Noah by JL Systems Review

We were able to get up and running on this system for an affordable price, compared to other robust systems. The implementation process was fast and efficient. Regarding customer service: There are well-meaning, talented people in the office. They are reachable during emergency situations and respond appropriately. Routine requests for customizations, though, can take a very long time to fulfill. Often, I need to stay on top of these projects so they don't slip through the cracks. It seems that their team is overwhelmed with requests from other customers, and it seems that there's some disorganization in their office. (I'm guessing about the disorganization -- perhaps the issue is that ongoing customers aren't as high a priority as new customers.) Regarding our daily use of NOAH: The user interface is not intuitive to our staff members. JLSystems has made some modifications to accommodate this, but we still need to mentally translate from our terminology to the terminology used in NOAH. The built-in reporting feature, in particular, is difficult to navigate. Sometimes the system is slow. I know this can be affected by internet connection, but it can be slow even when our connection is fine. Regarding the website CMS, which is DNN: this is more intuitively designed (for us) than NOAH. Right now, though, there seems to be fewer people on the JLSystems staff who are experts in the use of DNN. The CMS is robust, but we haven't had a lot of guidance from JLSystems on how to make the most of it. There used to be a go-to person on staff that could answer all DNN questions swiftly and thoroughly, but he no longer works there. Overall, I would recommend this system only if you don't have the budget for the implementation costs of a higher-priced, more configurable system. (We paid about a third of the price for implementation with JLSystems as top-of-the-line vendors charge for implementation.) And, if you have a strong match between the out-of-box system and your association's needs. If you look at the areas of functionality that they've built out because of other customers' requests and that matches what you need, you might be in good shape. In particular, do the standard reports cover what you need to get your data back out of the system? If you do sign on with JLSystems, I would recommend thinking through the customizations you need early on -- during the implementation phase. During the implementation phase, JLSystems churned out a number of customizations that we have trouble getting them to work on in a timely fashion now, in the ongoing maintenance phase.