Virtual Assistant Forums | Work from Home

My Office Zilla · #1 (**permalink**) 06-13-2008

I don't feel like this great find has gotten enough love so I'm mentioning it again! If I'd known about this one before Tess's Top 5 Free... it would have made my top five (OK seven!); however, I just found it yesterday!

After two warm and fuzzy networking events in one week my head was swimming with all the info I was trying to store. I don't use my outlook contacts because I wouldn't be able to access them when I'm not in my homeoffice. The skinny is I needed a web-based CRM and since F R E E is my favorite four letter word it had to meet that requirement too! Already being a basecamp fan I'm trying to figure out exactly why I didn't know about this 37 signals option!

You can store 250 contacts at HighRise for F R E E! Not only does it house contact info but you can also store emails you've sent the contacts, tasks related to them and multiple notes! If you want more, more, more of course you can pay for it. There are other cool things it does that I'm not exploring because I'm a single user (although for free you can have two) and I upload files to basecamp.

Like the free option of Basecamp...if you want to check out Highrise for free look under the table listing levels of membership for the light blue box - hard to find but F R E E so they make you work a little for it! :p

Now, I know this solution isn't perfect for all but would be great for someone starting out and/or someone with split citizenship in Jobland and Soloville.

Make it a great day!

dabsdesigns · #2 (**permalink**) 06-21-2008

Gotta check this out. Really like freebies :-)

Donna · #3 (**permalink**) 06-22-2008

Airset is another good free option, I use it for my son's teams.

Donna

JKVirtualOffice · #4 (**permalink**) 06-22-2008

Thanks Donna and Sundi for posting these resources. Are there any differences or benefits worthing noting between these different ones?

My Office Zilla · #5 (**permalink**) 06-23-2008

Hmmm...since I'm not familiar with AirSet I can't really compare. As far as benefits, if you use any of the other 37 signal products (basecamp, backpack, etc) they all work together - for example, I could access my contacts in highrise through basecamp.

Make it a great day!

dabsdesigns · #6 (**permalink**) 06-23-2008

Highrise is a great solution for me. I have been wanting my current clients to use Client Spot etc. and I was getting no success. I really need to let them know when I first start working with them that this is the way we have to do things. It's not that they are not willing, but they are so busy (agents) that they won't take the time to log in.

Anyway, I wanted a way to e-mail tasks into a program instead of cluttering my inbox and be able to keep track of them. Highrise allows me to do that! I think telling my current clients to just e-mail one address with their tasks instead of having to log in will make a big difference

Doris

JKVirtualOffice · #7 (**permalink**) 06-23-2008

Doris,
That sounds like a great solution for people who can't or won't login to enter the tasks. I bet you'll get much better results. I'm going to check that out for myself.

TerryG · #8 (**permalink**) 06-23-2008

We use both Basecamp and Highrise to manage clients, team members and prospects. I luv them!!!! I started out with the lowest paid version of BC and have now upgraded twice. It is absolutely invaluable to my business, in that it allows my project manager and I to manage all of my clients and team members and all of the projects we have going with everyone. Keeping track of what we are doing with each client in BC makes it so much easier to manage client work ... and back up for when team members or even I go on vacation or get sick or simply can't work on a project any longer is a piece of cake. It gives me tremendous peace of mind. My project manager manages Highrise for me. We have the lowest paid account for HR, but it does the trick for what we need. I don't get into HR very often at all, but am in BC all of the time. Great systems that are priced very reasonably!!!

vturley · #9 (**permalink**) 06-26-2008

I am an AirSet fan because it is free and very user friendly. But it is basic when it comes to task management. It all syncs with Outlook which is great because that's all my clients use.

They are in the process of making substantial upgrades to this program so I'm looking forward to the progress they make.

If you're looking for a nice free program, check out AirSet.

Vickie Turley

AusVA · #10 (**permalink**) 06-02-2009

Hi All - I thought this website might be helpful in deciding which CRM tool is best to use. It's a website that has reports on the TOP 10 software/web based tool. You have to sign up to have it downloaded, but it's a free report and gives you a comparision on features and prices in one spot! Hope this helps!

http://www.business-software.com/

Cheers
Aise