The Importance of Being Mobile
The Smartphone is perhaps one of the greatest introductions of the new millennium (though some may disagree). Web enabled mobile phones have been rising steadily as technological advances have increased speed and decreased price.
Although some may look at smartphones as vanity objects (a bunch of teenagers hanging at the mall Tweeting about Justin Biber, uploading photos to Facebook, etc.), many professionals utilize their smartphones as productivity tools.
Business Productivity On-The-Go
Barton Goldenberg, president and founder of ISM, Inc. released an article about the future of CRM. In it he notes that “Today’s software runs on desktops, laptops, and smartphones, with increasingly ubiquitous access to custom applications making CRM data and customer information readily available, anytime and anywhere.”
What Goldenberg is saying is that if your CRM doesn’t have a mobile app available, you’re basically behind the times.
Having a mobile app of your CRM helps facilitate field sales, out of office business meetings, and can even be helpful during networking events.
According to Nancy Keddy, CEO and Co-Founder of Touch Ahead Software, LLC, “Mobile CRM apps give us access to a limitless number of contacts and additional information and don’t’ require that we store that information on the mobile device.” This is an option that comes in handy when smartphones usually only come equipped with a couple of gigs of hard drive space.
The Bottom Line
If you or your organization is considering implementing a CRM solution, check to make sure there is a mobile component included.
If you already have a CRM and aren’t using a mobile application, contact your system administrator to see if there is one available.
CRM SaaS Exhibit at Boston ACG Conference
EquityTouch®
CRM to Be Exhibited at ACG Conference
Boston, MA, June 3, 2010 - Touch Ahead Software, developer of EquityTouch®
CRM, will be exhibiting at the June 9 & 10 ACG Capital Growth Conference in Boston. Touch Ahead Software has attended past ACG conferences, both locally and nationally. One of these includes the recent 39th
Annual ACG InterGrowth Conference in Miami Beach, Florida, which took place from May 4-6.
Touch Ahead's booth will be at table 14d
The ACG Boston Growth Conference takes place annually and attracts the private equity and alternative investments industry. The conference consists of guest speakers and networking opportunities. When exhibiting EquityTouch®
at past ACG conferences, Touch Ahead received a great deal of positive response from attendees.
John Binda, Director of Sales at Touch Ahead, says he is looking forward to Touch Ahead being a silver sponsor for the upcoming ACG conference. He says, "This event gives us a huge opportunity to showcase EquityTouch®, since it is designed specifically for the alternative asset community, whose members will be attending the conference, as well."
Nancy Keddy, founder and senior partner of Touch Ahead, is also thrilled about the event.
"I look forward to connecting with the many successful deal makers and finding out what is on the horizon."
Binda and Keddy are not the only ones excited about the upcoming Boston conference. According to Co-Founder and CTO Tim Lasonde, "ACG is a great place to connect with experts in the deal world and get an understanding of what is happening in our economy. I am interested to learn what companies are using to get deals done in this new landscape."
John Binda, Director of Sales, left
and Nancy Keddy, Co-Founder and CEO, right
Touch Ahead just released an updated EquityTouch®
2.1 on Friday, May 21. This update included the ability to use keyboard navigation in search results, color coding, and advanced relevance sorting. Touch Ahead is constantly coming up with new ways to improve user experience, which is another reason to get excited about what is to come at next week's ACG conference.
About Touch Ahead Software LLC
Touch Ahead Software is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions company, focused on providing unparalleled benefits of advanced technology to the alternative asset community. The benefits include higher user satisfaction and increased deal sourcing productivity by utilizing user-friendly collaboration tools, as well as a dramatically reduced cost of ownership and time for implementation. Touch Ahead Software is the developer of EquityTouch®, the premiere deal CRM service for the financial industry and other specialized industries. For more information, please visit http://www.touchahead.com.
Press Contact
For more information, please contact:
Cathie Briggette
Touch Ahead Software LLC
(p) +1 866 960 9301
(e) cmb@touchahead.com
Company Participates in 6th Annual Texas Hold 'Em Tournament Fundraiser
Credit: Children's Hospital
Boston, MA, May 20, 2010 - Touch Ahead Software, creators of EquityTouch® deal sourcing CRM software, recently participated in the 6th Annual Texas Hold ‘Em Tournament for the Children's Hospital Boston. Held in the Wharf Room of the Boston Harbor Hotel, the event drew the best in business from Boston and New York as well as World Series of Poker Champion and Celebrity Apprentice Star, Annie Duke. In addition to purchasing tickets that allot a stack of chips and a seat at the table, the tournament also held an auction, which included prizes such as "Friends and Family" seats at a Red Sox game with VIP On-Field Access.
Touch Ahead joined other business leaders in hopes to raise funds for continuing care and research at Children's Hospital Boston. Nancy Swan Keddy, founder of Touch Ahead, was accompanied by Director of Marketing for Touch Ahead, Cathie Briggette. Both volunteered as "dealers" for the tournament and the two had a wonderful time. According to Briggette "Both of us were a little nervous. We thought it was going to be really serious, however because no one was a winner (in that all proceeds were going to the hospital), it was a very fun and causal atmosphere."
The event, co-hosted by Tony DiNovi of Thomas H. Lee Partners and David Filkow of General Catalyst Partners has raised over $2,000,000 to date for the hospital. "The tournament was a lot of fun" claims Keddy. "You could feel the excitement escalate at the table when the river card was about to be turned." As a company that provides deal sourcing collaboration tools, Keddy is committed to making connections outside of the workplace. "We are in the business of building relationships and it is important to build and maintain relationships with the community."
For more information about the tournament and how you can get involved for next year's event, please visit: http://howtohelp.childrenshospital.org/texas.
About Touch Ahead Software LLC
Touch Ahead Software is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions company, focused on providing unparalleled benefits of advanced technology to the alternative asset community. The benefits include dramatically reduced cost of ownership and time for implementation, as well as higher user satisfaction and organizational profitability through deal sourcing and powerful collaboration tools. Touch Ahead Software is the developer of EquityTouch, the premiere CRM service for the financial and other specialized industries. For more information, please visit http://www.touchahead.com
Press Contact
For more information, please contact:
Cathie Briggette
Touch Ahead Software LLC
(p) +1 (866) 960 9301
(e) cmb@touchahead.com
Touch Ahead Software Releases EquityTouchTM 2.0.1
New version update includes additional file support and a revised import tool
Boston, MA, April 5, 2010 - Touch Ahead Software, creators of EquityTouchTM, a deal sourcing and collaboration tool for private equity and venture capital firms, just released the newest version update, 2.0.1. The update will come out just three weeks since EquityTouch 2.0 became available on March 19. The new release includes support for Excel® 2007 files (.xlsx), and an upgraded import tool.
The import tool is accessible under the "Tools" tab in EquityTouch. Brian Le Blanc, VP of Software Engineering at Touch Ahead, states that the tool offers easier migration of data from multiple sources. "Clients keeping data in Outlook® or Excel can easily migrate said data to EquityTouch" says Le Blanc, "The updated import tool can now map data into the new grid controls available in EquityTouch 2.0."
The ability to map data into grids allows for a more customizable lay-out and more refined search results when researching data in EquityTouch. Current users will not have to do anything on their end to receive these updates. Prospective users can contact Touch Ahead Software for more information and to set up a demonstration at sales@touchahead.com
About Touch Ahead Software LLC
Touch Ahead Software is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions company, focused on providing unparalleled benefits of advanced technology to the alternative asset community. The benefits include dramatically reduced cost of ownership and time for implementation, as well as higher user satisfaction and organizational profitability through deal sourcing and powerful collaboration tools. Touch Ahead Software is the developer of EquityTouchTM, the premiere deal CRM service for the financial and other specialized industries. For more information, please visit http://www.touchahead.com.
Press Contact
For more information, please contact:
Cathie Briggette
Touch Ahead Software LLC
(p) +1 (866) 960-9301
(e) cmb@touchahead.com
(w) http://www.touchahead.com
75 Kneeland St., 2nd Floor
Boston, MA 02111
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Cathie Briggette
Marketing Director
(866-960-9301) x207
cmb@touchahead.com
Touch Ahead Software, LLC hires new employee
BOSTON - Touch Ahead Software LLC announced today that John Binda has joined the company as Director of Sales. He will lead the effort to increase overall revenue growth for the company. John Binda's first day at Touch Ahead Software was December 1, 2009.
John is joining Touch Ahead Software, from Neocase Software, where he was the Regional Director and responsible for national product sales. "There are tremendous opportunities ahead for Touch Ahead Software, and the EquityTouch product. Touch Ahead Software has created a world-class CRM solution for VC and Private Equity organizations" Binda said. "I am excited about helping customers manage all of their communications with team members, intermediaries, and potential deal companies"
John will report to Touch Ahead Software CEO, Nancy Keddy. "I am delighted to welcome John to Touch Ahead Software"," Keddy said. "This is an exciting time with our latest release of EquityTouch, a relationship management, and collaboration solution for venture capital and private equity firms. John's unique and diverse background, coupled with his deep software sales experience and understanding of the CRM industry, will be an invaluable asset in our plans to grow the business.
Before joining Neocase Software in 2008, Binda spent 15 years working for various CRM vendors and resellers. His role has been to increase revenues, and improve customer satisfaction.
Touch Ahead Software develops cutting edge SaaS solutions. Touch Ahead has developed EquityTouchTM, a remarkable CRM solution enabling organizations to intelligently manage new business opportunities. EquityTouchTM prides itself on being the fastest web application, while delivering the most vital features of CRM and a completely customizable interface.
Touch Ahead Software is a Boston based software development firm that provides web-based relationship management and collaboration solutions. For more information please contact Cathie Briggette at (866) 960-9301 x706 . Or visit http://www.touchahead.com/
-END-
Release Notes
|
Product |
EquityTouch |
|
Release Number |
1.3.0 |
|
Release Date |
12/04/09 |
|
Support |
TouchAhead |
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Purpose
This is a major feature release. Changes have been made based on requests gathered from user feedback and on initial planning. There have been updates throughout the system that also include several bug fixes. All users of EquityTouch
™ will see these changes.
No action is required on the client side to implement these changes.
Brief Overview
-
Ability to add, remove, and edit Employees from the Company Summary page.
-
Ability to change the Primary Contact from the Company Summary page.
-
Ability to merge duplicate companies and people.
-
Easier method for adding multiple attendees to a Touch.
-
Changes to the Advanced Search including the ability to search for blank/null values and the ability to search for other people’s touches.
-
Change method for calculating the “Next Step” value.
-
Introduction of Security Groups (admin level).
-
Ability to configure Dashboard Statistics (admin level).
-
A few other design/display enhancements.
-
Assorted bug fixes across the application.
New Features
- Ability To Add, Remove, and Edit Employees From Company Summary – You can now add, edit, and remove employees directly from the Company Summary page.
1. Adding Employees – While looking at a Company Summary page, click
the Add Employee” button in the bottom left corner of the Employees
section.
This will open the New Employee form at the top of the page. Filling out this form and hitting “Enter” will save this new Person to the Company.
2. Editing Employees – While looking at a Company Summary page, click the “Edit” button in the top right corner of the Employees section.
This will open this section in edit mode. You can make changes to the person’s first, middle or last name; his/her title, primary phone number, and email address. Click “Save” to save your changes.
3. Changing Primary Contact – You can now change who the primary contact is at a company from the Company Summary page. In the Employee section, click the radio button next to the appropriate employee. His/her name will become bolded and it will bubble to the top. This name will now appear in search results for that company.
4. Deleting Employees – While looking at a Company Summary page, click the ‘X’ on the far right of the person’s row. You will be alerted that this person has been removed from the company. His/her current role of employment with this company will be made into a past role and he/she will no longer be visible on the Company Summary page.
5. Ability To Merge Records – You can now merge both People and Company records. This is done from a search result and only 2 records can be merged together at once.
To merge two companies or people, first select the two records by checking the checkboxes in the left column of the search result. Then, click the ‘Options’ menu and select ‘Merge Selected Items’.
A window will pop up with all the information displayed in 3 columns. A preview of the merged record’s information will be displayed on the left, the primary record’s information will be displayed in the middle, and the secondary record’s information will be displayed on the right. To swap the primary and secondary companies, click “Swap Primary Company” in the top part of the panel.
To merge using the default values click ‘Merge People’ or ‘Merge Companies’ in the top left. To change what information is included in the merged record, click the radio buttons on the field you would like to swap. If you would like to remove certain information from the merged record, click the ‘X’ next to the field you want removed. You will see the Merge Results column update with the new information.
Some information is hidden to start (communications information, custom fields). To see this information, click “Show Phones, Emails, and URLs” or “Show Custom Fields”.
When you are ready to merge, click ‘Merge People’ or ‘Merge Companies’ in the top left.
Notes:
o All touches are kept when records are merged.
o All groups containing the deleted record are updated to include the merged record if it is not already in the group.
o Fields that can contain multiple values (phone, location, etc) will default to be updated to include all values from both records being merged.
o The primary record is selected by taking the record with the most recent change (Touch or info). This is the one which will remain after the merge. The secondary record is the company or person being merged from. This record will be deleted after the merge.
o After merging people or companies, a touch will be attached to the merged record containing both records’ information. The touch type will be “Company Merge” or “Person Merge”.
o In the resulting Company or Person record, email addresses, phone numbers, and URLs will appear in the order of the select list they belong to.
Note about People records when merging Companies – When you merge two companies, the employees of those companies will be auto-merged based on an exact match on email or full name. You are not given an option to mix and match Person fields when merging Companies.
· Add Attendee Panel – A simpler way of adding attendees to a touch has been added. On a new or existing touch, click the ‘Add Attendee Form’ button.
A window will open up with 3 sections.
o Users - The section on the left is a list of all users in a certain user group of EquityTouch. The first time you use this it will be the default group ‘All Users’. You can change which user group you would like to see by clicking on the following menu and selecting a different group:
o Current Company - The section in the top right is a list all people at the Active Company.
o Other Relationships - The section in the bottom right is a list of all people that have a role with the Active Company, have a previous role with the Active Company (past employees), and anyone who has ever been involved with a touch with the Active Company or Person.
To the left of each person will be radio buttons corresponding to different Touch Roles. To include someone on the Touch, just check the appropriate circle for him/her. You will see them be added to the Touch fly out. To remove them, click the ‘X’ on the Touch fly out next to his/her name (this is the same as removing them without this new tool). When you are done, close the ‘Add Attendee’ panel by clicking the ‘x’ in the top right corner.
· Improvements to Advanced Searching – Several improvements have been made to Advanced Searching that allow you to search for other EquityTouch user’s touches and search for blank/null values in fields. Some procedural and display issues have also been addressed to make the process smoother.
o Other People’s Touches – You can now search through other EquityTouch
™ users' touches. To do this, look for the “Search In” field under the Touch section of the Advanced Search panel.
This drop down previously contained two options: My Touches and All Touches. In addition to those two, it now contains every user of EquityTouch
™ . Selecting a user will narrow the search down to that person’s touches.
o Searching For Blank Values – You can now search for fields that have no values. In drop-down lists the option will now appear in the Advanced Search panel. For text fields, type into the field. In a range (date, numbers), the text is only required in the ‘From’ field.
Note: Searching for in either the Company Name or Person Last Name fields will search for the string ‘’ and not for records with no entries (as those two fields are required and cannot be blank).
o Hitting ‘Enter’ Starts Search – While in the Advanced Search panel, if you hit ‘Enter’/’Return’ the search will start. Note that this will not work if you have a drop-down list selected. In this case the drop-down list will toggle open and closed.
o The Advanced Search Panel Closes on Search - Once the search is complete, the Advanced Search panel will close, displaying the search results.
- Change to ‘Next Step’ Calculation – The ‘Next Step’ date is now the date of the incomplete touch that is closest to the current date. If two incomplete touches are equidistant from the current date, the touch in the future will be displayed. This value will be updated for a Company if a new touch is added and nightly if one is not.
- Security Groups – This release contains the first steps necessary for implementing Security Groups. A Security Group is a group of users set up by an application Administrator that can be used in the application. With this release it will be used in the new Add Attendee functionality (adding People to Touches). All users will belong to the group “All Users” by default. This functionality will continue to become more important with future releases.
- Person Title Added To Relationships Tab - On the Company Relationships tab a Person’s current title is now displayed.
· Changes to the Intermediary Panel – Changes have been made to the Intermediary panel on Company Summary pages. This section now includes the Intermediary’s title, Company, phone, email, and the start date of the intermediary role with the company.
· Dashboard Statistics Now Admin Configurable – Under Customization -> Dashboard -> Statistics Panel in the Administration section. An application administrator can configure the default date range for statistics, the touch types to include, the company types to include, and the touch roles to include.
· Email/Invitation Defaults Admin Configurable by Touch Role – The ability to specify defaults (checked/not checked) based on Touch Role for Email and Outlook Invitation when adding attendees to Touches is now Admin Configurable. Previously all roles that were not ‘Initiator’ were included under ‘Participant’. The administrator can now configure for each Role. This is in the same place it used to be (System Settings -> Mail and Calendar).
· Tag Email Functionality Now Admin Configurable – Under System Settings -> Options -> Mail and Calendar there is now a setting called ‘Send emails with Tags’. Turning this on will send an email to the recipient of a tag.
· Options Button Change – The options button has been changed throughout EquityTouch
™ to the following:
Bug Fixes
- Pagination Saved Preference – The ‘Results Per Page’ setting is now saved across sessions.
- Custom Field Invalid Character - Saving ampersand (&) to a custom field no longer throws an error.
- Company Name Invalid Character – Saving ampersand (&) to a company name no longer throws an error.
- Deleting Company Address Bug - Deleting a company address immediately updates what gets returned in search results. Previously this would not always get updated.
- Export To XLS on Advanced Search - After running an Advanced Search on custom fields, exporting to XLS will now export the correct fields. Previously incorrect results were exported.
- ‘Groups’ Filter Preference Saved Across Sessions – The most recent selection for the Groups filter on the dashboard will now be saved (All Groups, My Groups, Company Groups, People Groups, Shared Groups).
- Saving Touch Without Attendees Alerts User – If you save a touch without any attendees you will receive a message explaining that you need to have at least 1 attendee on the touch. Previously the edit touch panel would say ‘Saving’ but nothing would happen.
- Adding A Relationship No Longer Changes Person’s Header - Only changing the Employee role will change the information displayed in the Person’s header (area above the tabs).
- Options Menus Close Correctly – Sometimes options menus closed prematurely if the mouse hovered over certain areas. This has been fixed.
- Deleting Initiator on Touch Already Sent To Outlook – If a Touch has been sent as an Outlook invitation, and the initiator of the Touch changes, a new invitation will be sent. The old Outlook meeting will remain. Previously, removing the initiator in this situation would have thrown an error.
- Next Step View Available from Stats Search - After clicking on a number in the stats section of the Dashboard, you can now select ‘Next Step View’ as a search result view.
- Drag and Drop of Custom Financial Fields Works - In the Admin section, you can click and drag custom financial fields into order in ‘Financial Fields Layout’.
- Person Summary ‘Save Changes’ Message - The ‘Are you sure you want to navigate away without saving your changes’ dialogue is only displayed if something has changed.
- New Group from Selected Bug - This did not always display the correct number of groups being added. This has been fixed.
- Google News Module Bug – Editing search terms in the Google news module automatically refreshes the search results.