to see how easy it is to design a custom activity form.Original publication date: August, 2007
Business development centers have a lot in common. First and foremost, you all share the same goal: to help small businesses grow and become successful. You also typically share the same primary funding agencies: SBA and DLA. Because these wide-reaching commonalities exist, Softshare has been able to keep Softshare 'CATS relevant, helping you to meet the client tracking requirements that are essential to your center's mission statement as well as those that are an integral part of your DLA or SBA grants.
But for every one thing your center has in common with its fellow business development centers, Softshare realizes that there are probably ten things that you don't have in common. Differing internal operating procedures, activity under additional grants or contracts, local government programs, or even pet projects can all cause a need for performance tracking that is unique to your center.
And while it's never been cost-effective or even feasible for Softshare to program every possible unique tracking requirement into Softshare 'CATS, we've decided to give you the tools to do so!
These "tools" all come in one neat little package called the Custom Activity Forms Module. Available for $2500 annually (plus a one-time $2500 setup fee), this add-on Softshare 'CATS component lets you build your own unique forms to track any type of specialized assistance you provide to your clients—or the resulting impact of that assistance. For example, you may want to track counseling you provide as it specifically relates to environmental issues, or local tourism, or homeland security.
Each user-defined client activity form that you create is, at its essence, a compilation of user-defined fields. The fields on these forms, and their possible data values, can be anything you dream up. The only requirements are that the forms must be able to be associated with client records (i.e. they must represent client activity) and must carry several basic data fields such as owning center, counselor, activity date, and so on.
As with system-defined forms, Softshare 'CATS lets you build your own set of custom reports and queries for the custom activity forms you design. In other words, you can extract or organize the data stored in your custom client activity records in an unlimited number of meaningful ways. Click here to see how easy it is to design a custom activity form.
With the addition of the Custom Activity Forms Module, you'll have an answer for every agency (not just the DLA and SBA) that wants to see your center's efforts measured in hard data. Contact Softshare sales today to learn more about this add-on component and what it can do for your center's client activity tracking efforts.