.png)
7 min read
The client needed a specialist to implement email and SMS marketing for their newly established online store. The client's main goal at the beginning of the collaboration was to acquire potential customers before the store's opening.
Monika Nastalska
Email Marketing Freelancer at SoftwareSupport
5 min read
So how is Trade Nations using the integrated technology to handle all business partners, leads, communication and sales?
With the right technology set up in place, Trade Nations is ready to scale its business, run sales/marketing campaigns and communicate effectively within the team.
Setting up the proper database structure, connecting lead sources, integrating sales interactions and keeping the team notified about crucial events in a CRM system is a great first step to growing effective and quickly growing organizations and we’re looking forward to seeing it grow further with the best technology setup in place.
With the help of SoftwareSupp we were able to create a structured outbound sales process that is scalable and can be managed by our team.
Rhys Black, CEO at Trade Nations
Effect: Complete CRM system setup
Trade Nations is a business connecting exporters to the government-approved importers. So whenever you’re looking for an entity within the UK which might be interested in importing your products, instead of searching for it on your own, you can use Trade Nations to find it for you and facilitate the import/export process.
As you might think, this kind of activity requires a significant database to be stored, both on the importers’ & exporters’ side. This would not be possible without the proper technology in place, letting the business store data about the importers & exporters, also handling the requests coming from the website.
So how is Trade Nations using the integrated technology to handle all business partners, leads, communication channels and sales in one place integrated with the website system?
The first step to an effective CRM implementation is all about proper data structuring and preparation. To make sure you’re able to browse and filter through all the data stored in a CRM, you first need to think about specific attributes you’d like to use to filter out the data you actually need in your work, like industry or lead’s source.
With Trade Nations connecting exporters to importers, the first step in the structuring process was dividing the database into 3 types:
With the above structure in place, Trade Nations is able to easily identify the companies within a specific group, approaching them with targeted communication & campaigns.
What is more, Trade Nations activity is focused on connecting these 2 target groups together and assuring the import/export process quality.
Consequently, Trade Nations uses another field in a CRM, letting it display the organizations connected with specific importer/exporter account.
Trade Nations communicates with importers/exporters through 3 main channels:
As a result, tracking all the interactions with prospective customers without the proper system in place could become tiresome and likely, impossible to manage.
With the right CRM structure in place, Trade Nations is able to monitor the importers/exporters acquisition through every channel with the right source tracking. Also, it’s able to monitor the progress within each stage of the sales process based with the proper pipelines’ set-up, divided into:
Monitoring deal progress with the above structure becomes way easier and lets the team focus on the right leads progressing them to the next stage of the process.
With the CRM system integrated into mailing technology, Trade Nations is able to easily run small targeted email campaigns within a CRM system and track their results & conversion.
It can also add contacts to the selected email campaigns by adding the prospect to the selected email campaign in the CRM system.
Statistics show that contacting the lead right in the moment of lead’s activity through the call or direct message can increase your chances of success.
As a result Trade Nations uses a real-time notification system to monitor the leads’ activity on the sent email campaigns.
Also, the company’s team is notified about new leads opening the email, clicking on the email link or responding to the campaign within Slack #CRM notification channel & in Pipedrive’s sales assistant.
This helps Trade Nations react on the leads in real-time and respond directly from the CRM system, leading to growing conversion rates and more deals closed, every day.
Trade Nation’s business is focused on acquiring leads through the website and direct 1-on-1 meetings. As a result, it’s important for Trade Nations team to keep track of the leads coming from specific sources and automate CRM data upload.
To make sure it works correctly, Trade Nations implemented website and calendar integration to make sure it handles all the meetings/inbound inquiries in one place.
So how does lead integration work in practice?
Anytime a new company or person fills in the form on the website, it will be automatically displayed as a lead in a CRM, letting the team distribute the leads and handle them in one place in an organized way.
Trade Nations needs to communicate progress on particular processes with external partners. Hence, it needs to communicate some of the events happening in the CRM.
With Trade Nations team using Asana as a major project management tool, it becomes possible to share the project management boards with customers and partners.
Proper CRM & project management integration lets Trade Nations label specific organizations with the “Add to Asana” label, leading to the lead/organization shared automatically in the Asana’s board.
The label is also triggered every time a deal enters a specific stage in the sales process, notifying partners about awaiting connection.
13 min read
If you're familiar with software such as Asana, Basecamp, or Trello, you'll find it easy to use Hive. But let's see how Hive looks like, what it offers, and what you can do with all the features.
Over the last decades, productivity has been the subject of intense discussions. People have been wondering what impacts our efficiency. Bookshelves in stores are filled up with self-help literature, and the Internet deluges us with new articles on productivity. Love it or hate it but you have to admit, productivity is omnipresent. Recently, this subject has permeated to the business world to such an extent, that employers and managers try to do everything they can to improve employees' productivity. One of the ways to do so is by implementing the right software that would help optimize and automate work. The most common are tools for project and task management, communication and collaboration, and time tracking or activity monitoring. But trying to use all at once can be challenging. Controlling all the tools may be physically impossible. But using just one is not enough. So why not use all-in-one? Hive may be the right solution! What is Hive? How does it work? How can it help you grow your business? Let's check it out!
Content:
What Is Hive?
How to Use Hive?
Getting Started
Understanding Hive
1. Messaging Panel
2. Messaging Board
3. Project Panel
4. Your Board
5. Top Panel
Use Cases
Final Thoughts
Hive was founded in 2015. As every SaaS, it's been evolving ever since and Hive team works every day on the software's development.Hive is "built by the users, for the users" and it's being improved based on customer feedback and their needs. The team's goal is to "improve workplace productivity for companies of all types and sizes." Hive is a project management and collaboration software for anybody who needs a centralized workflow management system that can help them operate and understand their team and different processes that are an integral part of company's activity. The software has two pricing plans:
If you're familiar with software such as Asana, Basecamp or Trello, you'll find it easy to use Hive. But let's see how Hive looks like, what it offers and what you can do with all the features.
Setting up the account is always easy and looks almost the same for every software. In Hive, there are eight steps you need to go through:
1. In Hive, you can sign in with Google, Slack or in the traditional way by providing your first and last name, phone, email, and password.
2. Then, you create a workspace and add the name of your organization and its size - 1-10, 11-100, 100+.
3. The next step is to add example projects. You can choose from Content Calendar, New hire onboarding, Product roadmap, Agile development, Strategic plan, and Client project. You can, of course, choose as many as you want, but I think it's best to start from one or two options to get to know Hive well.
4. After that, you can choose how you'd like to message your team. You can use Hive messaging or the app you and your team are already using.
5. Create your first project
6. Write three actions that will be added to your project
7. Invite your colleagues (or do it later)
8. Connect your file storage to Hive - Google Drive, Box, Dropbox or One Drive (or you can do it later)
Now your account is ready. You can freely use Hive.
At first, Hive may seem a little complicated with all the windows, tabs, and details. But to make it easier Hive provides you with a guided checklist, "Hive mastery," to help you understand how everything works. You can follow the checklist at the start of using Hive or do it in the process; the items will check off the list automatically.Let's focus on the main view. From this level, you can access everything, which is particularly helpful if you don't like switching between all the tabs and windows. There are five joint components:
1. Messaging Panel - access to group conversations or direct messages
2. Messaging Board - for a conversation with a selected group
3. Project Panel - the overview of all the projects
4. Your Board - here you can view the project or summary view that you have chosen. You can also check out your "my actions" list that shows all the actions that are assigned to you.
5. Top Panel
All that makes Hive a compact project management software. You have access to everything in just one place without the need of switching between many different levels as it is in most of the tools of this type.So that's the general overview of Hive. It's vital that you understand it to be able to use the software to its fullest.Now, let's go through all the five components.
This panel is where you can access everything relating to messaging. It's really easy-in-use and looks like a simplified version of Slack's panel with all the groups and team members.
Here's what you can do in the Messaging Panel:
Messaging Board is connected to Messaging Panel. You can keep it visible or hide it to have more space for Project Panel (3) and Your Board (4).This board shows the private or group conversation you select. Similarly to Slack, you can add reactions to messages, share files and invite people. You can also turn notifications on/off, edit, and delete group. But the real fun is the ability to turn part of your conversation into a task with the drag-and-drop feature. Messaging Board and Messaging Panel are simple and intuitive and they help to maintain effective communication.
Now here's where all the big stuff happens. This panel gives you a detailed insight into all projects and tasks. While being able to access everything from one level is great, at first I find it quite difficult to navigate through this panel in Hive. There are so many details that I don't know what to start from.But let's try to analyze it step by step. My advice is to hide the Messaging Board and focus only on the Project Panel to get a better overview of all the projects, tasks, and features.There are four sections with different types of projects which categorize every project based on its stage:
1. Now - current project
2. Future - snoozed projects
3. Completed
4. Assigned by me - projects which you can delegate to other people
To every project, you can add as many tasks (actions) as you want. Additionally, tasks have many practical subfeatures:
These features help to take control over every detail of project and make sure there are no mistakes. Moreover, in Project Panel above the list of projects, there are four icons.
The first one is the List view which is the main view of the list by default with all your projects.
The second one is the Kanban view. And the Kanban view allows you to outline your projects in the ways as you need. It can either be super detailed with many phases or as simple as two or three phases. You can juggle it all as you want! In the Kanban view, you can filter the actions by time category - Today, This week, This month, Overdue, No due date or None.
The third icon is filtering actions by time category. And in the last one, you can sort actions by due date, priority, and last updated; group by project or none; and export to PNG. "What needs to be done?" section is a fast way of adding another action.To sum up, Project Panel is the most important part of Hive project management software. It's the main dashboard for all activities of your team where you can see everything at a glance.
This panel has three important parts.
They are visible on the white bar above the Project Panel.
The first part is Project Navigator, the place where you can easily access all your projects.
There are four categories of Projects: Active Projects, Archived Projects, Summary views, Templates.
In Project Navigator, you have a list of projects with their names and team members who participate in the projects.
You can also add people to projects, add new project, and pin or unpin it from the bar.
New project can be created from scratch or you can copy it from the existing templates. Adding new project has three steps:
1. Choosing project name, its color, dates, labels, description, attachments, parent projects, and phases
2. Set privacy: private, for specific people, for everyone in the team, or make it public to the entire organization
3. Choose project layout (this can be changed later): Status View, Team View, Calendar, Label View, Gantt View, Table View
Summary views section allows you to see actions from more than one project at the same time.The next part of Project Panel is My actions. It displays all your projects (which I described in part 4. Project Panel).Next to My actions, you have all your projects. You can quickly find them by their names and colors and add new ones. It's worth to take a look at this section. Note that if you unpinned your project from the bar, you won't be able to see or access it here.And so by accessing the project from this area, you can see everything about it, including all the previously mentioned features. You can also create custom fields as you need.
I decided to start reviewing Hive from going through each of the panels step by step. I also decided to follow their Getting Started section in "Hive help." But I don't recommend doing so as it got me more confused. What I recommend starting from is actually the Top Panel. That's because it will make it easier for you to learn some basics.So let's see why I think it's a better idea to begin your journey with Hive with this panel.First of all, if you need any help, there's the big question mark on the right top where you can find answers to your questions about the software, tips and tricks.Then, you can access the most basic settings:
There's also "files panel" where you can see all the latest files from your file storage. That's convenient if you use virtual drive. For notifications, there's a bell icon so you can be sure you're always up-to-date with all projects. The next two items allow you to invite team members and add new action for your team.
Top panel is also where the time tracker is located so you can see how much time you're spending on tasks.
Hive can substantially help any type of business. The level to which the software will impact work depends on the type of your business, how long you've been operating it and what's its level of development, number of employees, and many other factors.If you have a team that needs a unified system for managing tasks and projects, here are some examples ho Hive can help your business:
Integrations enable you to connect the software to other tools for a better experience. You can effortlessly automate work for your entire team.And if you're a fan of flexibility, use mobile app to access Hive from any place in the world.
Altogether, the five panels create a unified system which allows you to monitor your team's work in one place without the need of switching between different apps. Hive is a very condensed project management and collaboration software which allows you to access all the information about your team and their work conveniently.Hive helps to automate work and optimize processes related to communication and collaboration, task and project management.If you think about it, Hive really is a hive where all the busy bees meet to discuss their commitments, take a look at the progress of work and contribute to the creation of something meaningful. Hive is where work happens.
Compared to other project management software, Hive looks really good. It's innovative and fancy software.It might be easy to get confused at the beginning with all the elements - tabs, windows, tasks. And the deeper you dive into Hive, the more functionalities you discover. It's a good way to play with the tool before you and your team fully implement it. Create sample projects and see how everything works.
My first thought after signing up for Hive was rather negative and it seemed that there are too many elements. To fully discover everything Hive offers, I recommend going through their Help section. Not everything is clear right after you start using the app. And that is a drawback which I found quite serious. As a user, I am looking for an intuitive tool. And having access to all components in one place is a fantastic thing which makes work much easier. But... I have the feeling that Hive creators are trying too hard to include all the possible features without rethinking how it would impact user experience.For that reason I found it challenging to cover all the most important aspects of Hive. I still feel that Hive holds a lot of secrets for me to discover. But on the other hand, maybe it's a good thing!
Nevertheless, after analyzing Hive, I can honestly say that it's worth trying. It really is all-in-one project management and collaboration software. Also, it's not suitable for a single user. It's best to use it as a team to make the full use of all the possibilities it offers.To give you the final overview, here are the most important features:
Features you can expect in the future (first quarter of 2019):
13 min read
You hate statistics, graphs, and aren't good with numbers? I've got good news! There's a way to get past it with Visitor Analytics.
According to statistics, the average revenue for a small business is $3.6 million, but the average revenue for a small business with a website is $5.03 million. But there's more to it. Having a well-built and well-functioning website expands business' exposure on the market and helps to attract more clients, partners or stakeholders.
The more visible your brand is to people, the better. It's hard to find an entrepreneur or a company who doesn't have a website. Online presence boosts chances for reaching out to more people. Sometimes it's the only way for them to find you. If you're not accessible online, it's as if you didn't exist. Just think about it for a minute; if you're operating your business in the US but want to expand your activity to Europe, what's the best way to inform people about your services or product? It's to have a website that will allow you to reach out to clients even in the most remote parts of Europe.
But having a website doesn't mean that from now on you're going to be successful and your business will only grow. The secret to a successful website lies in analytics. While your products or services (and website) may be superb, you need a deeper insight into your website performance; why, how, when, how often, and where are the questions you should know answers to. And the only way to find these answers is to perform website analytics.
You hate statistics, graphs, and aren't good with numbers? I've got good news! There's a way to get past it with Visitor Analytics.
The content:
Visitor Analytics was launched in 2016 and had been developing ever since. It was created to make life easier for people who don't feel confident with tools such as Google Analytics and find them too complicated. It's an easy-to-use alternative best for "non-technical people." In fact, it doesn't matter if you're an IT expert, beginner or a non-technical person, Visitor Analytics can be helpful to anyone.
Whether you're starting your adventure with analyzing website performance or are a veteran with lots of experience in handling this type of data, it doesn't matter. It's also not important which industry you work in and what your website presents. Visitor Analytics can help you analyze its performance at every level.How exactly does Visitor Analytics work and what does it offer? What makes it so effortless in use? Let's find out!
Registering for Visitor Analytics is easy - you type your email, password, name, and name of your business/organization. You confirm the registration and voilà! you're ready to go. Then, you need to add your website's URL. Otherwise, you won't be able to get any data on your website's performance. Even if you still are afraid that you'll get lost in all the information about your website, Visitor Analytics ensures you will not by sending you via email tricks on how to read and understand any analytics tool.
The next step you're encouraged to do is to set your preferences in your account settings where you can manage and update your account information - name, passwords, websites you want to add to be analyzed, and billing information.
Also, Visitor Analytics is available in 19 languages including English, Spanish, Russian, French, German, Chinese, and others. That's a helpful addition for people who are not only non-tech-savvy but also are not good with English which is usually the primary language for most of the tools.
Additionally, for the next 30 days, you get access to all the Visitor Analytics features. And if you're not sure which plan is best for you, it's a good idea to keep using the trial version. You can always upgrade and change plans based on your website performance and features you need.
It's also essential that you add your tracking code to your website, meaning - you have to install Visitor Analytics on your website. You won't be able to analyze website performance without it. You can do it on such platforms as, Wix, WordPress, Weebly, Blogger, GoDaddy, Shopify, Google Sites, Jimdo, Joomla, BigCommerce, Squarespace, Tumblr Typo3, Volusion, and Yola.But that's a quick and easy step, and you can find out how to do that in the Help Center, where you can also find other helpful information and guidelines.These are the very basics. Now that you have your account set up, you can start analyzing website performance.
The main view of Visitor Analytics is the dashboard with an overview of all the data. You can see all the website statistics in one place. Everything is transparent and easily accessible. Here's what you can see in the overview:
1. Visitors
2. Unique visitors
3. Page Visits
4. Bounce rate
5. Conversions
6. Live visitors (with a map)
7. Top Starting Pages
8. Latest visitors
9. Visitors by country (with a map)
10. Top referrers
11. Top Visited Pages
12. Operating systems
13. Browsers
14. Display resolutions
It literary has everything you might need when it comes to statistics and analyzing your website performance. Additionally, every section has an explanation of what it is for and what data it presents. You can find it under the little ⓘ symbol in the right top corner, which can quickly and easily help you understand what each section is for. I find it extremely convenient as it helped me understand what I'm looking at.You can choose the date for which you want the tool to display statistics, ranging from Today, Last 7 days, Last 4 weeks or customize it.
The very cool and helpful thing is colors. They make it easier to analyze the stats as they show the drop (red) or rise (green) in Visitors, Unique Visitors, Page visits, Bounce rate, and Conversions. Since these are the main and usually the most crucial information, you can quickly and easily visualize it. That's the main trigger which helps you assess whether you need to take action and work on your website or leave it as it is.You can get more details for all the 14 sections by clicking "See more" button located at the bottom of each. That shows you more details in a new window.
If you want to uncover even more secrets about your website's performance, you can go to the panel which you can see on the left. There are 7 sections - Overview (which I already discussed), Visitors, Pages, Devices, Campaigns, Settings, Support. Let's check the rest of them and see what they can tell you about your visitors and your website's performance. They're extensions of what you can see in the Overview.
Here you can see everything about your visitors and find out who's visiting your website, when, and from where.
Latest visitors shows the number of people that visited your website within the date range. Here's what data Visitor Analytics provides you with:
Visitor Analytics keeps for you the history of all visitors so if you have a returning visitor; you can check their history to have even more information about them. And that includes their location, sites they visited on your website (was it main page, blog or maybe landing page?), devices, etc.
You can also export your visitors' data or visits history within the given time range as CSV or XLSX.
Then there's the Map for you to see the approximate location of visitors. (It's an inexact distance, and you won't be able to identify anyone). Traffic charts in Visitors section allow you to check all your visitors and page loads per month, weekdays and even hours.
With this feature, you know when exactly people come to your website, what are the most common hours and days for them to spend time on the site. This data is presented in the form of simple and clear graphs.
Location is another section where you can see transparent graphs depicting data on visitors locations - country and city.
Visitor Analytics records every visit on pages. And that's what you can see in this section. It has 4 subdivisions:
All that data is transparent, and you don't need any special skills to understand it. It's enough that you just take a look at it to draw valid conclusions. It's especially useful if you partner with other people, for example, influencers or professional organizations, since you can see how much traffic they bring to your website.Thanks to that section you can understand which pages are visited from each referral.
Here you can see the number of visitors based on their operating system, browser or display resolution.The display resolution statistics can be particularly helpful for website designers. It's easier for them to understand users and create a user-friendly website with better responsiveness.
If you're running URL campaigns, this section should be of interest to you. You have to know whether your campaigns are successful and bring you traffic or go unnoticed. Visitor Analytics can help you improve campaigns and learn your lesson from the data to build better campaigns.
The Overview in this section already contains valuable information:
In Campaign visitors, you can access all the data about visitors coming to your website from campaigns in the form of a table. And the table also has some interesting info - Visitor location, Source, Status, Medium, Name, Term, Visited pages, Time.
Let's say you're sending a weekly newsletter with multiple links. Campaigns help you determine which of the links lead your visitors to a particular page on your website.And so for every campaign with UTM (Urchin Tracking Module), you get all the information you need. The analytics software gathers the data and gives you the power to understand the traffic.
My campaigns section gives you the view of all your campaigns in one place.And for those who like charts, there are Campaigns' charts showing various kinds of traffic on different days and even hours.So this section allows you to understand visitors' behavior. If they're regular visitors, you can analyze their history for even more information. Even though Visitor Analytics may be for non-tech people, with all that information, you might fell like a tech expert.
Moreover, if you need to learn how to build successful URL campaign, Visitor Analytics gives you a comprehensive tutorial.
If you're worried about the data protection, you shouldn't be. Although such tools as Visitor Analytics gather valuable information, there's no chance that by using the app you will infringe any laws concerning data protection. Since the introduction of GDPR, data has become a sensitive subject and to be able to legally operate your business, you have to obey the legal rules. That includes using tools which track visitors' activity on your website.In Settings, you can access Data Protection Settings which allows you to easily view and sign the Data Processing Agreement without leaving your home or office. That's a painless and quick way to take care of data privacy and security.And there's more what you can do in this section:
Note: If you're wondering if Visitor Analytics does cross-tracking, they don't, unlike Google, for example. Hence, the possibility to obtain an IP address of your website visitors. But if your country, organization or privacy policy does not allow obtaining and storing the IP, you have the full control of data and can manage it as you need.
If you find it problematic or challenging to use Visitor Analytics, you can always contact them or use their Help Center. It's also a good idea to request for a demo if you have no idea about analyzing this type of data. When I took the tour on Visitor Analytics, I was accompanied by fantastic Corina who showed me the software step by step. :)
Visitor Analytics is friendly and easy-to-use. However, don't get deceived by its simplicity. It's a factory of valuable information which can help you grow your business. This is how you can benefit from implementing the tool:
Now that is the question! Both tools are undeniably powerful. While Google Analytics provides meticulous data with all its graphs and numbers, I don't think Visitor Analytics is any worse.If you want to get a general oversight on your website's performance, you should definitely choose Visitor Analytics. But if you need extra detailed data divided into as many categories as possible, I'd go for Google Analytics. Also, it might be better for people who work with optimizing websites, campaigns, and content on a daily basis.Otherwise, implementing such a complex tool as Google Analytics may bring more confusion than resolve doubts. What's more, you can think about Visitor Analytics as an introduction to more advanced apps and use it to learn how analytics work.
I think Visitor Analytics is great software. And no matter how hard I keep looking for drawbacks, I can't find any. I personally find the tool intuitive, effective, and helpful. Not only does it help to understand visitors' behavior but also optimize a website, personalize products, and learn what to do to permeate the Internet so that more people can find you.
However, this software may not be best for large companies who have complex websites. I think it's best for small businesses, startups, and freelancers.But there's more to come and if Visitor Analytics keeps evolving, it might even become better than Google Analytics. Here's what you can expect in the nearest future:
To give you the final overview, here are the most important features:
9 min read
On ActivTrak website you can read that "ActivTrak’s invisible Agent tracks and measures work activity without relying on human input. In other words, it's an employee monitoring software.
Ronald Coase, the British-born American economist awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1991, once said "Torture the data, and it will confess to anything." Indeed, data can be a rich source of information. No wonder people like to gather it and analyze. Especially in today's world, where managers want to capture every part of work in the form of data. But on the other hand, it all contributes to the information noise. That's why it's important to filter out only what really matters. And what is the best way to do that if not use special software?
The SaaS market is filled with various tools for employee monitoring. Not only are they used to monitor work, but most of all, to collect data. Time tracking software, project management software, collaboration software are just a few of their official names under which they are commonly known.
And it's not that easy to select the one and only software when there are hundreds if not thousands to choose from. Going through extensive lists of features and tutorials of each tool to see how they work is too time-consuming and may bring up more questions than resolve doubts.So this time, to help you better understand one of the many tools, I will analyze ActivTrak. I'll see what it is, how it works, what it has to offer and how it can improve your work.
On ActivTrak website you can read that "ActivTrak’s invisible Agent tracks and measures work activity without relying on human input. This unbiased dataset includes usernames, application title bars, website URLs, activity duration, screenshots, idle time, and USB activity." In other words, it's an employee monitoring software.
Signing up for ActivTrak is completely free. Even with the free plan, you can have a deep insight into employees work. But for more advanced features such as unlimited data storage, exporting all reports and screenshots, localized data center, and many others, it's best to upgrade to Advanced plan which starts from $7.20 per user / per month.ActivTrak started as a LAN-based product but over time it largely expanded and currently is used by thousands of customers. The team's office is based in Dallas, TX, USA and that's where the software comes from.
To fully see how ActivTrak works, you need to sign up. That's a piece of cake, you only have to enter your email address, create the password and voila! your account is ready. Once you sign up, you can invite your team or do it later. It's best to do it after you get to know the software. But to be able to fully use it, you need to download ActivTrak Agent (available for any desktop operating system). It's necessary for collecting the data.
ActivTrak Agent works completely in the background. After installing it on your computer, it immediately starts collecting data on your activity and shows it on the dashboard, which is divided into 11 sections:
1. Quick stats
2. Real-time
3. Productivity
4. Top users
5. Recent screenshots
6. Top applications
7. Top sites
8. Top categories
9. Pending categorization
9. Top groups
10. Top alarm risk scores
This allows you to have a general overview of all the data. You can see information for different users and different periods of time (days, weeks, months, years). But I have to admit, I'm impressed with all the numbers and information I can see. And everything just in one place. The software shows literally everything that happens on the computer during work.If you want to see more details, you can access left sidebar with more options. It has 10 icons, but I'll go through nine of them as these are the most important.
That's the main view that you will see after signing in to your account. And here you can see all the 11 above mentioned sections. It's a quick way to have a glance at all the most important data. But now, to see more detailed reports, you can choose other sections in the sidebar.
This section simply shows all activities happening in the real time. You can choose the user and see what they're doing at the moment as well as take a look at everything they did before. It's an activity log with information such as the type of activity (productive or nonproductive), screenshots, data, time, computer, user, duration of activity, application, and title/description. Quite detailed information about employees' activity, isn't it?
Here you can see all the data on activities for days, weeks, months, years or custom time, and users. Similarly to "Real-time" section, it shows the type of activity (productive or nonproductive), screenshots, data, time, computer, user, duration of activity, application, website. Additionally, you can export reports to CSV file or save them to Google Drive. It's particularly useful if you need to share that data with stakeholders, customers, team members or people who don't have access to the software.But there is one more important feature - alarm. You can create an alarm which will be triggered when new entries to the Activity Log match the conditions set by you in the alarm's settings. If you suspect someone at your organization to act against the law and you know they threaten your business, it's a great way to catch them red-handed!There is also risk report, alarm log, and data access by the use of SQL. Everything that's necessary for effective employee monitoring.
Screenshots in ActivTrak are basically reports in the visual form. They include all the information on your or employees activities.That allows you to precisely see what you were doing when and for how long. It's useful in improving productivity. The view of too many screenshots of Facebook in your work time will definitely motivate you to work better.You can also configure screenshot alarm as needed.
"Blocking" is simple, it allows you to block certain websites so that you or members of your team cannot access them.
In this section, you can configure alarms. If you add a website to an alarm, ActivTrak will inform you about the activity, so you can monitor a team member who visits the site. You can also get a notification whenever someone inserts a USB (but you have to adjust settings to be able to get that type of alarm).
As in all other apps, you can also adjust preferences in ActivTrak when it comes to details in reports. And there are several things you can do:
Here you can adjust settings such as who is an admin, change profile information, add ChromeBook users, access Security Audit log information - a centralized stream of every setting changed in the dashboard by an ActivTrak administrator or user, and access invoices.
It's quite important to mention this section. Why? Because there's nothing wrong with asking for help when you have a problem, don't know how a certain feature works or if you have other questions. That's what help is for.Here, you will find interesting resources, helpful information, FAQ, you can create a ticket or even submit feedback.And that's all, folks. That's what ActivTrak looks like. Now you can go back to my data and analyze it.
ActivTrak seems to be a simple employee monitoring software but it's actually a powerful system for gathering and collecting data. With all its features it's a valuable source of information.
ActivTrak is a software suitable for individuals and teams. It doesn't matter which industry you work in, as long as you need data to improve your results and make sure the right processes take place in your organization, this solution will fit your needs.But keep in mind that it's not only about data. It's about understanding how work gets done, what are your and your team's behaviors, and how processes look like. The software allows you to see a bigger picture of what's going on in the organization, monitor employee performance and track and measure productivity.
Here are some use cases that will help you determine whether ActivTrak is the right software for you:
ActivTrak is a tool that everyone can use to work better and get the most out of every minute.
I personally think that ActivTrak is a great software. After just an hour of using the app, I was able to get detailed data about my activity. It gives me a clear picture of everything I do.
I can use it to analyze literally everything that's happening during my work and find the cause of problems with work. I can even get to such details as what was the weather at my most unproductive day and realize that I had a big headache that day due to the changes of the atmospheric pressure, and I was simply not able to work effectively! (Yes, that's what you can find out!).
If used in a smart way, the software can help enhance work not only of entire organizations but also of individuals. Also, if you use it with other tools, you can turn into productivity superhero.
It's also worth mentioning that ActivTrak keeps all the data secure and guarantees an obstruction from cybercrime that your business can be exposed to if you're working with sensitive or extremely confidential data.
Pros:
Cons:
7 min read
What is Hostinger? The platform was established in 2004 in Lithuania and it gradually expanded to the entire world and today has over 29 million users from 178 countries. It is a web hosting provider.
Note: Hostinger Website Builder is still in beta, meaning you might encounter some minor technical issues from time to time. In our case it did not have a significant impact on user/website building experience.
Without a doubt, you have already noticed that the SaaS market is filled with various tools and apps which are there to help us with our work. They can be divided into different groups and one of them includes software which is useful in promoting our business and services. And these are website builder software. Their help is invaluable since they're available for everyone – large and small organizations, freelancers, individuals. And it doesn't matter which industry you work in, there are no limits!
Website builder software is like a technological revelation of contemporary times - it enables even the quietest minds to be heard in the world overfilled with loud voices who want to promote themselves in as many ways as possible. Hence, if used smartly, website builders are a fantastic marketing tool easily accessible to everyone.
If you have an idea or a service which you want to share with the world, you can use Hostinger – SaaS website builder. Let’s see what exactly Hostinger is, what it offers, and how you can use it to grow your business. Follow me to uncover all its secrets!
Let's begin with the basics. What is Hostinger? The platform was established in 2004 in Lithuania and it gradually expanded to the entire world and today has over 29 million users from 178 countries. It is a web hosting provider. As simple as that.
How can you use it?
Hostinger offers three variants:
Hostinger also allows you to register your domain. And, obviously, the website builder which Hostinger offers can be used only with the first variant, web hosting.
Who is it for? Literally for everyone. It doesn't matter whether you're an experienced IT developer or a person who's never had any contact with code.
However, I'll focus on the first variant – the web hosting. So if you don't have much knowledge on creating websites and are looking for a simple solution, that's the one you should go for.
Alright, let's do this, let's make your website real! I'll walk you step by step and show you how to use Hostinger's website builder.
First of all, you have to sign up and choose your web hosting plan. It's quite cheap – from 0.80 to 7.95 $ per month. It's best to choose Premium or Business hosting plans since they include personal free domains.
Now, when you have signed up and have created your account, in the main dashboard you can manage your domain or upgrade your account to cloud hosting or VPS hosting. It all depends on your needs. But it's good to know that in case you need higher performance and more advanced tools, you can always switch to other variants. But I'll stick to the simple web hosting.
Also, from the dashboard level, you can manage your account and all other settings. So these are the basics, let's get right to creating a new website!
I want to create a simple, modern website that would attract potential clients. And what most people look for in website builders is intuitiveness and user-friendliness.I'm getting right to the builder to find out what I can do with it. In Hostinger website builder you use Zyro - a tool for creating simple websites available in Hostinger by default.
At first glance, it looks pretty cool. You can choose from almost 200 templates, either by category or your personal preference. There's also a feature of uploading your own template.
You can then adjust the templates however you like. A very convenient is the drag-and-drop feature. You can easily place anything anywhere you want without a problem, add text, buttons, pictures, gallery, menu, languages, blocks, social media buttons, Google Maps, add your own HTML code, and many more.
Be careful though, once you change your template, all the information you've already entered into your previous template will be gone! Since people will access the website from all devices, you can see how it will look like on four types of them, wide, desktop (laptop), tablet, and phone. It will help you avoid common layout issues like disappearing or overlapping text.
Then, of course, you can manage all the sections, like about me, services, etc. Add, remove, and rearrange them as you wish.
In the general settings of the template, beside section and layout management, you can handle SEO, styles or background.Next is the Auto Installer - you can access it from the Hosting level. It allows you to install different tools, Community Building, CMS, Miscellaneous, Surveys and Statistics, E-Commerce And Business, Photos And Files. They are to make your website more professional and more friendly to your audience.
If you want to add an e-mail account, you can generate one based on your website name.That's how you can build your website in Hostinger in the easiest way.
Since Hostinger doesn't provide connection with external tools (apart from the integration with some of the payment systems), using the software itself may not be enough, especially if you'd like to have some additional features on your website.
If you're more demanding, you can use Joomla or Wordpress, the most popular and commonly used CMSs. As I mentioned before, these can be found in Auto Installer.
Using one of these Content Management Systems will give you much bigger possibilities. You will be able to make your website fancy and adjust it to your preferences so that it is perfect to you.
It's definitely a good idea to use Hostinger as a tool for promoting your website. However, limiting yourself to only one app is not the best idea. To get the most out of it you should combine web hosting with other CMS tools.
There are things which you will not know right away when you begin your journey with Hostinger. And if you have any problems or don't know how to exactly use Hostinger website builder, you can access their knowledge base, reach out to the support team, or just google your problem.
Your website will not be added to search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing automatically. You have to do it by yourself, manually. For website builder newbies this may be a bit problematic.
PRO TIP: It's worth to go through Hostinger's knowledge base to see some of the most common problems people have. It'll help you decide whether it's a good tool for you or it's best if you stay away from it.This website builder has its pros and cons but it's definitely worth a try.
Hostinger website builder pros:
Hostinger website builder cons:
Perhaps users who have never had to do anything with website builders will find Hostinger useful. It's a good tool for a simple website, particularly for individuals or small businesses.
More ambitious and demanding users, however, should gain some knowledge before they start using the software.
Note that it's not an educational platform that'll lead you through the process of setting up your website, it's simply a service.
After doing the research, I think it's worth trying. Yet if you're not willing to sink deeper into Hostinger's features, you may want to look for an easier solution.
5 min read
3 best live chat solutions for WIX and how to install them on your website.
If you are running your website on WIX, you should know that you can actually use any live chat solution. For example, if you want to use Smartsupp, which we have reviewed this week, you just have to:1) Copy the Smartsupp code2) Add an HTML code block to your WIX website3) Paste the Smartsupp code4) Pin it to the right bottom corner of the screen5) Set the horizontal and vertical offset depending on your needs6) Set the option to show it on all pagesAnd there you go, the live chat is available on all of your subpages.
So does it mean any live chat solution may be good for your website? Definitely not. The problem is that even though you can easily put any live chat to work with WIX, there are some bugs and issues if WIX does not provide a special integration. So e.g. the HTML window you use to set up chat on your web page takes a lot of space, even if you don’t have a chat window opened. What does it mean? It means that if something is located behind your HTML window, the user won’t be able to click it which is unacceptable if you want your website to look professional.WIX integrates natively with numerous other applications. This is why we present you the ranking of the 3 best live chat solutions which are best integrated with WIX so they provide a special plugin you can install directly on your WIX website.
Formilla offers a live chat integrated into WIX system with the basic free version for one-person teams. How does the integration works?After you create the account, in your WIX editor, you just go to the apps market and add Formilla application to your website. Then, a chat window is added to your page and all you need to do is connect it with your Formilla account through settings. You also get access to the quite extensive customization options in a WIX panel, so you can personalize the fonts as well as colors of your chat window.
Formilla live chat is rather basic but user-friendly live chat solution offering all the most important functions but not going into any advanced features. Apart from chatting with your visitors, you can create pre-chat forms, set basic auto responses and get the basic up to date information about the visitors currently browsing through your website. The reporting functionality is very limited with only basic statistics available so don’t count on any heavy data to optimize the work of your agents. You can also chat with your visitors on the go thanks to the Android and iOS applications. For a premium price starting at $11.99 per agent per month, it is definitely not the best live chat in terms of value-for-money but if you’re looking for a live chat well integrated with your WIX website, it might be worth considering.
LiveChat is another quite popular live chat solution which integrates seamlessly with WIX. As with Formilla, you only need to select the plugin on your website and connect it to created LiveChat account. Unfortunately, LiveChat provides only very basic settings within WIX platform so if you want to customize it in detail, you have to do it within the operator’s web platform.
This chat solution is known especially for its user-friendliness as its interface is just extremely easy to use, with the built-in tutorial guiding you through each step of the installation and handling process. LiveChat comes in especially handy for e-commerce owners with implemented solutions like ticketing system which might help you handle multiple customer cases. It also provides you wide variety of options to track the impact of your chat conversations on realizing e-commerce goals.with $19 per month per agent which is quite expensive comparing to any other software .In the link, you can find our Full Detailed Review of LiveChat software.
Tidio Chat is the solution which is just perfect if you are looking for a live chat for your WIX website. It offers a free version for up to 3 operators, has a modern look and probably offers all the functionality you need.The installation is simple as always, you install the application from a WIX app market, and you’re ready to use the chat. But what’s great about Tidio Chat is that you get numerous options to customize your chat within WIX, so you don’t have to go to the Tidio’s dashboard so often to change any outlook like layout, colors or chat’s content. You can even enable and disable pre-chat survey directly from WIX panel.
Tidio Chat is an extremely comprehensive app for the price it offers. Apart from the free version which still has a decent functionality, the premium plan starts at $15 per month for each additional function plan meaning additional chat functions like setting opening hours or automation function, which is really well-designed when compared to other live chat solutions. It allows you to easily create events and triggers depending on your visitor’s activity on your website. So for example, if your visitor starts exiting your website, you can quickly send him a message if you can answer any question for him about the pricing. This is quite handy, especially for e-commerce owners as you can proactively react to the potential customers abandoning your website.
Another live chat solution which offers similar functionality is UserEngage.
Tidio gives you a whole set of functionality for free, e.g. you can collect feedback from your customers, share files with your visitors or easily switch between chat and e-mail messages if you happen to obtain your visitor’s e-mail. It might be quite useful that Tidio Chat integrates with your Facebook fan page, so you can handle any of your customer’s requests sent with Messenger, through Tidio platform. The platform comes in handy for beginning users and allows for a deep customization of your chat window which will look great on any modern WIX website. Summing up, Tidio is a perfect choice for those of you running a website or e-commerce store on WIX.
.png)
