I stumbled across a new contact manager/CRM application over the weekend called Plan Plus Online by Franklin Covey. Think of it as the famous Covey organizer (including the weekly planning tools) online.

The Covey product has two editions basic (replaces your organizer) and a sales edition which incorporates the sales process. You can create a virtual organization by purchasing multiple user licenses and sharing information.

For Covey advocates, it looks like a great alternative to ther CRMs such as Salesforce.com and Act! However, the system is somewhat buggy and still immature. The system is stable enough to purchase and use; however, you may have to wait for bug fixes and new features.

WARNING! The public web pages describing the product are vague and can make you uncomfortable. There is no comparison table quickly displaying the difference between the two editions. It doesn’t tell you what your storage limit is. “Try me” means sign up for the service, not free trial.

You can demo the site, but the information on accessing the demo is buried. To view both editions, click on Knowledge and FAQs under the Resource tab. Under “Most Visited Articles”, you will find “Free Demo Account of Plan Plus Online.”

Overview
If you ever owned a Franklin Covey organizer or owned the Plan Plus software, you will instantly feel comfortable with the layout. The software uses Master and Daily Tasks, Covey’s Weekly Planning Tools, and Goals Page. The Plan Plus Online system is really a customized version of CompleteXRM as can be seen in the Preferences->Language setting.

Basic Functionality
For contacts, it resembles most contact managers with the capability of adding custom fields. Like CiviCRM (a non-profit CRM), Plan Plus Online allows you to link a contact with multiple companies and multiple contacts - this feature simulates more closely the micro-business environment today.

The system allows for both master tasks (undated, general to-do list) and daily tasks (dated). It has the Covey ABC prioritization as well as a checkbox area to mark off done tasks. You can simply drag a task from the list onto your calendar to convert it into an appointment.

One shortcoming is you cannot filter the tasks and only show tasks of one type (category). This would be a great feature and allow you to incorporate some Getting Things Done (GTD) principals like seeing only the tasks you do at home.

WORKAROUND: There is a type field on the task details page to categorize tasks. To view tasks of one category, simply type the category in the search field and click “Search All.”

The calendar includes a notes area for your daily journal. You can use an HTML editor to include links and style your text (bold, italic, etc). One drawback of the calendar is you cannot have an untimed event. Your options are selecting a time and all day event. Finally, there is no free/busy option for resource allocation.

You can create recurring tasks and appointments. This functionality is fairly advanced as you can create an event that occurs on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday or every third Tuesday of the month.

A rudimentary e-mail client is included. You receive emails from multiple accounts, but only send from one. The e-mail feature is meant for capturing contact related messages using the “attach note” button and sending contact related messages. The system has a limit of 4,000 messages and may truncate large files.

You can send e-mails to a group of people, but I don’t think there is any personalization and you are sending to the whole group (I could not test this in the demo). It does not replace your marketing e-mail system.

HOW IT WORKS. Setup your e-mail account to leave your messages on the server or use IMAP. This allows you to use another e-mail client such as Outlook or Tunderbird to access e-mail outside the system.

You can customize the software in many ways - custom fields, reports, etc. I only did basic customization exercises for this review.

You can attach files through the contact/organization detail page and other areas. The website does not say what your storage limitations are.

You can access the system through your iPhone or any other phone that has a non-proprietary browser. The Outlook sync is still in beta, but no issues have been observed. You can sync your PDA through Outlook. =-)

Support costs extra. You can purchase a very affordable unlimited plan or pay a per call charge. Registered users can submit issues for free. The FAQ and support forums are a bit clunky as this is product is fairly new.

Sales Edition

The sales edition has supplemental features including opportunity tracking, detailed quotes, and competitor information. It uses the Franklin Covey sales methodology, but you can customize this.

You can setup automated activities to occur during the sales process. You can create a web form to capture leads.

What it doesn’t have

This system does not replace your marketing e-mail service. It does not handle subscriber opt-in, tracking or personalization of mass e-mails.

There is no project management or time tracking capability visible. You might be able to capture time using a custom field in tasks and/or appointments and create reports. Also, you can tie tasks and events to a certain opportunity for light project management.

It is not a financial system. You can keep product information in the system, but there is no shopping cart integration or COGS estimate.

NOTE: There is a professional services department which may allow you to customize the software further. CompleteXRM has project management modules in other products, you may be able to purchase this at an additional cost.

System Maturity

The system is young and reminds me more of a late-beta, rather than a production ready system. You may run into some bugs, but nothing that will bring down the system. Two bugs I ran into:

  • Yesterday I could not create recurring appointments or tasks. Today, all the functionality was there. *shrug*
  • When using the HTML editor for a journal entry, I attempted to add a picture I upload. I got an error message. This isn’t fixed today. =-)

Is the system usable? Very. It comes down to personal preference.

As I like the Covey system and have used it for many years, I am contemplating trying it out for myself. The price is very reasonable and I am willing to put up with some bugs as long as I can have them resolved for free. A great thing about new products is that customer service listens to feed back and you can have a small say in the direction of the product.

My only grip is they should include one month unlimited support to get users going on their system, especially since there are bugs.