Claromentis

Pros

We use Claromentis as our central communication and collaboration tool to allow our employees from across the country, both office-based and remote workers, to remain in contact on the go. It enables us to communicate key company announcements to everyone, in the same way, at the same time and it allows us to collaborate on projects seamlessly, remaining in contact with one another where ever we are. Claromentis centralises everything we do as a business, from helping us manage key processes, organise and monitor our company documents and policies to allowing us to share news, announcements and collaborate on projects. The possibilities within Claromentis are truly endless, allowing you to build a unique digital workspace which fits your businesses needs perfectly; the scope of different features it offers is fantastic. We have been using Claromentis for six months and have already seen the great impact it has had on our operations, and we still have areas to uncover!

Cons

For us, inter-app alerts are difficult to follow. There are so many moving parts to Claromentis and the @mention feature works great in some areas, but not in others; it doesn't always trigger a notification to the mentioned individual. This makes it difficult to keep on track of communication happening within the different apps which make up Claromentis. There is also not currently a desktop or tablet app, which if available would bring the digital workspace into its own and separate it from a web application. However, those things being said, the pros and the benefits Claromentis has brought to our organisation and the way we work speak volumes and far outweigh the cons, which hopefully in time will no longer exist.

Pros

What we liked most about this software was the ease **and the speed** with which we were able to implement it and get our first workflows online. Because the Claromentis team is set to work closely with a customer in getting their server (we use the on-premise option) up and running, and also carefully train the customer in the use of the different features (we use InfoCapture in particular), they ensure that a customer quickly becomes a success story.

Cons

If we could add anything here would be only the lack of a intelligible output for the infocapture workflow rules. I'm sure at some point the team will add a visualization tool that would allow non-technical users to understand the currently workflows on an infocapture project. The current interface however is very easy to use for system administrators.

Pros

The intranet looks great and has a lot of features right out of the box. No modules and features that cost extra money. Whether hosted or with an in-house server, the cost is very reasonable. A lot of other companies like to nickle and dime you for every little feature and we love that Claromentis is no nonsense when it comes to their pricing.

The permission controls are very granular and with a clear company structure, each user's experience could be tailored specifically to them. These features just get better and better too with each update. The updates are not too frequent, but they always bring noticeable changes at no extra charge (hosted platform).

The support is very helpful, usually responding to issues or changes within 24 hours (emergencies even faster).

As far as down-time goes, we have experienced none (other than for updates) with the hosted platform and I can't explain how nice it is not to have to worry about that.

Their e-learning module is great and has significantly helped to streamline our training. New employees can be hired and their new hire training immediately sent to them as soon as they log into the intranet, no manager intervention required.

The Infocapture module is great for getting rid of complicated Excel sheets that are emailed back and forth.

Overall, it's an amazing product at a reasonable price!

Cons

First off I'd like to say these aren't necessarily cons, just things that could make the platform even greater than it already is.

Sometimes it can be difficult to navigate through all the different features, but that can be managed by turning off the things your company won't be using.

Some admin features you think would all be in one place, are scattered around in a couple different areas which can cause confusion. Some examples would be settings or permissions on an e-learning course that are not editable from the admin panel. I sometimes find myself clicking to the admin panel out of habit, only to realize the settings that I want to change are within the course itself.

No IP-Whitelisting control features. If there was a way to create lists of IP's (and a section for IP's not listed) and assign modules or users to the various lists in the admin panel, it would be awesome. This would allow for greater control over what the users have access to at different locations. Think full access while on-site at work, and only schedules while at home.

Infocapture (their form system) is lacking some features that could be nice, such as being able to compare multiple entries, or set global calculations that would take into account specific entries. Think if a store entered their sales numbers every day, could we see what their average or max sales numbers were. Currently you can not.

Pros

The flexibility of the tool is probably its greatest asset. It comes with many great apps (calendar, events, news, blogs, documents, microblogging tool etc.) that you combine during the development phase of your intranet to design the product and UI that will best serve your needs. The layout is really customisable and the designers' team will support you to elaborate a usable homepage which is also visually appealing. The possibility to embed, in different pages or sections, components that are dynamically synchronised with the main apps (calendar, events, news, blogs etc.) allows you to share information in the most appropriate ways with various departments or groups of users, while avoiding multiple posting. The Claromentis team has also been very effective with the custom development we requested, explaining the pros and the cons of each decision and identifying workaround solutions at minimal cost, always in the respect of established deadlines. The support team is really responsive and supportive too.

Cons

Because we requested a high level of customisation, future system upgrades may be more difficult and require more testing. Sometimes I wish also there were less apps, but the functionalities of the core apps would be pushed even further (although the notion of "core apps" is subjective and probably depends on the client's needs)

Pros

Without doubt, the breadth and extensibility of the software is the main thing that has kept us as a customer for over a decade.

As such long time users, the software is created in a way which allows us to customise the solution as our businesses have evolved. This is critical for our users to ensure they don't suffer from change fatigue.

While the system has 100's of features, the three stand our applications from our point of view are the:

1. Electronic forms and business process module; the
2. Document management module; and the
3. Social enterprise and user engagement module.

On top of all this, the support is second to none. As we work across multiple time zones, this is an important element, and something that Claromentis recognises and works with us on.

Cons

Main challenge for us is more of an internal one. Because the software is capable of so much, managing user expectations (including dealing with scope creep) has meant that some mini-projects have not taken off.

This is by no means a reflection on the software, which has always delivered what we've asked for.