GoldMine Business Contact Manager (5-User Pack)

Rating:
Summary: Frontrange doesn't care about making bug-free software
Review: I have well documented our nightmares with GoldMine 5.5 in my review for that product. After I was promised great things by Frontrange customer support, I received a full-featured demo CD of GoldMine 5.7 to try. Regretfully, none of the functionality and stability issues have been addressed in the new version. I have mentioned the following points in my review of GoldMine 5.5 and I repeat them here because the problems STILL remain!!!

1. It does not want to start up because it cannot find the "license.dbf" file! You have to hit browse and point it to the directory where GoldMine is installed. I made numerous calls to their tech support and they admitted they didn't have any clue as to what could be causing this! They suggested some changes including reinstalling and even installing GoldMine twice which really messed up my registry keys. And this happens with ALL our users!

2. It DOES NOT work with MS Office 2000 or XP/2002!! It is the most bogus claim. Allow me to elaborate: The link with MS Word is shaky at best. And that is when it gets past Norton Antivirus. For some reason, the macro that their GMLINK.DOT file uses is detected as a virus by almost any antivirus software. Even when I get it working by including it in the exception list, it crashes MS Office. I have even had to clean out GoldMine and uninstall and reinstall Office because of this wonderful link! Now about Outlook - It only works with Outlook if you are careful about what settings you choose. Otherwise it will crash GoldMine! And if you receive a message with an attachment, it does not transfer the attachment to GoldMine as promised. For example, if you received a file from a client, you have to find alternate ways to tag the file with that record.

3. This would beg the question - Why not dump Outlook and use GoldMine for all email purposes? Well, there's the issue of a VERY bad interface. The email interface in Netscape 1.0 was better than the one they have in GoldMine! Since version 5.5, some of the promised features actually work but its still prehistoric in its look. Even bad email clients like Eudora Pro have a better interface.

4. There is a whole slew of annoyances that makes you tear you hair out like you cannot have personal contacts like you can in Outlook. Calendar items when marked "finished" by you disappear. So if you went back to yesterday's tasks and checked to see what you did, its blank! If you have a Home Address for someone good luck entering that! Of course, you can configure GoldMine for that but why do I have to go to such lengths for obvious functionalities?

After our harrowing experience, despite high ratings from ZDnet labs, we have switched back to Outlook 2002 and are considering using Oracle Small Busines Suite instead. I am seriously begining to doubt the testing process of ZDNet since they seems to have gone with what the product promised rather than check the veracity of their claims.

Hope this helps someone avoid the frustations we had to face.

Rating:
Summary: GoldMine is Great Bang for the $$ if installed properly
Review: I must disagree with the 1 star product rating given by the man from New York. GoldMine does work very well for small to very large businesses IF properly installed by a GoldMine Partner. Many of the failed installations my company fixes are due to poor "self-installs" by customers. For a network install this is not an "out of the box" solution and planning, proper implementation AND training are keys to successful use. Partners go through extensive product certifications for a reason, to know the product and install it properly.

Rating:
Summary: GoldMine is Great Bang for the $$ if installed properly
Review: I must disagree with the 1 star product rating given by the man from New York. GoldMine does work very well for small to very large businesses IF properly installed by a GoldMine Partner. Many of the failed installations my company fixes are due to poor "self-installs" by customers. For a network install this is not an "out of the box" solution and planning, proper implementation AND training are keys to successful use. Partners go through extensive product certifications for a reason, to know the product and install it properly.

Rating:
Summary: Goldmine 5.5
Review: I wanted to present an example of success with Goldmine, since one of the reviews reflects an unfortunate experience with the software. Our experience has been good.

I would say Goldmine is a product rich with features, but with a rather quirky interface, probably reflecting its long history from a simpler contact manager.

We moved from Outlook to Goldmine for our email, and a home grown application for customer relationship management. The major benefit is a single interface for all client communication. The email client is not as strong as Outlook, but the templates work nicely and it all integrates into the customer database. Personally I wouldn't try and use Outlook at the same time as Goldmine, although there is a certain level of integration.

Replication is a nice feature and works very well, once you have mastered how to get started. Integration with Word 2000 works fine for us.

There are all sorts of features we haven't used, but are now starting to investigate - e.g. agents to automate processes, project management etc.

Goldmine's user interface could be improved, but for a small business it is an excellent solution for managing communications with clients and for us has been very good value.