Apptivo offers web-based and mobile applications for sales, marketing, product, and service teams. Although it’s mainly known as a CRM solution, Apptivo also offers ERP capabilities like contract management and supplier management. For businesses that need a widespread suite of sales and operations applications, Apptivo has plenty of solutions that integrate with each other.
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What Is Apptivo?
Apptivo is a suite of business applications, including CRM software and other related tools, for managing processes related to sales, projects, contracts, and supply chains. Apptivo offers sales tracking, sales planning, and lead capturing features for sales teams, but that only scratches the surface of the entire suite’s capabilities. Businesses are able to choose how many Apptivo apps they want to use based on their size and needs.
Apptivo apps are categorized in nine groups:
- CRM
- Project management
- Financials
- Marketing
- Supply chain
- Human resources
- Product management
- Technology
- Web presence
Who Uses Apptivo?
Generally speaking, sales and marketing teams use CRM tools like Apptivo. But Apptivo is particularly beneficial for the following businesses and teams:
Businesses that use Google Workspace
Because Apptivo integrates with Google’s business applications, users can sync contacts between the tools, integrate their Gmail accounts with Apptivo’s CRM, and create Google Forms for lead capture on the website. Apptivo is a particularly strong software option for businesses that rely on Google Workspace solutions.
Globally widespread or traveling sales teams
Apptivo offers tools like territory management for sales teams that operate in different regions. Territory management allows teams to design their own territories based on customer location and to view representative performance by geographic area. Another top feature for sales teams, its mobile application allows representatives access to many Apptivo apps they can use while they travel.
Agile teams
Sales and marketing departments that want to implement agile methodologies, including features like Kanban boards, can do so with Apptivo. Though it’s not a full project management tool, it does have features that allow users to create tasks and task dependencies.
Small and medium-sized businesses
Apptivo customer reviews overwhelmingly applaud Apptivo’s customer support team and other support features. Their live chat feature and high-quality customer service particularly help smaller businesses that need consistent help with the platform, whether it’s assistance when they run into technical issues or more general support because they don’t have very CRM-savvy team members on staff.
Apptivo is also modular, which allows smaller businesses to add new apps to their toolkit as they grow and need more features; they don’t have to pay for the entire suite right away if they don’t want or need it.
This isn’t to say that large enterprises won’t still use Apptivo’s many apps and capabilities, but small businesses will particularly benefit from the responsive support team and larger number of features for a lower price tag.
Key Features of Apptivo
The following features are highlights of Apptivo’s offerings:
Security features
Administrators can restrict user actions within sections of Apptivo. For example, every field on a single record of business data can be managed by an admin, allowing them to control which privilege level(s) can view fields, edit them, or submit a value for a field during its creation. Admins can also determine which user types are able to search for certain fields within Apptivo, so if a field leads to more sensitive data, its search capabilities are restricted.
Administrators can use Apptivo’s Employees app to configure role-based access controls for new employees. Each Apptivo app category, or segmented group of customers, has a selection of roles that have differing permissions. These include view-only permissions or Super User permissions, which provide access to all modules.
Each employee is assigned a role that specifies what they can do for each app category. However, role-based access control is only available for businesses on the Premium and Enterprise plans.
Image credit: Apptivo
Administrator audit views
Apptivo’s newsfeed view allows admins to see all recent changes within the Apptivo system and view the user that made each change. System logs allow certain admins to view all logins and account actions performed.
Application customization
Developers can add and remove fields within an Apptivo app and design custom views for it. On the creation page of an Apptivo app, users are able to add new sections and set items, such as drop-down menus with customer names, in those sections. This allows businesses to tailor the app specifically for their team’s needs.
Opportunity management
The Opportunities app allows teams to collect opportunities from emails, create reports to see win/loss rates, and automate segments of their sales. They’re also able to view sales team performance, such as win and loss rates, through dashboards and see the percentage of conversion process related to each app.
Contract management features
Apptivo allows administrators to create viewing and management privileges that control what level of access users have to contracts. Contract layouts can be customized down to their columns and rows. Additionally, admins can create approval workflows, determining the criteria for a contract approval. All contracts can be generated as a PDF so businesses have access to additional documentation.
Project management features
Apptivo Projects provides Gantt chart views of in-progress projects, so teams can see the overall trajectory of the project. Users have the ability to create tasks and then add dependencies to tasks.
Image credit: Apptivo
Users are able to create work logs, tracking how much of their time was spent on a particular project. They can also track billable hours for the servicing of customer tasks.
Apptivo also gives the ability to create sub-projects within a project. If you’d like to break your projects down into smaller categories, this feature allows you to create more detail in your project documentation. It’s particularly useful if your project will span months and multiple modules.
Pros and Cons of Apptivo
Pros
Apptivo’s mobile application has plenty of functionality, offering many apps for teams to use remotely. Apptivo also offers customization options for developers. This allows businesses that have more experienced dev teams to tailor specific workflows to their desired operations by adding fields and menus.
Cons
If your business is using multiple Apptivo apps, customizing multiple features can take time, especially while learning how the apps work together. With a full-featured version of Apptivo, less experienced teams could require weeks or months to really grasp how all the modules work together. This could be a particular challenge for larger enterprises that have many team members; implementation for a big team would be a long-term investment and potential challenge.
What Do Customers Say About Apptivo?
Many Apptivo customers mentioned the exceptional support team in their reviews, including the quick and helpful assistance they receive from the live chat feature, Apptivo’s first line of response. A few users didn’t like the user interface, finding it to be clunky and lacking a more modern interface that other CRM solutions have. Overall, user reviews for Apptivo are positive.
Considering other CRM solutions for your business? Read Best CRM Software & Tools next.
