It's the Perfect Tool for our large, 7-Board Health System

Our individual health system began using BoardEffect in 2012. Then, last year, we became part of a large, 7-board private, non-profit health system. The decision was made to utilize one board portal across the System, which meant 5 boards had to migrate to BoardEffect. The transition has been amazingly smooth. Training of the new workrooms and top level administrators has been excellent; customer service has been very responsive. The new (and existing) users are pleased with the product! The organization of our boards is perfect and we are able to make sure only the "right" board members have access to the "right" board materials. I am not surprised by these results - the BoardEffect staff has been serving us and attentive to our needs for years!

Pros

I love the user-friendly design and the appearance and ease of use for the end-user. Finding documents is easy; iPad app is great; building meeting books is easy; customer support is very good.

Cons

There's not a lot of flexibility in what the agenda looks like after being built (but there's not a lot with other board portals, either). I would like to be able to better tailor the appearance of my agenda to my Boards' liking.

In our third year, with over 30 Member Colleges using the platform and it has been just great.

Secure, online Board management and communication services designed for non-profits to be successful.

Pros

Intuitive interface, very user-friendly, quick uptime for new users, a reasonable expense for a non-profit, ultra-secure data transmission and storage, and great people supporting the entire platform. Our non-profit member organization has endorsed this product (and this company) for over 3 years. We've grown from just 4 member customers of BoardEffect to well over 30 member customers - n just 3 years. I serve as a top-level administrator for a shared platform version pf BoardEffect and I find that this platform is so user-friendly to non-techies.

Cons

Every so often I would love to copy/print text from the screen but it is not always accessible as in the old days. This is probably the price for having a highly secure and intuitive interface.

Solid software for boards with room for improvement

Pros

It does what it does very well. It is easy to get board materials loaded, the user experience for trustees is excellent, it is easy to use and the customer support is outstanding. There is every feature you really need to manage a board, but there are improvements that could be made to make it even easier, but it would require partnership with other software companies and a robust API. See below for more.

Cons

The one thing that nags me about this software is entirely not the fault of BoardEffect, but the lack of vision between this software and complimentary software platforms. Take us for example, we are a national private foundation. Our main business software is a grants management platform called Fluxx. All of the proposal for trustee review happen within this portal and it takes a lot of work to get these ,materials exported and prepared for upload into BoardEffect. Having a robust API and partnerships with software companies like Fluxx could allow a seamless flow of information between systems, which would negate the need for wasting time on export and preparation of documentation for BoardEffect.

Build a tool to make your board member successful

I love BoardEffect. It is the one place we can all trust to have the latest documents and tools to help guide our board governance. It has made our board feel successful individually and successful as a whole.

Pros

This software is our central point for documents for all 9 of our boards. This is easy to use and is very intuitive on where to find documents and items for upcoming board meetings along with surveys, and required annual documents like Conflict of Interest forms. We have a wide age range of board members - from the young to the very old that are not tech savvy, but this seems to be overwhelming a tool that all of them.

Cons

There are always new products/pieces/upgrades coming out. Knowing how to incorporate those takes me a bit of time.

I am our organization's site administrator.

Pros

That the site provides one place for staff to post documents and information for our users to access.

Cons

That it takes a lot of clicks to access parts of the website. It would nice if that could be eliminated. Many of our users have a hard time finding things and it is mainly because they have to click quite a few links to find something and they get lost.

Such a great tool

A joy to use...wish I had been able to use this in my last few EA positions. I learned about it when I moved to my current association.

Pros

Supper responsive support team at BoardEffect, fairly intuitive to use, makes the workflow for assembling Board materials so much easier and saves a lot of time. There are a steady stream of webinars to keep users up to date on the platform, and the BoardEffect team is always happy to get suggestions for improvements. For any company concerned with security of its Board materials, this is a must-have product.

Cons

I would like to download the agenda pdf with no formatting, so that I can create an annotated agenda for the chair - have not found a way to do that but I am hoping BE will come up with a solution!

BoardEffect is awesome!

Very positive and all issues are resolved very quickly with a phone call.

Pros

Very easy to use, I'm learning alot of new information at this conference.

Cons

Only issue board members have pains about is the app on an iPad, there is no log out option.

You need BoardEffect's Platform!

It's a brilliant platform! And the support team is absolutely incredible! I've never experienced such wonderful people, who are patient, informative and friendly.

Pros

It's EXTREMELY user-friendly, offers a VAST number of functionalities, app now mimics browser including offline use. It's customizable depending on the org's needs. It's secure. It flows. The platform is what one makes of it.

Cons

I can't say I dislike anything about this platform. It's designed based on clients' needs. Everything works the way it should and in the 2 years I've used it, I haven't had one bad thing to say.

BoardEffect is a great board tool!

BoardEffect staff have been wonderful to work with from initial contract, to system set-up and to ongoing support. When I have questions, BoardEffect staff start with a yes in mind.

Pros

BoardEffect does two things very well. First, it is easy for our board members to use and super easy for admins to administer. Second, BoardEffect continues to push the envelope in a great way to move board governance forward.

Cons

I struggle to come up with this, but at the moment it is still difficult for some of my board members to log on, but enhancements are coming this year to allow for touch id log on. Can't wait!

BoardEffect makes you and your team shine!

BoardEffect saves time! I've regained free time (after work hours) during "board prep" times. My organization(s), both The San Francisco Foundation and the California Health Care Foundation save resources, such as copy paper and three-ring binders - now that we've gone paperless.

Pros

ease of use. from day one (back in 2011), "out of the box," I understood BoardEffects features, and after review of BE's knowledge base, I was soon able to train other users - and even train the trainers. the features are evaluated and enhanced regularly, and BE listens to its customer base to make the product even better.

Cons

I have no strong negative impressions to report.