - a pro and a con - so you need to know what you want. But, SmartSimple is very supportive.

Anonymous

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed November 2017

Positive relationship with an agile, dynamic vendor

Well, I just ate.

PROS

Very configurable to meet our ever growing, dynamic environment that calls for quick, responsive solutioning.

CONS

Challenges with the software are found with determine the nuances to utilize all functionality of the system. SmartSimple has so many areas of opportunity, but the creation of fundamental understanding takes time.

Jen

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed April 2018

We have had a really great experience with SmartSimple and have been a client for the past two years

PROS

The ability to customize the program is one of the greatest assets of the program. It adapts to your business processes in a way that doesn't require you to change existing practices and procedures.

CONS

Not applicable. We have really enjoyed using the product and will continue to build more programs into the system!

Angelina

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

3

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed November 2017

SmartSimple makes our day to day processes more streamlined and efficient.

Makes daily operations more efficient.

PROS

I like how configurable it is, and that whenever we identify a problem or a need we are able to implement the solution in SmartSimple.

CONS

Sometimes it is too customizable and nuanced. There is often room for error. It can also be difficult to find what I am looking for within the system.

Kayla

Philanthropy, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed March 2019

Montana Healthcare Foundation Review

Overall it has been a great experience and the support has been very helpful

PROS

I like how flexible the system is and the ability to configure the system to meet our process.

CONS

Some of the features are hard to find and it would be helpful to search for key words.

Anonymous

11-50 employees

Used weekly for less than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed November 2017

SmartSimple allows my clients to efficiently manage their grants in a way they could not before

PROS

The flexibility of the system and the simple user-interface. Another pro would be that it's highly configurable for our clients to meet their needs.

CONS

It could be a little "prettier". The organization of the settings could be a little more manageable.

Susan

Philanthropy, 51-200 employees

Used free trial

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed November 2017

We're in the implementation phase, but very excited to work with a new platform soon.

Easy to follow instructions.

PROS

From what i heard running reports and tracking dollars better. Currently, we use several programs to track our spending.

CONS

Can't say, but I learned yesterday if you build a report and want to delete one of the columns from the various data sets,you have to move to the end in order to delete.

Dorothy

Used less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

3

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

3

Reviewed November 2017

We are in the implementation stage so I'm looking forward to the change of the grant database.

PROS

I like the software being integrative, functional, and efficient. It's good that you don't have to change different applications to use the system. I also like the split screen functionality.

CONS

Exporting data out of the system doesn't have all information intact. Also, a lot of options for design is hard to decide how to simplify the design.

Anonymous

51-200 employees

Used less than 6 months

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

4

EASE OF USE

4

VALUE FOR MONEY

4

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed November 2017

Although, a new user that experience has been good so far.

PROS

Efficiency gains are at the top of my list of pros. I also like the look of the white paper design....

CONS

The report functionality needs some work. I wish they also had a out of the box software. The wiki could also be worked on.

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