At its core, SalesChief is a powerful connector that enables businesses running Pivotal CRM to enjoy all the benefits of QlikView business discovery software. After three consecutive years in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence (BI), many of you are probably already familiar with the benefits QlikView brings its users. But for those who aren’t, here’s just a little background on why it’s earned such accolades – and remember, now it’s available for Pivotal CRM users through SalesChief!

‘[QLIKVIEW IS] THE POSTER CHILD FOR A NEW END-USER-DRIVEN APPROACH TO BI.’ – Gartner

As the Gartner quote suggests, QlikView (now available to Pivotal CRM users via the SalesChief connector) is a BI or ‘Business Discovery’ tool that has innovated to meet the demands of today’s users who expect powerful, flexible, dynamic apps that are intuitive, easy to use, and produce meaningful business result. Turning traditional ‘report-centric’ BI on its head, QlikView has pioneered the next generation of ‘Data Discovery,’ or what Gartner calls ‘Business Discovery’ – an area they note continues to demonstrate accelerating momentum as business users demand the ability to interact directly and dynamically with data on their own terms. SalesChief brings the power of QlikView to Pivotal CRM users. For a sneak peek at what Pivotal users see using the SalesChief connector, check out the screen shots below, or better yet, come see the demos next week at Aptean Edge!

Screen Capture of SalesChief Opportunity Analysis Interface

Screen Capture of SalesChief Marketing Effectiveness Interface

For details on SalesChief, you can download the SalesChief data sheet on our Resources & Downloads page, or contact any member of our Pivotal consulting team at info@tokarasolutions.com. And if you’re coming to Edge, be sure to stop by our Gold Sponsor booth — we look forward to seeing you there!

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“One thing that’s immediately apparent in all the enhancements we see in Pivotal 6 is: it’s all about the end user. And one of the ways this focus becomes immediately clear is in productivity enhancements – for example, the integration between Outlook and Pivotal 6 is completely seamless. So if your end users spend most of their day in these two systems (which many end users do), it’s not only easier to work in these applications that are now so intuitively and comprehensively integrated, but it also saves each user an enormous amount of time (increasing productivity) and ensures every critical piece of data is saved and available everywhere it needs to be. This is one of the pieces of functionality in a Pivotal 6 upgrade that users just can’t stop talking about.

Another Pivotal 6 upgrade feature end users love is Dashboards. As just one example, let’s take a look at a Sales Dashboard, which provides the sales executive with specific portals displaying critical information in different types of graph types as well in list format. Again, the combination of functionality and interface is intuitive, aesthetically appealing, and truly ‘friendly’ – all designed to facilitate the user’s own individual workflow so that both individual productivity and corporate ROI are maximized. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.”

Tune in next week for Bruce’s thoughts on how Pivotal 6 enhancements affect development requirements and add access and flexibility for clients engaged in a Pivotal 6 upgrade.

And remember, you can still register for the year’s pre-eminent Pivotal event, Aptean Edge, May 13-15, at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Register to find out everything you’ve wanted to know about how a Pivotal upgrade can provide impressive return on your software investment, making your business more productive, competitive, and profitable. For details on any of the benefits outlined here or other elements of Pivotal support, please contact a member of our Pivotal consulting team at info@tokarasolutions.com.

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“My entire career has focused on implementation of complex CRM applications in a range of vertical industries, so I feel confident in saying first and foremost: Pivotal 6 is simply a superior product in every way. It combines the best attributes of ‘look and feel’ with functionality and ease of use that make it a product users love and companies see real ROI from. So from my standpoint on the front lines, there are a number of elements clients really rave about – we’ll start with ‘Look and Feel.’.

Everything about the look and feel of Pivotal 6 is designed with the user in mind. The interface is intuitive, aesthetically appealing, and truly ‘friendly’ – engaging the user to the point that this application becomes his/her central workspace. Whether you’re considering the streamlined navigation or feature-rich task bars, you immediately have access to everything you need to do your job in one centralized, well organized place – all designed in a way that facilitates the user’s own individual workflow.

Created using Visual Studio, even form design is engaging and intuitively laid out, as this screenshot of a Company Form illustrates. ‘Look and feel’ sounds like we’re talking about something subjective and artistic, but the truth is that when clients see screens like this they understand immediately the difference superior ‘look and feel’ and interface design will have on how efficiently they can get their jobs done.”

Tune in next week for Bruce’s thoughts on Pivotal 6 features and functionality that delight his clients who are embarking on a Pivotal upgrade.

And remember, you can still register for the year’s pre-eminent Pivotal event, Aptean Edge, May 13-15, at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Register to find out everything you’ve wanted to know about how a Pivotal upgrade can provide impressive return on your software investment, making your business more productive, competitive, and profitable. For details on any of the benefits outlined here or other elements of Pivotal support, please contact a member of our Pivotal consulting team at info@tokarasolutions.com.

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We know ‘understanding data models’ might not sound too exciting, but we think the benefits make it worth a mention. The bottom line is this: clients who take advantage of a Pivotal upgrade are able to take advantage of a flexible and adaptable infrastructure that enables easy and effective scalability and allows them to take best advantage of the Pivotal platform to:

• Reduce Costs: achieve efficient and effective customization, configuration, and deployment in a standards-based multi-tier architecture
• Facilitate Ongoing Customization: adjust workflows when and as business requirements demand it
• Increase Productivity: use Internet-based standards to increase interoperability with other business systems

Upgraded Pivotal users enjoy a multi-tier architecture in which presentation services, business services, and data services are independent, making it possible to save considerable resources (time and money) by keeping application development, customization, and maintenance in the middle tier. Tune in next week for details on what your business gains in each tier when you embark on a Pivotal upgrade.

And don’t forget, you can still register for the year’s pre-eminent Pivotal event, Aptean Edge, which is right around the corner, May 13-15, at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. Register to find out everything you’ve wanted to know about how a Pivotal upgrade can provide impressive return on your software investment, making your business more productive, competitive, and profitable. For details on any of the benefits outlined here or other elements of Pivotal support, please contact a member of our Pivotal consulting team at info@tokarasolutions.com.

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At its core, Pivotal Analytics allows clients to gain maximum benefit from their investment in Microsoft in the form of CRM analytics based on the Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform. The module provides users with a toolkit that allows them to efficiently and effectively analyze customer data and make better and faster decisions around how, where, and when to engage with these customers to maximize relationship, revenue, and profit.

Using an industry leading OLAP engine (Microsoft Analysis Services) as well as a robust server-based reporting solution (Microsoft Reporting Services), the customization tools that come in Pivotal Analytics are simple to use, provide a range of deployment options, and ensure a vendor-agnostic front end that can be used with virtually any business intelligence viewer.

And of course, standard requisite sales and marketing analytics come out of the box and ready to use, ensuring teams are up and running without delay, beginning to experience the full benefits of the module’s functionality almost immediately.

So whether our clients choose to implement the complete suite at once or incrementally by module, the bottom line around Pivotal upgrades is the same: the results for our clients’ businesses is often dramatic. For more information Pivotal upgrades, Pivotal Analytics, or other elements of Pivotal support we provide, please contact a member of our Pivotal consulting team at info@tokarasolutions.com.

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Almost irrespective of the industry segment your business is in, there’s no escaping the fact that today, mobile is everything. So business software that seamlessly provides mobile users the tools they need to do their jobs outside the office can make the difference in how competitive, and ultimately how successful, a business is. With a Pivotal upgrade, mobile users are able to benefit from the enhanced reliability and performance the latest versions of the software provide, enabling them to be as productive outside the office as they are inside.

As many of our clients already know, Pivotal Mobile Sales™ delivers a fully functional mobile CRM solution. In addition to accessing robust CRM functionality outside the office, mobile users can access the prospect, customer, and product data they need to do their jobs, even when they’re not behind a desk.

And what about administration? Using Pivotal SyncStream™, it’s as simple as a single-click client install package for mobile as well as office users, effectively reducing both the complexity of deployments and the administrative costs associated with them. Pivotal Mobile Client synchs in the background as soon as users in the field connect to their corporate network, so they can maximize productivity, even during the synchronization process. And say goodbye to resource-heavy updates that require users to be in the office — Pivotal’s mobile synchronization sessions also send out any necessary data changes, application updates, and service packs/hot fixes.

So whether you’re taking advantage of Pivotal’s tight integration with Microsoft Office applications or its ability to provide comprehensive CRM functionality to your business’ mobile users, it’s clear that the Pivotal upgrade can provide impressive return on your software investment, making your business more productive, competitive, and profitable. For details on any of the benefits outlined here or other elements of Pivotal support, please contact a member of our Pivotal consulting team at info@tokarasolutions.com.

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There is no question that embarking on a Pivotal upgrade means heightened productivity – and one of the primary ways this occurs is via robust bi-directional integration with the ubiquitous Microsoft^® Office^® suite of products so heavily relied on by end users. Enhanced web services support means relevant data from Pivotal can be accessed directly from within Outlook, Excel, Word, or PowerPoint. It’s as easy as highlighting a word or phrase and clicking to see associated Pivotal data – and the data you’re looking for is brought directly into the Microsoft application you’re working in.

A Pivotal upgrade also provides seamless integration between Pivotal and Outlook, allowing team members to create, edit, and manage emails from within Pivotal, as well as to link emails and attachments to ‘business objects’ that include contacts, opportunities, service requests, and companies. Perhaps best of all, this functionality can be accessed both in the workplace and while users are fully disconnected from the corporate VPN, providing a substantial boost to the productivity of increasingly mobile workforces.

Moving from benefits to the end user to benefits for the developer, a Pivotal upgrade also provides support for software customizations written in any Microsoft .NET language (including C# and Microsoft Visual Basic .NET), speeding the development and use of higher quality code and the ease with which customizations can be made. Pivotal even provides sample code to ‘jump start’ developers in writing custom CMS Application Server Rules in .NET languages.

So whether our clients choose to implement the complete suite at once or incrementally by module, the bottom line around Pivotal upgrades is the same: the results for their business can be dramatic. For more information Pivotal upgrades or other elements of Pivotal support we provide, please contact a member of our Pivotal consulting team at info@tokarasolutions.com.

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What we see first-hand from clients who engage us for Pivotal support is that a Pivotal upgrade actually involves an exceptionally low total cost of ownership (TCO), while also ensuring these clients are able to quickly and efficiently customize, integrate, and deploy a solution to match their current and evolving business needs.

When we provide this type of Pivotal support, we have clients who choose to implement one module at a time and clients who implement the entire suite. Regardless of the implementation strategy they choose, they achieve a number of immediate benefits in functionality, usability, administration, and customization that can literally be game-changers for their business, including:

• Greater productivity
• Simplified end-user experience
• Improved mobility & streamlined administration
• Extended reach
• Smarter and faster decision making
• Enhanced customization options

As a proven Pivotal partner, we have an exceptionally experienced and fully certified team, with members of our Pivotal consulting team averaging 10+ years of experience delivering Pivotal support. Collectively, we have successfully delivered hundreds of Pivotal upgrades. This is why we feel qualified to share the benefits we see first-hand when our clients upgrade to the most recent version of Pivotal.

Tune in next week for a more in-depth look at several of these benefits and a discussion on how they deliver tangible business results. For more information on any of the benefits outlined here or other elements of Pivotal support we provide, please contact a member of our Pivotal consulting team at info@tokarasolutions.com.

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Our last post covered several elements of Pivotal’s architecture that maximize the speed with which end-to-end business tasks can be completed – namely, through navigation structure, history, shortcuts, and portals. This post outlines a few additional aspects of Pivotal architecture that boost business productivity for our clients: configuration of smart client forms, view and access types, and diagnostics.

Smart Client Forms: As with virtually every other component of this robust software, Pivotal’s Smart Client forms provide end users with data that is truly customized to their specific needs, courtesy of the embedded Microsoft Visual Studio form designer. Each form offers not simply an end-user view, but also links to the supporting data structure as well as workflow and custom functionality, with shortcuts to commonly used data accessible with one click using Pivotal’s customizable Task Pad. Once again, Pivotal’s architecture powers productivity in allowing data to be both presented and accessed in the ways that make the most sense for an individual business and for its end users.

Views and Access: Pivotal’s Toolkit allows businesses the flexibility to provide specific types of data only to the people who need it, accessible only through appropriate devices, with performance optimized for the location from which the data is being accessed – the perfect mix of access, security, and efficiency. Views are customized to individuals or groups with differing levels of security, and accessible only to those with appropriate clearance.

Built-in Diagnostics: Pivotal also ensures optimal business productivity by allowing administrators to graphically view detailed performance measurements of the CRM system through its built-in diagnostics functionality, so that they are able to identify and address any potential network or system issues before end user efficiency and productivity are jeopardized.

As a trusted Pivotal partner to the many clients we provide Pivotal support to, we know this capable CRM system inside and out. We see it not only performing its primary tasks with ease, but also providing dramatic improvements in productivity for clients because it was built from the ground up with the user (and user behavior) in mind. For details on any of the benefits outlined here or other elements of Pivotal support, please contact a member of our Pivotal consulting team at info@tokarasolutions.com.

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Navigation: When we provide Pivotal support to clients, one of the greatest areas of productivity enhancement we see is related to its navigation structure, which is modeled around business structure rather than around a database. This provides it with the adaptability required to accommodate unique business use cases and while at the same time providing users access and functionality based on profiles that reflect their roles within the company.

Simply stated, Pivotal CRM’s navigation structure means fewer clicks to access data as well as data provision through context-driven task pads and portals that deliver critical functionality like real-time reports, KPIs, and alerts. So as users navigate through the system, they are provided with dynamically updated information in task pads and portals that reflect the most common requirements of the specific area they’re working in. Pivotal also shines in its ability to support non-linear multi-tasking, which allows users to view and interact with a variety of forms simultaneously, as well as save them for later use or create shortcuts to them.

History, Shortcuts & Portals: Another way in which Pivotal speeds business productivity is linked to how easy it makes it for users to access to history, create shortcuts, and aggregate information and functionality critical to their specific role through portals. Pivotal keeps user history close at hand, with easy access to both the last few items accessed as well as the most recently loaded records. Users can then organize and store this data in whatever structure makes the most sense for them based on their organizational role and working style.

Similarly, users can easily create custom shortcuts to data or functionality they access frequently, as well as configure custom portals, which aggregate all the data/functionality they’d like to see in on one centralized page – a ‘one stop shop’ customized to their unique organizational role and tasking. These features not only minimize clicks required to access desired locations, information, and functionality, but also reduce server load as steps required to complete tasking are reduced.

As a Pivotal partner, these are just a few of the ways we see the software’s architecture reduce the time required to complete business tasks. Tune in next week for details on how business productivity is dramatically increased as Pivotal provides users with the ability to easily configure smart forms; establish access and security parameters, and perform diagnostics. For more information on any of the benefits outlined here or other elements of Pivotal support, please contact a member of our Pivotal consulting team at info@tokarasolutions.com.

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