SaaS Journey Continued, or, "The Pretty Web 2.0 Marketing Strategy Really Works On Crockett"

This is a continuation of previous post, here.

OK, here is a quick status update. Software user paradigms changing at light speed around Gold Zeppelin. I tell ya it's been an emotional rollercoaster. The pretty, web 2.0 interfaces for BaseCampHQ and some products claiming to integrate with Basecamp's API are so attractive, but not all products are created equal.

The first thing which rose to the top of my wishlist was email-to-basecamp. I've wasted more than a little time this week cutting and pasting emails to & from clients into the basecamp "messages" area. I mean this gets really tedious and it's just silly. So I looked around and thought that maybe sproutitmail was the answer. Afterall, sproutitmail was featured on the Basecamp site as integrating with the API.

Sproutitmail just didn't do it for me. Gmail still wins.

Instead I discovered HighriseHQ from the same company as BasecampHQ, 37signals. This allows me to email to the system, and slice the data by Person, Task, or Case. And the cases appear to be the answer to my previous misuse of Basecamp Milestones.

I was using milestones for trouble tickets, because I needed a "master" item with which to associate all of the messages and tasks. But the milestones were a bit grandiose of a container for this purpose, especially since few of these trouble ticket items had real, hard deadlines.

Still using QuickBooks desktop edition, planning to evaluate QuickBooks Online Edition. Haven't used Cash Board so cannot yet comment. The long term goal is to have a seamless process for converting estimates to sales orders/purchase orders and project tasks, and then create invoices and bills+payments from completed project tasks.

More later.

[original post]

The All-Saas Enterprise, or, "Lookout SAP." Business has really picked up
in Crock-Town, so systems must be automated. Gold Zeppelin is currently
evaluating the following items for project management,
estimates/invoicing/collection, and emails, respectively:http://www.basecamphq.com/http://www.cashboardapp.com/ (I will
also try http://oe.quickbooks.com/)http://www.sproutit.com/The idea is to use
the API to have estimates from cashboard get approved and put into base camp,
with email correspondence from sproutit automatically becoming associated with
the correct project in basecamp.Man, we may be witnessing the beginning of the
end of the strangle-hold/pseudo-monopoly held by big players like SAP.Maybe I'm
old school, but it does seem a little strange to have these apps hosted
elsewhere. Scheduled nightly exports will put my mind at ease. Offline interface
better be coming soon, though.I will follow-up later in the month with my
thoughts on these apps.
Labels: connect, gadgetry