WorkBook Reviews

We were looking for an intergrated CRM / Pipeline / Job Costing and finance system. We had conducted intensive research on the options available on the market. Our challenge was to have realtime information that allowed us to react swiftly and in an accurately informed way to work in process, not only on the external spend but the recording of time and the financial impact it was having on the project and therefore the company.

Workbook was a last minute option and we decided to have a demo in order to confirm our original choice but that demo changed our opinion and workbook proved it had arrived at a place the other systems were looking to achieve.

It is intuitive and easy to use that the key component areas of timesheets and budgets that the majority of staff use have been adopted enthusiastically. The move from our old systems hasn;t been without teething problems but customer service has been great and they have responded to all the requests and challenges we have thrown at them. There are still some challenges around certain elements in the finance section, the replacement of Sage 100 in our case, but these are now under development as thier model is to constantly seek to improve the product.

Importantly we now have the data from projects at our fingertips and this has proved invaluable and will in the long term it will have a positive financial effect on our business.

I would recommend this to any business that is fast moving, needs to record time accurately and respond to clients changes and needs quickly.

We have chosen Workbook because it is tailored to advertising agencies, and because we want to have everything in one place. My impression is that Workbook can handle close to everything, even though we only use a part of the functions. It is manageable divided into tabs, so once you become familiar with the structure, it is easy to navigate. And when you encounter challenges Workbook's efficient support department is always ready to assist and guide you through. However, it would be really great if they offered regular meetings with one of their consultants, to show the new features etc. as part of the support deal. I am sure we could get a better outcome if we got some occasionally guidance. But all in all, I can highly recommend the Workbook as a tool to manage projects and finance.

The pros for the software is that is includes both CRM, Pipeline, Finance, RM and PM modules.
The contras are unfortunately many. For everyday use and as working Tool, it is absolutely not user-friendly.
Finance people, the way they think and Work, might be useful. However, sales and project managers think and Work completely different. Therefore the current set-up of workbook is far from being the best available software on the market.
The customer service is not wokring smoothly, ( a kind of stiff - compeared to another customer service experines in business life) the ticket system is lacking the possibility of seeing WHO is included in the ticket correspondance, and also the possibility of adding/deleting participants from the list .
Because of the complexity of the software, customer customized solutions are unfortunately very limited.

We have been using the system for a couple of years now and frankly its really great in terms of capabilities and user friendly. We use it for project Management, client profitability, resource/task allocation and timesheet. I did quite a lot of research before I found Workbook and it is the best system. Workbook guys installed the system in our data center and did us an initial training then we carried on the training and implementation across the region.
The system is very stable and easy to understand, and the guys at workbook are very supportive and knowledgeable. As to Cons; I just wish they had media module.
Good Luck Guys

Having used the software over an 7 year period I believe it to be very intuitive and ever changing. It is easy for new users to get acquainted with the interface and master the basics.
Workbook fulfills all our basic need for an ERP system, and any other needs the customer support are usually able to accommodate in various custom-made reports.
There might be a lack of business intelligence, but the vast and flexible data dumps easily make up for this.

With focus on project management and related issues Workbook is perfect. With regards to finance Workbook is more than sufficient keeping the structure of advertising agencies in mind.

I am pleased to work with Workbook and I hear the same from projectmanagement. Even the production- and creative staff can use it without complaining

Quick and easy implementation
Cost effective
PC and Mac Friendly
Excellent support
Well received by every level of user

I have no "cons" with Workbook

But there is room to improve.

That the team is familiar with the infinity of options that it offers you is an impossible task, and although the consultants have been very friendly, we are not managing to integrate the tool into our daily life.

Ultimately, the software was mostly used for tracking hours on tasks and assigning them to the right client. But it could get tedious depending on how many clients you have or if a client had subproject codes which necessitated using dozens of rows to track keep track of hours and billing. However, this would be more agency and client-specific issues. As a task and hour tracker, it gets the job done.

I still see the huge potential of this tool, but am not sure when in the future we will be able to realise the true potential

We have created more efficient business processes, reduced our dependence on emails and paper, and are now able to capture time entries for everyone in our company.

In fact so simple that I begin to question my own business also is simple in the way we work/face our clients :-)

"Ease of use" rated as 3 due to a lot of new functions witch I have to be familiar with.
WorkBook 8 is browser-based and do not have the same speed/response time..It´s annoying to double-click in the fields all the time.

Customer Service is 1st class, but miss the old online WB-Support function witch have many topics as fx. "to do at year end", "Setting mileage rate" a.s.o. ...and it was written in Danish !

Having used dozens of different pieces of software, I am very grateful that I have finally found WorkBook. It is a fully integrated solution that includes CRM/Pipeline Management, Collaboration, File sharing, Client Portal, Project and Resource Management and built in Finance & Accounting module. All this in a very simple and intuitive user interface.

The key to running a successful agency is having the management information available in real time to make decisions. WorkBook achieves this brilliantly!

Right information, at your hand, enabling you to react to the good of the projects, your people and your bottom line.

Pros:
We have used 3 different PM-tools previously and about 20 trial versions of different PM-tools previously before Workbook. No other tool keeps their promise like WorkBook when it comes of being the full solution. Most other tools can't even do half of the features that WorkBook handles. They really have an extensive solution for all parts of our business; from CRM, to Cost calculations, Quotation, resource planning, time reporting, flex-hour handling to billing and accounting and analysis all in the same interface. The platform also handles global multi-regional clients and billing in a good way. A need for us since we are handling clients with multiple debtors scattered across different countries. I know no other platform which handles that without being a very expensive custom made platform. WorkBook easily handles different regions with individual currency, payment cycles and VAT rules, making a lot of the process automated. Just set up your client sub debtors and it's all there.

Cons: WorkBook is very extensive, so I would not recommend this product to smaller companies. WorkBook suits companies where there's a resource available for handling Admin / Traffic of such a tool. So if you don't have that setup, then it is not a tool for you. In other words, probably a solution for minimum 10+ employee companies.

Summary: WorkBook is the only one out there we found that handles pretty much everything you need for Admin of an enterprise and at an attractive price. But it is not for micro-companies with 3-10 employees.

Overall we are very pleased with the decision we made

We are using workbook with nearly 150 users in 10 subsidiaries. The go live was 01.01.17 with our headquarter in Germany. At the moment we are using just the scheduling functionality. The next step will be to start with the booking of the needed time. Parallel we will start the rollout in all our subsidaries.

Although the software at first side looks 'complex', after getting to know it better I do not find any other competitor in the segment of project management ERP which has the unique combination of all the project features and finance combined into an affordable cloud based offer.

Visual Garden is very satisfied with using Workbook. Having all important data in one system gives us a good workflow and overview.

Mediegruppen has been working with similar systems for 18 years. Workbook is even better, and is a mayer part of our daily work, life and succes.