CentraView Review, Part IV

(In Part III I discussed CentraView's calendar module, which I found to be only adequate, due to shortcomings in design, features, and ease of use.)

The activities module is just as detailed and powerful as the contacts module, though it contains a few bugs, and is not quite as easy to use.

Activities Module

CentraView’s activity front page shows a list of completed and pending activities that can be sorted in a variety of different ways, or searched according to various criteria and conditions.  There are six different types of activities: appointments, calls, meetings, to-do’s, next actions, and tasks.  This module also handles literature requests and opportunities, two activities that are also included in the sales and marketing modules and which will be discussed in the next part of the review.

When scheduling a new activity, the user is presented with a wealth of fields and options.  Each activity can be designated as private or public, can have three different priority levels assigned to it, and it can be linked to specific entities, contacts, projects, and opportunities.  In addition, when scheduling an activity, the user can e-mail invitations to other users or contacts, he can reserve user-defined company resources (meeting rooms or projectors, for example), he can attach files to the scheduled activity, and he can schedule the activity as a regular recurrence.  The ability to authorize other users see your own list of activities and let them schedule new ones for you through the “task” feature is also an excellent idea.

Figure 1: Creating a New Activity

The activities module is almost as powerful and well designed as the contacts module, the amount of info and options available when scheduling a new activity is impressive, while at the same time the system does not feel overly complicated.  The search feature is also powerful but easy to use, and being able to save a search is a nice touch.  The same can be said of customizing the activities list view, there are 13 different fields that can be displayed and used to sort the list, and once a user selects the fields that he wants to use, he can save them under a view name.  For example, a user can select only the activity title, start and end dates to be displayed, and call this view “basic info.”

There are a few minor negatives in this module.  For example, there is an activity reminder feature (kind of like an alarm-clock that should pop-up a certain amount of time before the activity is set to begin), but it does not work simply because the “save” button for it does not work.  The system used for setting the time and date for the activities’ start and end time is tricky to use, particularly when one tries to make a recurring activity.  Also, some of the activity types seem to be redundant, for example I can’t figure out what is the difference between “meetings,” “appointments,” and “next actions,” which are all also fairly similar to “to-do’s,” except that “to-do’s” do not appear directly on the calendar but to the right of it in the “non-calendar activities” section.  Overall, this module is very good but it lacks the finish and polish of CentraView’s “contacts” section.

But the main thing that holds this module back is its necessary relation with CentraView’s average calendar module.  Most notably, the majority of users check their activities through the calendar, and while each scheduled activity can hold a wealth of information, only the most basic facts are displayed on the calendar.  Problems with actually putting new activities down on the calendar (discussed in Part III) also affect the activities module.

In part V I will look at the sales and marketing modules.