Beware! Salespeople are much better than the actual product
Product: Association Anywhere, with Certelligence module, version 8.0.3
Go Live date: Association Anywhere, October 2016; Certelligence December 2016 & January 2017
This product has been a great disappointment for our entire association. As stated in my title, the Sales representatives are excellent at selling the product to you; once you sign on and begin the process, you quickly learn that all of the bells and whistles in the sales presentation are not included in the base product (which is what you purchased whether you know it or not). You are then forced to pay more money to get the functionality you thought you were getting all along.
ACGI is the ONLY vendor we have that charges us for EVERYTHING. Have a problem with a certain module, or need extra guidance for a routine process? - It will cost you extra to get the help or the answer. One of the most absurd occasions was when we were charged for their Project Manager to talk to our new IT Manager – which was just to make introductions (we had to preapprove 1 hour of billable time). There isn’t enough space to write about the extra costs we’ve had to endure, but to give you an idea, we’ve spent above and beyond (in the 6 figure range), just so we can function.
The Certelligence module is not worth the effort or money. They will try to sell you on buying Association Anywhere by offering Certelligence for free. Don’t fall for it - you will be on the brink of insanity before the process is over and you finally go live. Their company configured our workflows based upon teleconference interviews without consultation or demonstration. We learned about 6 weeks before our original go live date that we would not receive training for the module! There were many codes and fields that did not make a lick of sense us, but they refused to disclose any information and would only consider helping us if we agree to pay for a training session (note: in their promotional material and RFP response, they claim you get 1 week of training). Our staff had to play a cruel game of scavenger hunt to figure out what the codes meant and their functionality within the workflow. Furthermore, since we were not consulted we are stuck with critical naming conventions that an ACGI employee thought was good enough to explain what the field was capturing (ex: HOURS_A, HOURS_B, HOURS_C, etc. – was used to capture specific types of hours for many different categories). Again, I could go on for pages with issue after issue, but time and space will not permit it (and frankly, reliving the experience is stirring up all sorts of negativity that I have worked too hard to overcome).
Financial/accounting transactions are a nightmare; the event module is a gloried pivot table; product management is cumbersome and esthetically ugly (we’ve created an alternative to it); automatic emails notification is inconsistent (sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t), just to name a few things.
Regular membership module works fine and is easy to use. More complex membership types do have some problems from time to time.
We have only been with ACGI for about 1 year, 3 months for AA, and 1 year for Certelligence (yeah, we couldn’t go live at the same time, long story, short). Since around October 2017, their answer to every problem, issue or question we have is that we need to upgrade to the latest version – at a very high cost! We still have issues they never fixed, they caused, or never provided proper training for and they want us to pay thousands of dollars to upgrade because it will “fix” our problems (based on the little I’ve shared, would you believe them?). From what we understand, all upgrades have a cost attached to them – no freebies from ACGI – and they upgrade frequently. As already stated, none of our other vendors charge for answering questions or providing guidance or software upgrades – even our software vendor for computer based testing (which as I type this is temporarily shut down to apply the latest software upgrade – and we don’t have to pay extra to take advantage of the upgrade/enhancement).
Isn’t it the responsibility of software providers to continuously improve and enhance their product to keeps customers satisfied and to justify their monthly and annual service fee(s)? If you feel the same way, and are used to be treated in this manner, ACGI is NOT the company for you. If you have deep pockets, enjoy playing mind games, and do not give a hoot about your staff’s efficiency and well-being, consider ACGI as your AMS provider.
