BAASS Business Solutions has been using Sage CRM to manage staff schedules for several years now. It has powerful scheduling features for recurring appointments, conflict notification, email and on screen reminders and more.
One of the Key Performance Indicators I use as a predicative indicator of our capacity and revenue forecast is an adhoc report I export from CRM on a weekly basis. The report takes me about a minute or two to export but once exported it takes about 15 to 30 minutes to manipulate so that it provides the number of days in the month that are booked as compared to those that are not, and the number of days that are booked for non billable vs billable activities. It also requires some sorting to check for double bookings. The report is critical to predict future revenues, lead time, and resource allocation.
I knew this report could be automated with some work but it was beyond my expertise. One of my staff saw the request on our CRM wishlist and decided to take it on. As I was creating the adhoc version of the report in Excel he felt that Sage Intelligence was the best option as it is an Excel based BI tool that can look at any data source including our CRM data. In a few days he designed a report that not only gives me the data I want with the click of a button it allows for easy configuration if we add employees or make other changes to our organization. It now takes less than 15 seconds to get a report that formerly took a half hour to prepare. I can also run the report hourly or more frequently if I want, as opposed to weekly.
We have even set the report to be sent to my email so it is waiting for me every morning.
I now have valuable information at my fingertips when and where I need it.
Thanks Mitch!!!
If you would like us to see if we can help your business get access to data in a more effective manner or get access to data you can't get access to now, give us a call. You might be surprised what your software is capable of doing.
