Sumac

User friendly interface and the customization feature "grow your own". Support staff are helpful and I love that training videos are provided as well.

I would love to see the development of connecting related emails directly to the database contact records so that the added steps of using the "communication" function were not needed.

Sumac provides a customizable platform for managing our programs and services, tracking communications and case management. We are planning to expand our use and utilize more modules and expand our use of existing ones. The software is growing with us as we move a team into an online Case Management model after 30 years of pen and paper. We have set it up so we master uses one at a time and have eased the transition of staff. This has been a blessing as I have worked with other organizations that have lost staff as an out of the can software full of bugs was implemented with little room for transition.

While for some the customization may be a challenge the benefit is huge. If you do not have someone to work with to complete the customizations there is an affordable option available working with the Sumac team.

The email component does not allow for, (or I have not figured out how to), multiple emails, so we only use it for mass emails as the responses can only go to one address.

Sumac is anti-intuitive.Functions do not follow a logical sequence. There never seems to be a video for what I need to do. Support has never recommended a video. The remote support doesn't work. One has to manage the telephone and manage the computer at the same time, while trying to follow instructions. There must be a better way. People learn in different modes, Sumac provides only one. Watching someone complete the sequence is not the same as performing it for a kinesthetic learner.

It integrates everything. With Sumac we can generate output to determine trends or targets, even deficiencies, by combining seemingly unrelated data. There's no data-based relationship we cannot explore and mine for fresh insights.
I like that it is held off-site so that we do not have to worry about additional data security. Of course, this also makes our Sumac data available anywhere, anytime.

Some of the modules have a steeper learning curve, but I don't see how that's avoidable. The biggest deficiency for me is that I would love an ap (application). Personally, I work with an iPad and right now I cannot access Sumac with that platform.

It is customizable to our needs (mostly). Some of the features we would find beneficial are not available.

We have encountered a number of bugs over the past few months in working with our trainer. She has been awesome in documenting and reporting them but the training time it ends up taking up in trying to find work arounds or confirm that it is in fact a bug is frustrating.