Businesses start to feel the benefit of software such as Agilebase when all the departments and tools connect, says Richard Wilson, an independent IT consultant.
“No business is ‘off the shelf. If it was, it wouldn’t have a competitive edge.”
For Richard Wilson, an independent IT consultant who regularly recommends Agilebase to his clients, any CRM software must take account of business diversity.
“All firms need to find software tools that better fit how they work,” said Richard, 49. Businesses start to feel the benefit of software such as Agilebase when all the departments and tools connect. “Once you can build off work others have done, you can multiply your effectiveness,”he said.
PostgreSQL is the difference between Agilebase and other no-code CRM platforms
“Say you’ve got a small problem you need to get fixed,” said Richard. “It is like getting your Customer Relationship Management system integrated with a piece of software such as DocuSign. That problem is isolated from the rest of the business.”
“It’s a small, bespoke problem. With other no-code software on the market, you could do an excellent job of solving that first problem. But pretty soon, you may encounter another related problem. The first problem you thought was that everything has expanded. The problem connects to something else. With many no-code software tackling the related problem gets more challenging. In that situation, you start feeling stuck in a small box.
“Agilebase is different. You are not limited”, said Richard. “Everything is connected.”
There is a reason for this difference. Agilebase harnesses the power of PostgreSQL, the world’s most advanced open-source relational database.
“Agilebase several orders of magnitude more powerful than most no Code CRM software”
“It makes Agilebase several orders of magnitude more powerful than most no Code CRM software,” said Richard. “It is like a map, granting you access to a massive world. Where do you want to go with it? It makes Agilebase a much more capable product than its competitors. “
Many No Code CRM systems are not connected. Because we built it on PostgreSQL, Agilebase is not.
“Other no code CRM systems tell you can sync a table you created to another. That sounds good; why do I now have to think about constructing my table so that I can sync it to another one? Each table feels isolated. With Agilebase, you do not have to connect multiple modules. It works off PostgreSQL, a single relational database. All your tables connect to it and ask for the data. The permission system is not based on who has access to a particular module.”
Connect every department
Agilebase enables you to build something that matches your needs, but takes advantage of all the work other departments have done for you.
“Imagine a food company,” said Richard. “The people purchasing all the ingredients type all the information about the supplier and the ingredients into the system. Agilebase can track all approvals and expiry certificates and reuse that data to calculate energy values and total fat content. Somebody doesn’t have to get a calculator to figure this out. We built the system on the fact that you can sum it all up together.
Connecting to third-party software
Agilebase has a facility that is much better than the average software, said Richard. Agilebase can connect to third-party pieces of software via its API. But Agilebase goes one step further.
“It’s all very well having a beautiful piece of software that has an open API and to extract the data it needs,” said Richard “But, if an event starts in Agilebase software, it needs to be pushed to the third party software. Otherwise you get an inefficient way of working.
Imagine a third-party piece of software asked Agilebase for all the new orders it received today. It wants Agilebase to return the information. The software will ask what has happened every five minutes, 10 minutes, and every hour for 24 hours.
Alternatively, Agilebase could push that data to the software every time it gets a new order.
“The same data has transferred, hasn’t it?” said Richard. “But with pull, you asked every minute for 24 hours to get two records. With push, you’ve sent me two records. But you sent them to me the micro-second you had them. That’s an event-driven model.
“If you write an API in this way, you end up repeatedly asking, anything happening, anything happening, anything happening, anything happening, anything happening? – that’s wasteful, boring, and can incur costs.
“It’s not appreciated how important that event-driven model is. Push is a great way for getting things to work well together,” said Richard.
Many systems don’t connect to third-party software this way. Agilebase has had push functionality for years.