Right on the heels of last month’s Dashboards, we’ve got a new release that gives admins incredible power to customize Insightly CRM to mirror the way your business works.

Here’s a look at the six key features in this month’s release.

System Settings Redesign

Availability: All Plans

The System Settings page is now organized into logical parent categories, such as Security, Objects and Fields, and User Interface, with child categories appearing under each one.

Settings functions are now searchable, so admins don’t have to scan the page to find what they’re looking for.

We’ve introduced sortable list views to settings such as Users and Workflow Processes, allowing admins to quickly sort lists and focus on what’s important.

Custom Fields are now live in Objects and Fields. Read on to learn why.

New Custom Field Types

Availability: All Plans

We’ve added five new custom field types available to all Insightly customers.

• Multi-Select Dropdown
  • • Select more than one option in a dropdown!
• Date Time Field
  • • Include date and time in a date field
• Percent Field
  • • Designate a field as a percentage
• Auto-Number Field
  • • Automatically generate a unique number as a record is created
• Lookup Field
  • • Link to another record within a custom field

Additionally, we’ve added decimal functionality to all number value fields.

 

Field Dependencies

Availability: Professional

Sometimes you have two dropdown fields that relate to each other, and you want to control what options are available in the second one.

To illustrate, let’s say a company sells two different models of cars (Big, Little), and two different models of trucks (Big, Little).

Without Field Dependencies, here’s how the company might define their dropdowns:

Dropdown 1 “Type”:

• Car
• Truck

Dropdown 2 “Model”:

• Little Car
• Big Car
• Little Truck
• Big Truck

This seems like an acceptable solution until we consider a company with, say, 10 categories of products, each with 20 different SKUs. In that case, Dropdown 2 would have 200 options(!), much to the frustration of anyone who has to fill out the record.

Here’s how it works with Field Dependencies.

Dropdown 1 “Type”:

• Car [selected]

Dropdown 2 “Model”:

• Little Car
• Big Car

If you’re so inclined, it’s also possible to chain together as many of these dependencies as you need.

Page Layouts

Availability: All Plans

This is the big one.

With this release, Insightly admins can use the new drag-and-drop interface to design one or more* custom Layouts for each object. Layouts affect the appearance of records when users viewed, created, or edited. This feature is extremely valuable for data security, data accuracy, and end user experience.

Functionality includes:

• Add/Remove fields from Highlights bar
• Reorder fields
• Hide or remove non–required fields from view
• Create, rename, reorder, & hide sections of custom fields
• Make any non-required field read-only
• Make any field required

*On Professional Plan

 

Layout Assignments

Availability: Professional

With this feature, you can now design functional layouts and assign them to the right user or group of users in your organization.

Insightly customers using Advanced Permissions can create up as many Page Layouts as needed. Then, these custom layouts can be assigned to Advanced Permissions profiles.

From then on, users who bear that profile will only see what they need to see: Sales reps see sales fields, Service reps see service fields. It also applies read-only and required fields settings to that user group for enhanced security and data integrity.

 

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We at Insightly are super excited for this release, and hope you are too. Give it a try and let us know what you think!

As always, we’ve got deep documentation in the Insightly Help Center to help you get started. And if you’d like a demo of any of these Professional features, someone on our Sales team would be happy to help: sales@insight.ly.

In the latest update to Insightly – customers can experience a number of enhancements aimed to help provide visualized information to make better decisions and reduce time spent on administrative activities like updating records. These improvements enable users to easily navigate through the system, add the information they need and see at a glance critical data that is most relevant to them.

Dashboards

The new release includes dynamically-rendered dashboards to enable you to see your data they way you want. With over 42 different data visualization options and a simple, drag and drop interface anyone can create a dashboard in seconds. Read more in depth on what the customization options are for building a variety of dashboards.

New bulk edit functionality

Update your CRM faster than ever before now with bulk edit functionality across every record type. You can create a list of leads, contacts, organizations and more and bulk select them all to perform a variety of actions. For example, select a batch of leads that came in from a trade show and add a “tag” for the tradeshow name: “Construction Expo.” Or perhaps you have a list of customers you called and need to update their record with a note that you’ve called them, it’s as simple as selecting all and adding a note to each record.

Recent items view

We’ve updated lists view for Leads, Contacts and Organizations to display the most recent items opened. This means easy access to the records you use most, you no longer need to search for a particular record that you frequently visit. Save time and have the customers you frequently work with at your fingertips, or leads you are currently working always on your list.

Gmail Add-on

For our G Suite users, there’s a new Gmail add-on available for your inbox. We know most folks live inside their inbox and having CRM information in your inbox can help provide context during a conversation and help save time on admin work like creating a new lead or contact in the system. With the Gmail Add-on, Insightly users can view people in a given thread, add new people to Insightly on the fly and search the CRM databases all directly from inside your Gmail.

New Recaptcha on web forms reduce dirty data

Insightly’s web-to-lead and web-to-contact forms allow you to seamlessly capture leads from your website and automatically create them in Insightly. Now with the release of reCAPTCHA, you can rest easy knowing internet bots won’t be able to send bogus information through the forms cluttering the CRM with dirty information.

New mobile app home tab

We’ve updated our CRM mobile app in the latest release to allow you to customize your first experience when using Insightly on the go. You can customize your screen with new options that include showing relevant information like Today’s Tasks, Recent Activity and Recently Viewed information so you can easily know at a glance what needs to get done, what’s going on and access important information.

Availability

These new product updates are available today across all Insightly CRM plans. If you haven’t already, in order to access the latest release be sure to update your account to the latest version by navigating to system settings and switching to the New Insightly Experience. Learn how to switch here.

At Insightly, we’re building the future of CRM. We’re completely rethinking the way we use typical CRMs to envision a future where we utilize customer data to provide views into previously inaccessible business information. We’ve added more visualizations to CRM data, giving small and midsize businesses the tools that were once reserved for larger enterprises with technical muscle.

All your CRM data front and center

Built from the ground-up on Insightly’s Customer Relationship Platform, the newly released reporting and dashboard rich analytics feature allows businesses to view critical information directly within the CRM. By building data visualization tools right into its CRM, Insightly provides a powerful out-of-the-box solution for uncovering valuable business data. Customers now have the option to place a dashboard on their home screen so key information is always front and center.

Track performance and find hidden opportunities for growth

With a single view of your CRM data, you can track team performance and quickly make decisions to make a positive impact. Insightly’s dashboard engine includes a calculation tool to crunch numbers and show metrics like “Win Rates” and “Average Sale Price” to measure performance. Plus, with better structured data in Insightly’s dashboards you’ll  uncover more opportunities for growth.

Build your own dashboards without IT help

With a simple, intuitive drag and drop interface you can create dashboards in minutes. Easily build individual cards with specific categories and values to add to any dashboard and display them in a variety of visualizations like bar charts, scatter plots, pie charts and more. Personalize the dashboard layout to your preference – resize cards and drag and drop them anywhere on screen – all without needing to be a technical whiz.

Key features include:

• Expanded Chart Types: Insightly provides +40 chart types for sales reps, business leaders and other collaborators to visualize everything from leaderboards and pipeline summaries to project updates and productivity goals

 

• Custom Field Support: In addition to a wide variety of standard business data, Insightly also supports critical custom fields in dashboard to view segmented data such as lead source, top industries, premier accounts and other criteria.

 

• Project Insights: Teams can now visualize not only sales information and  individual projects organized by status, owner or client. By flagging at-risk projects early, companies can allocate resources to ensure successful on-time completion

 

Dashboards for any role: Executives, Sales, Marketing

Whether you’re a CEO, sales leader, marketing manager or another role, Insightly’s dashboards provide insight into the overall health and trends you need to make smarter,  more informed decisions. Using data drawn from Insightly’s underlying Customer Relationship Intelligence Platform, CRM users can surface rich, customizable dashboards to display dozens of different reports filtered by role, industry, customer profile and other attributes.

Easily share key information

Your business has questions. Insightly CRM has answers. Dashboards are an effective way of organizing report information in one place for insights into key metrics at a glance. Insightly’s sleek dashboards allow companies build KPIs to view insights about their business, track important projects and share information seamlessly within their company.

 

Availability

The new customer data visualization features are available March 1st across all Insightly CRM plans.

Insightly is proud to announce the release of new version of Insightly CRM. The latest version is jam-packed with new functionality and productivity improvements across the board, many of which come directly from customer suggestions and feedback.

↑Watch/Read↓

Flexible and customizable

The new Insightly provides more control over how you see your CRM information. Any list view- customer, lead, or opportunity lists – can be completely customized. Display pertinent information that’s important to your business, show what “Industry” a lead is in or reveal customer type, like “Premium”. You have the ability sort and filter, as well as make any list private or share with your team.

Visual pipelines

Insightly revamped the way opportunities, leads and projects can be displayed with the introduction of the Kanban view. They are shown as cards along a pipeline to indicate the stage they are of the process. Simply drag and drop cards from one stage to another to update its status and kick-off next steps. A warning icon is also displayed for any card that has no future activities assigned reminding you to set up follow-up tasks to push deals or projects along.

Rich, detailed record view

When any lead, contact, opportunity or project is selected the record opens in a slide-out panel, so you can see information quickly without toggling between lists and record details. Pipeline stages are prominently displayed at the top and a summary bar provides highlight information at a glance without having to dig deeper. For example, the summary bar shows information such as opportunity value and how long it’s been in any one particular stage. You’ll be able to identify stall points and help push deals along faster.

Productivity enhancements

Notifications
With the new version, you can be notified of important activities via push notifications on your smartphone, email notifications, AND notifications directly in Insightly CRM. Any task reminders, assignments, or updated records that you follow can notify you wherever you are.

Quick search
Searches in Insightly now happen at lightning speed using ElasticSearch technology. We’ve also implemented faceted search to focus search results by type of record with any search query to find what you’re looking for quickly.

Insight cards 
Insightly now surfaces artificial intelligence based “insight cards” when we have suggestions or additional information to help you. If Insightly has detected that a lead is a duplicate, an “insight card” appears to inform you of the duplicate and allow you to consolidate them. Additionally leads, contacts, and organizations show insight cards with the local weather and time for their location, so you can genuinely talk wind, rain or shine.

Built for enterprises

Lambda Functions
Enterprise plan customers get an added extensibility option with AWS Lambda function support. Customers will be able to write and upload custom programming code that runs when data is added or changed in Insightly CRM. These functions help keep multiple systems and data in sync – like updating a marketing automation tool when an opportunity is won in Insightly. Customers can build an integration with just about any other software that has an API.

SAML-based SSO
Insightly now supports SAML Single Sign-On with tools like OneLogin, Auth0, or Okta in addition to SSO with Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365.  SAML support enables large enterprises that wish to control which users have access to different software applications, and allow them to share one Windows login password with many applications.

Browser Compatibility

Insightly recommends using the latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox for maximum compatibility. We regularly test our application with these browsers. Please note that the new version on Insightly is not compatible with Internet Explorer.

Make the switch today to experience the new Insightly CRM. Read our Help Center article for a full explanation of all the changes.

Email + CRM. Two indispensable tools for great customer relationships.

Make the two work together, and you’ve got a relationship supertool on your hands.

We’ve been hard at work on this ground-up redesign of the Insightly Add-In since the beginning of 2017. It does everything the old one did — but better. It adds a ton of new functionality, too.

What you can do with it:

• View your whole CRM within Outlook
• Save emails to Insightly with (or without!) links and attachments
• Apply Insightly email templates, scheduling, and tracking to emails sent from Outlook (Yes, seriously.)

↑Watch/Read↓

View your whole CRM within Outlook

Now, you can see everything without leaving Outlook.

Open the sidebar while viewing an email and relevant contacts show up automatically. Click through to see details, past emails, and attached files. Related Organizations, Opportunities, and Projects. Everything.

And if you’d like to see something totally unrelated, just search for it. Any record in Insightly can now be viewed within the Sidebar.

Save emails to Insightly with (or without!) links and attachments

The Insightly icon now lives at the top of every email. Use it to save emails to Insightly with a click.

Or, you can Save and Create New Lead/Contact/Organization/Opportunity/Project with a couple clicks.

Or, Save and Add Link.¹ This lets you decide who or what the email should link to, and also whether or not to save attachments. (Great for conserving storage space on your Insightly account.)

¹ Tony’s favorite

Apply Insightly email templates, scheduling, and tracking to emails sent from Outlook

This is the big one. Now, instead of sending in Outlook, you can “Send via Insightly.”

Why “Send via Insightly?”

• Automatically save a copy of the email to Insightly
• Save a copy in your Outlook “Sent” folder, too
• Add tracking technology to the email, so you can see if/when your customer opens it
• Schedule your email to be sent sometime in the future (Optional, but awesome)

Scheduling Emails⁴

Send email in the fuuuturrrree! (Up to one week.) By scheduling emails, you can batch your email work to be more productive and deliver emails when they’re most likely to get through.

⁴ Part of Insightly Plus and Professional plans.

Using Insightly Email Templates

Hopefully you already know how much time can be saved using Insightly email templates.

Now, with the Sidebar, you can insert any of those templates right into your Outlook compose window. The same applies for templates your teammates have created and shared. (Reminder: Share your templates, people!)

Can I use it?

Requirements:

• You have Outlook AND a subscription to an Office 365 business plan²
• You use Outlook in a web browser OR the Windows desktop app (2013+) OR on the Mac desktop app (2016+)
• Your email server is Microsoft Office 365³
• You do not use OWA

² If you signed up for Office 365 through a third party like GoDaddy, Microsoft may not allow you to install the Sidebar.

³ Microsoft Exchange? Unfortunately you won’t be able to “Send via Insightly,” so email scheduling and tracking won’t work. But the rest of the Sidebar will be fully functional.

How much does it cost?

It’s free! Just remember that you have daily limits on how many emails you can “Send via Insightly.” Also, email scheduling is only available to Plus & Professional accounts.

How do I get it?  

Install the Insightly Sidebar for Outlook.

If you used the old Add-In and you want to start using the new one ASAP, just turn it off and on again! Otherwise, you’ll get the new one automatically in the next day or two.

Your Thoughts?

We want to help you build better relationships with your prospects and customers. Let us know if/how the Outlook Sidebar helps you do that.

And, as always, please join our community for other product feedback and requests.

Email is a fast, efficient, and affordable way of reaching many customers and prospects. Insightly’s email templates save you time by having standardized messages ready to go with a few clicks. Combine them with workflow automation, and you’ve got a hands-off process for personalized emails and—with our recent update—custom email updates for your team members.

Email templates can now be created specifically for leads and contacts on all plans. Customers on Professional and Enterprise plans can also create them for opportunities and projects for workflow automation. This update can make your existing templates even more effective.
 

Template organization

With templates for specific record types, it’s easier than ever to create email content for your contacts that is different from emails that will go to leads. As you create a template, choose which record type it will apply to. Use the fields from that record type as you build your template, and Insightly will automatically fill in the information when you send it.

And when you use a template, you’ll see the messages that you have customized for the record type that you’re working with. Customers who once added “Contact” or “Lead” to their template names for better organization no longer need to take that extra step.

 

Automated alerts

With this change to email templates, workflow automation emails can be set up to alert your users about changes to projects and opportunities. These emails can include details from the records, so everything they need to take action is in the message. Of course, they can still access Insightly through an embedded URL that can take them right to the record.

If you had existing email templates, we categorized each one based on who it had been sent to in the past. If it was sent to contacts, it became a contact email template, and if sent to leads, it became a lead template.

And if you had templates that had been sent to both contacts and leads, we made a copy of the template for each record type. We also increased your template limit automatically in this case, so your account subscription is not affected. (However, the template statistics will only appear on one of the copies.)

With these email template updates, you can rest assured that the right message is going to the right person, every time.

We’re excited to see so many Insightly customers growing their businesses. We see more customers adding more records to manage their work every day. To better help you sort through your data and find what you need, when you need it, we’re introducing an upgrade to Insightly’s global search. We’re rolling it out to all Insightly accounts over the next few weeks.

 

Meet Quick Search

Quick Search is a major improvement to your global searches and link searches. (Record-specific searches above each list do not use Quick Search—you’ll see why later this year.)

Start typing in either search box and you’ll see that results now appear faster and with additional information. The most relevant items are listed first, and the added context will help you find the right record.

Insightly determines relevant results based on your search terms and what they match to. For example, an exact match to a contact name will rank higher than matches in notes or comments, and email addresses and URLs will rank higher when they’re matched to email or website fields.

 

Find More Without Filters

Because many customers requested it, we’ve also expanded the search to include tags and custom fields. This eliminates the need to set up a custom filter based on a single tag or field, so you can find records faster.

The new search has other tricks up its sleeve, too. You can now search by phone number, and you don’t have to worry about the format. It doesn’t matter if phone numbers are entered with hyphens or dashes or parentheses. Since Insightly will look for exact numerical matches to the numbers you enter, you won’t be overwhelmed with results when you start typing an area code.

 

Get Specific

You can also force exact text matches by using quotes. So, while typing Cabral will find all records containing that string—Cabrallo, Cabraló—a search for “Cabral” will display only the results that match the text exactly. (By the way, accented characters will not find matches.)

Up to 30 matching results will display immediately below the global search field. When you need to see more matches, press your Enter key to view a results page with up to hundreds of results. This page includes tabs for each type of record and search highlights to display what fields were found to match.

We started to roll out the search update this week, and every account will have it for global search and link search within the next month. To review our search tips, visit our Help Center.

It’s important to stay on top of changes to customer records, prospective deals, and ongoing projects you’re involved with. Managers also need to be up to date on the work their teams are doing.

Insightly’s email notifications have always let you know when a task is assigned to you or when a record you’re following is updated, but customers have asked for more choices over the types of notifications available to them. We’ve listened and added a few new options for you.

 

A Brief History of Follow & Notify

A quick review: when you’d like to know if something changes in a record, you can click the Follow button near the top of the page.

Once an item is followed, you can be notified when it is changed based on your selections on the User Settings page. The settings also include options to automatically follow some types of records based on your actions. Insightly’s new notification system now gives you more streamlined options in your user settings.

 

Trust, But Notify

It’s important to know when something new is assigned to you in Insightly, and assignments include more than tasks. You can now choose to receive notifications when leads, projects, or opportunities are assigned. In addition, we’ve simplified the options for the records you’re following, since many customers were often confused by the older settings.

 

Auto-Follow

We’ve placed the Automatically Follow settings in a separate tab to minimize confusion between these selections and the notifications. This page now includes the same granular control over different record types. Depending on your role, you may be more interested in following items you assign or items that are assigned to you. With everything broken down into these options, you can follow exactly what you need and nothing more.

 
Granular control. Options for tasks, leads, projects, and opportunities. More straightforward options. We’ve designed these changes to the Insightly notification system to send you timely updates that help you get your job done. Read more in our Help Center.

When you need to view key info when you’re on the go, your CRM app should make it easy. With the latest version of the Insightly app (version 3.18), you can now add links to your text fields and open them within the app. So, you’ll never get sidetracked by opening another app when you’re preparing for meeting with clients or customers. And, the best news of all is that these improvements are available on BOTH our iOS and Android apps. The screenshots below showcase these improvements best.

With version 3.18 of Insightly’s app, you can now:

• Rich text editing. Users can bold, italic and, more important, add links in text fields such as description.
• Sorting. Users can sort ascending or descending on a number of fields when they filter their records
• In-app browsing. Users can easily view any URL without leaving the app.
• Add and edit email tags. Users can now tag emails or edit existing email tags from the app.

If you want these improvements, make sure that you update your app to the most recent version (3.18). And, best of all, Insightly apps are completely free and available on all plans – including the free plan. You can download the iOS app here and the Android app here.

And, if you don’t have an Insightly account, sign up for a free account today!