B2B Connection

If you’re a fan of Brooklyn 99 like I am, you know there’s only one thing that could make Amy Santiago late: a line at the bank! This popular cold open reflected a universal cultural stereotype: working with banks is inconvenient, time-intensive, and can derail even the most prepared customer’s day. With the advent of the digital world, and the demands for accessibility that come with it, it’s a stereotype that financial organizations cannot afford to reflect in reality. Banks are working to make their services more accessible and customer-friendly, and mobile or online banking have already (in my experience) yielded dividends on customer satisfaction. However, a primary obstacle for banks is the prevalence of data silos and duplicated processes between various lines of business within their institution. Breaking down data silos and integrating processes is a crucial step in bringing financial institutions into the modern customer-centric age. While there are many ways to do so, a key component to integration strategies is using an Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS). What can iPaaS do for the finance industry? In some ways, financial businesses are like any other: they have to create a product or service, market and sell it […]

Anyone who’s worked in education knows that it can be a workplace unlike any other. From the hierarchy to the content to the clientele (students), educational employees encounter unique challenges and opportunities daily. Education is also changing in ways that reflect technological trends across the economy. Academic spaces are increasingly digital, from student information management on campuses to actual digital classrooms and learning content. Just like the broader business world, educational organizations like universities, eLearning companies, and educational management organizations can benefit from integrating their growing software sprawl. Like other businesses, educational organizations don’t all have the IT support to integrate everything in house. Fortunately, Integration Platforms as a Service (iPaaS) can help educational organizations break down internal data silos and automate routine processes to help employees focus on the work that matters. If you think your education organization could benefit from better integration, but don’t know where to start, you’re in luck! Others in your industry have already adopted various iPaaS offerings for their organizations. We’ve compiled data of iPaaS users from educational organizations that have reviewed their products on TrustRadius, and we now have some key takeaways on the top iPaaS products for education. These insights can help […]

Today’s community contributor is Derek Schroeder. He has been working in IT and specifically in the MSP market for over 15 years. He has extensive experience in the small-to-medium business management market and has been consulting on technology and solutions for much of his career. He has worked as an entry level engineer to a service manager of clients and teams of engineers as well as project management. He has an expertise background in IT security and email / collaboration systems and has embraced many of the Barracuda products to achieve those milestones. He has written many business software reviews on TrustRadius. ______________________________________________________________________________ It seems like every website or domain host has an email hosting service to offer. There are a few flavors and types of hosts, and they are not created equal. While Microsoft’s Office 365 is the most recognizable (and fastest growing), Google’s G Suite is still a very popular option. Intermedia should not be counted out as another vendor offering email hosting for a relatively low cost option. Intermedia Intermedia is simply a hosted Microsoft Exchange system. Intermedia overlays its own interface and gives end users some options to customize. This is the same system that companies […]

From Facetime to Instagram Stories, people love communicating visually with one another, no matter how far apart they may be. Owing to this, the market for web conferencing has steadily grown over the years and is expected to reach $3.9 billion by 2020. Recently while travelling, I noticed large—and extremely engaging—advertisements for Zoom and GoToMeeting in particular. This really caught my eye, because while advertisements for food and beverage, and even entertainment like video games are nothing worthy of note, it pleasantly surprised me that web conferencing is becoming so important worldwide that web conferencing vendors are advertising in offline, public spaces. This means that more and more people are getting hyped about web conferencing software and are looking for the particular product that is right for their organization. And they rightly should. It makes meeting and collaborating with teammates from around the world easier than ever. And with work-life balance being more important in the workplace than ever, it let’s employees gain some flexibility in from where they work. We’ve created a Buyer’s Guide to Web Conferencing Solutions as a free tool to help you evaluate different products and compare 7 comprehensive products. Looking for more resources to use […]

Today’s Community Contributor is Michael McKeown, a project manager for Colantonio Inc., a General Contractor and Construction Manager located in Holliston Massachusetts, located about 25 miles west of Boston. Here, he is comparing Procore with Newform and Submittal Exchange. He has been with Colantonio since 2001 and has used all three programs during his career. Check out some of the great reviews Michael has written about other software he’s used here. Presently our primary Construction Management Software we use is Procore, using it on all our projects for the last four years. We have previously used Submittal Exchange as a program as well for numerous projects. We have used Newforma on a few projects, only when required by the Architect and the Client, and when we use Newforma, we use it in conjunction with Procore. I like Procore as a complete Construction Project Management Software for all aspects of a construction project. As a company, we use Procore for all our projects because it works excellently for our PMs, APMs, and Superintendents and we can easily add the Architect, Consultants, Owners, and more importantly Subcontractors. We use Procore to upload all the Plans, Specifications and Addenda for the project available […]

Today’s Community Contributor is Himanshu Periwal, Vice President of Growth for travel and bookings website ixigo.com. Himanshu has a Bachelor’s of Engineering along with an MBA, and has experience in product marketing and management consulting. He has contributed  ratings and reviews of various marketing products on TrustRadius.  First off, why call it Growth, and not Marketing? In a traditional sense, Marketing is how your business defines and positions your product in order to attract customers. It covers the 4Ps of business: Product, Price, Placement and Promotion. In contrast, Growth has an equal focus on these aspects of marketing along with product-tech led by experimentation. Thus, it empowers marketing to scale and optimize through product and technology capabilities. What is the AARRR ‘Pirate Metrics’ framework?  The AARRR, or Pirate metrics, framework was defined by entrepreneur Dave McClure. An acronym for Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, Referral, this methodology allows you to analyze and optimize every step of your customer funnel. This simple framework helps to streamline marketing and product efforts across each of these stages, ensuring your team doesn’t miss out on small yet important marketing requirements. This framework is typically used by marketing, product, engineering teams in the company to split […]

Today’s Community Contributor is John Chavez. He is a Human Resources manager and training specialist at iBASEt, where he manages the business’s LMS. He has over six years of eLearning content and LMS management experience. Check out his in depth reviews on various LMS and other business tools. Would you be surprised to learn that e-learning is now the fastest growing learning strategy for organizations? E-learning as a concept is a relatively new ideology that has grown by leaps and bounds both in the private and the public sector. It’s not surprising when you consider the value behind creating learning content online that an individual can take whenever and wherever they want. As e-learning continues to evolve the need to create better and more intuitive learning content is at an all time high, so how do organizations create better e-learning in a constantly changing world? Let’s read on. 1. UDL (Universal Design Learning)  Universal Design Learning is an architectural term that means creating a homesite or building that can be used by multiple people. For instance, a new business may have an architect create ramps, not only for deliveries, but also for people with physical limitations to have access to […]

Today’s Community Contributor is Daniel Epstein, a Senior Clinical Quality Analyst at UnitedHealth Group. Daniel has worked in the Healthcare industry for over a decade, and also has extensive experience as a producer and videographer. He has written multiple detailed reviews for collaboration, video editing, and document management products – including MS SharePoint. Starting off as a call center representative in 2007, Daniel worked his way up to site supervisor, learning what works (and doesn’t) for a nationwide network of agents. Experiencing a call center in both rolls, Daniel utilized the capabilities of Sharepoint to allow his teams to work more efficiently. In this article Daniel shares advice on how to use MS SharePoint to help maximize call center employee productivity. Call centers are a necessary evil in our modern world. With even small and medium sized companies doing more business nationally and internationally thanks to advances in technology, walking into a building and asking for assistance isn’t realistic anymore. Mix that with the increasing speed of modern life, and you get customers who expect an immediate solution to their problem when they call in for help. Accepting call centers as a reality, companies are constantly looking for ways to […]

I am old enough to remember the days of AIM group chat rooms and Yahoo! Messenger. I am, however, young enough to remember using Skype to do group video calls with my friends. We used external microphones the size of desk lamps and clunky webcams. Potato quality, indeed! Back then, that was a luxury (as was high-speed internet). These days, speedy wifi connections and video calls hosted over the internet are a regular, no-big-deal kind of occurrence we refer to as “web conferencing”. But what exactly is web conferencing and how does it differ from our video chats of yesteryear? More than just video conferencing Simply put, web conferencing software allows participants to host or attend meetings via the internet. It is also referred to as online meeting software. That’s kind of just what web conferences are–online meetings. Some folks will tell you that web conferencing is also synonymous with video conferencing. Those folks are wrong. While all web conferencing software supports video conferencing, not all video conferencing tools support web conferencing. The keyword here is “web”. Video conferencing as a term simply refers to a live, audio-video call or meeting between at least two participants. Typically, if we’re just […]

Today’s Community Contributor is Nate Casimiro. He is the Marketing Operations Manager at Simpleview. Nate purchases, implements and integrates various marketing technology tools that ultimately result in lead generation. He has written several in-depth reviews of marketing and travel software. Travel and tourism is big business in the United States. According to the U.S. Travel Association, direct spending by resident and international travelers averaged $3 billion a day in 2018. Yet despite this, the tourism industry is far from reaching its potential economic impact. The reason: U.S. families are not taking vacations as often as the previous generations that raised them. In fact, 55% of Americans did not use all of their vacation time allotted in 2018, and of those that did, nearly half used that time for errands or time out of work due to illness.  The Forces Behind Tourism Thankfully, nearly every major city in the United States (as well as countless smaller destinations) possess a tourism board that helps market “things to do.” If you’ve ever stopped by a visitors bureau or picked up a visitors guide pamphlet, then you’ve already interacted with one. In an effort to get you and your loved ones outside and exploring […]

Today’s Community Contributor is Steffany Winkelmann, a Client Success Manager at Jackrabbit Online Class Management Software. She has written several reviews for ecommerce, business intelligence, and email marketing products. Millennials are often pegged as rapid job-changers. While there is plenty of truth to that generalization, it has afforded me a unique perspective. Having had multiple opportunities to start anew has forced me to prove that my prior job-hopping can, in fact, add value to an organization more than harm it. To do that, I’ve had to learn to navigate new systems and processes quickly, make valuable connections early, and make a lasting impact fast. (On that note, I’m by no means advocating for job-hopping or ignoring its apparent downsides, but rather highlighting a unique perspective afforded to me through it). Learn what your role actually is To make an impact fast, you first need to understand your role. No, not the role you were hired for, but the role you’re actually filling. Remember: you were hired to help the organization reach a certain goal. Throughout the interview process, you should have uncovered what that goal is and market yourself as being the right person to help the company reach these […]

Today’s Community Contributor is Eric Hodge, Software Engineering Manager at Waters Corporation. He is a Certified Scrum Master and has written several detailed reviews on TrustRadius of the tools he uses at work. Here, he takes a look back at his most recent experiencing working with an outsourced Agile team and shares some advice on how he made their partnership a success. Choosing the Right Outsourcing Partner and Knowing When to Re-Evaluate At the start of our software development project, I selected a team whose statement of work said all the right things about Agile, while having a good mix of technical skills. At our first sprint planning meeting, however, it became apparent that the team, while technically competent, had no formal Agile experience. Sprint planning quickly turned into a crash course in Agile 101, and we were off to a rough start. After a couple of weeks of playing the roles of Agile Coach, Product Owner, and Scrum Master, I realized the project could not continue like this. I had previously raised my concerns about the lack of Agile experience to my colleague managing the business relationship, so I was well supported when I decided to cut ties and move on to […]

Today’s Community Contributor is Eddie Driver, a Product Marketing Manager at PaySimple. Eddie is a seasoned product marketing manager that has worked at SaaS-based companies on a wide range of technology products. These include payment gateway software, survey software, and corporate performance management applications. Check out some of the detailed reviews Eddie has written on tools he has used during his career on TrustRadius. Any Product Marketing or Product Management team should always strive to know as much as they can about their users. Not only why they use your product, but how they use your product. Where do they spend most of their time? How can you use that data to promote relevant features and functionality? Pendo.io is a product analytics and messaging software that allows you to do all of that (and more).  Purchasing Pendo.io is a great step towards being able to learn more about your users and use in-product messaging to drive product adoption. However, Pendo is valuable enough that as soon as people hear it’s being implemented, the requests to get a piece of the action will start piling up quickly. Knowing this, there are a few best practices that will help your organization get […]

Marketing automation software can be called many things…a necessary evil, a means to an end, the thing that keeps you up at night because it accidentally unsubscribed your entire audience. Yet it’s still one of the few pieces of software that modern marketing teams truly can’t live without. It enables marketing teams to save an exponential amount of time by automating routine tasks and triggered workflows in addition to allowing them to track and evaluate the performance of marketing campaigns. All kidding aside, marketing automation platforms can be difficult to figure out how to use at first, and often require a substantial amount of initial setup and configuration. Making sure that you’ve found the tool that matches your current business needs best can make this process easier, and help set you up for future success.  However, the sheer number of tools available on the market (131 are listed on TrustRadius alone!) can make this process seem incredibly daunting. Which products should you look at first? And how should you narrow down the huge field of products available?  This flowchart aims to help you answer these first few key questions about where to start your product search. The flowchart will walk […]

Today’s Community Contributor is Daniel Berry, an SEO Strategist with more than 14 years of professional writing experience. Daniel regularly tries to think outside the box when it comes to SEO, copywriting, social media, lead generation, marketing automation and other areas of digital marketing. He has held a variety of marketing roles for major corporations and small marketing agencies over the past few years, and loves passing on what he learns to others. He has written several detailed reviews on TrustRadius of the tools he uses at work.  There are several things in life where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Take peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, for example. Peanuts are okay, but kind of boring by themselves. Fruit is similar. But if you process both of these elements and layer them between slices of bread? It’s pure heaven. Infographics are the same way. While the parts that make up an infographic are nothing new—copy, images, creativity—treating and combining them the right way can create an engaging form of content that people won’t soon forget. According to a survey by Venngage, 40% of marketers say that original graphics like infographics are their best-performing, highest-engaging content format. Wouldn’t you […]

It can be difficult to feel like you’re getting a straight answer from salespeople. The image of a sleazy car salesman has been haunting salespeople for decades now, and it makes it difficult for buyers to feel like they’re getting the whole truth from vendors. Still, vendors are the experts on their own products, and they have valuable insights if you know how to get to them. Towards that end, we’ve already created a list of questions buyers can use to grill any software sales rep as part of our Evaluation Readiness Guide. Now we’re providing a list of questions tailored for the Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) buyer. The question list is organized to help get insight into either the product itself or the vendor and their positioning within the marketplace. But before you talk to the vendor, be sure to do your homework! What to Know Before the Call Before you talk to the vendor, you want to know as much as possible about iPaaS in general, and specifically about what features and capabilities you need in an iPaaS. It’s also important to know what you don’t need in your iPaaS so you don’t end up paying […]

Today’s Community Contributor is Sandy Sinclair, Payroll Coordinator at The Daniel and Henry Co.  Sandy has been working in the HR and Payroll fields for 20 years. She earned her CPP designation from the American Payroll Association in 2009. Here, Sandy shares her experience working with 4 leading HRIS tools and elaborates on the pros and cons of each. This blog post is great for anyone who is evaluating their current HRIS solution and on the market for a new tool to better suit their needs. Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) are invaluable tools for HR and payroll.  They are basically the heart and soul of everything needed to perform human resources and payroll functions.  These systems are the tools many employers use for the following: Employee personal data including contact information, dependents and emergency contacts Benefits data Pay rates and deductions Tax setup Time off accruals and balances Performance reviews Which HRIS system should you be using?  Having the right system for your company makes all the difference in the world because we use our systems for countless tasks!  Some things we utilize our HRIS system for: House all of our employee data Track employee benefits Process payroll Payroll tax […]

Today’s Community Contributor is Kenneth Hess, Community Manager Enable SysAdmin at Red Hat.  Kenneth’s technical expertise is in web hosting, virtualization, and open source operating systems and technologies. He has several years of experience in technology blogging and journalism. He has written several detailed reviews on TrustRadius of the tools he uses at work. Here, Kenneth shares his insight on the Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) trend, which was initially tough on employees and on corporations who kept trying to get it right. Now, employees and businesses enjoy BYOD environments that work for both parties. The bring your own device (BYOD) trend is not new in technology terms. The practice began just after smartphones hit the market in the 2009/2010 timeframe and employees insisted that they use their personally owned devices rather than corporate ones.  BYOD advantages and disadvantages The arguments for BYOD are that employees can be more efficient by using familiar technology and can be happier using technology that they have chosen for themselves. Employees already carry their mobile phones with them and almost no one wants to carry a second device. Business owners counter arguments include security concerns with personal devices, lack of control over technology choices, mixing of personal […]

Today’s Community Contributor is Peter Iles, Director of Instructional Technology at Wisconsin Lutheran High School in Milwaukee, WI. He has been involved in implementing and utilizing technology in the classroom for 8 years. Schools across America are all speeding towards 1:1. In less than 10 years Chromebooks have gone from non-existent, to the majority device in schools in the country. I know this because I was the first teacher to implement them in a small school in Oshkosh, WI in 2011. Since then, I’ve worked with Google and other companies to make devices like Chromebooks more powerful tools and not just glorified notebooks. Currently, I teach and serve as the Director of Instructional Technology at Wisconsin Lutheran High School in Milwaukee, WI. In my experience, the services and tools a school provides on Chromebooks are just as important as the devices themselves. My requirements for a great teaching tool are that it has to do one of two things. 1. It has to make student learning more effective.  2. It has to make teaching more effective or efficient.  When it does both, you have a slam dunk! Here are my favorite services for teaching in the Chromebook classroom. Peergrade Peergrade […]

Need help writing a marketing automation software requirements document? We’re here to help! This free marketing automation platform scorecard template can help you compare products so you can make the right decision for your marketing team. Check out this list of 26 key marketing automation requirements, brought to you by buyers who have been through the process before. It will show you the most important areas to consider, and help you determine your minimum requirements. Common Marketing Automation Requirements for Businesses Feature Set Landing pages Emails Automation Lead Scoring Dynamic Web Content SEO/PPC Integration Social Integration Segmentation/Lists Nurture Campaigns Ease of Use Landing Page (LP) Editor Email Editor Set-up and config Single-source log-in Access to Templates Support Global Paid vs. Free / Quality Agency Support Implementation Training Paid vs. Free Breadth Depth Price Price  Terms Adoption Number of Companies using this product User Experience Quality of Account Management Marketing Automation Platform Scorecard Template We also have a free template for evaluating vendors based on your selection criteria. It was compiled by Daniel Englebreston, an experienced marketing technologist. He’s an expert contributor to the TrustRadius community. Thanks, Daniel! Use the scorecard to compare the products on your shortlist head-to-head. That way […]