Now that we’re well into the new year, it’s a good time to think about how you’re using your CRM. Are you making use of all the integrations that help streamline your workflow? Or, are you missing out on their full potential? Take a look at these valuable integration options so you can make the most of your software and watch your business grow.
Office 365
Microsoft Office 365 is the cloud version of the Office programs, available for a monthly fee. Documents can be stored on your local machine, or in the cloud, allowing you to work anytime, anywhere, on any device, including tablets and smartphones. Plans start at $10/month, ($8.25/month for annual commitments) and include: Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and OneNote. PC users can also get Access and Publisher. Integrations with your CRM allow you to include documents in projects and share with other members of your team.
Because not every business uses Office 365, most CRMs, including Insightly also provide integrations with GSuite; the GDrive Apps that you can access for free, like Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Forms.
OneDrive
Microsoft OneDrive is included as part of the Office 365 experience. It’s a file sharing platform that makes it easy to share large files with one or more people. With this integration, you can automatically store project files in the cloud, and have them shared with anyone who’s on the project. It’s worth noting Insightly also integrates with Box and Dropbox, two other widely cloud storage platforms. This way, no matter which one you choose to use in your business, you’ve got an integration that will make your life easier.
Zapier
If you’ve got a paid Zapier account – plans start at $20/month – then you can create a lot of your own integrations and build workflow automations to increase efficiency and save time. Because Zapier works with more than 500 apps, you can force any number of integrations that aren’t directly available through your CRM provider.
Send your Gravity Forms contacts to Insightly, or create new contacts from new Gmail emails. Create Trello cards from new tasks. Create new opportunities from your email subscribers. Using Zapier, you’ll never have to worry about manually importing or exporting contacts, opportunities, or tasks again. Your zaps can be up and running in seconds, and save you countless hours over the course of a year.
Quickbooks Online
Unless you’re a professional bookkeeper or accountant, you know what a hassle it can be to track business income and expenses. Once you integrate the two platforms, you can view records and copy information between the two systems. You can link your Quickbooks information to organizations, projects, opportunities, or contacts. It helps you keep track of which contacts are bringing in the most money, and which ones are costing you the most money.
Hubstaff
If you need to track time spent working on a project – either on a project by project basis, or for hourly tracking – Hubstaff makes it easy. You can automatically track time on each task, assign priorities to users in your CRM, and push those to user desktops. You can see screenshots of what members are working on, ensuring they’re staying on task, and get in-depth reports of time spent on tasks.
MailChimp
MailChimp is an email marketing software that grows with your business. It’s free for up to 2,000 subscribers. This integration allows you to export leads and contacts from your CRM to your MailChimp lists, and import your subscribers as contacts. You can view campaign statistics, and update member information with your CRM data during export.
Microsoft Flow
Microsoft Flow is another task automation option. At this time, there are just over 100 apps that can be connected to automate processes and tasks, including Basecamp, Dropbox, Chatter, OneDrive, MailChimp, and many more applications you use.
The more integrations you can use with your CRM, the more efficient your workflow can become. Yes, it will take some time to set everything up the way that makes the most sense for your organization, but once that initial setup is done, it will make operations a breeze.
At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about all of Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.
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