The SmartSimple Blog

Despite being of central importance to any business or organization, encryption and security is best described as a cat and mouse game. Recent press attention paid to the flaws of SSL certification and HTTPS:// websites highlight that a system's security should not be taken for granted . Perhaps more importantly, putting all your eggs in a single piece of security is hardly a guarantee that they won’t break. Because our success is dependent on, amongst other things, the security of our system, we are constantly looking for ways to protect our clients from any rogue threats. We have a long list of security credentials, from actual encryption to process audits (CICA 5970 / SAS 70), and we are excited to extend that list by welcoming TWO-FACTOR Authentication to the SmartSimple family of security measures. While primarily geared to our clients dealing with confidential and/or especially valuable information, TWO-FACTOR Authentication can add extra peace of mind to any SmartSimpl...

SmartSimple is used to address specific business needs in several verticals, but at a high level it has always been used by our customers to engage with their community. This may refer to  insurance carriers engaging with medical examiners around motor vehicle accidents or grant making organizations engaging with their applicants and reviewers around funding for research or community programs. Over the years we have always been interested in how many people actively use SmartSimple worldwide, but this was more curiosity than a business need. As interest in adopting SmartSimple’s technology grows the need to calculate total active users has begun to present its self. So how many users are there? We were thinking that 100,000 users was a fair guess…but when we ran the numbers we ended up with 409,747 as of April 20 th 2011!  Who knew?” And what does this mean? Well, it means that around decade after being born out of a  U of T incubator, SmartSimple is a stable and s...

From teens on Facebook to SaaS adoption, everyone is going online. For some organizations the motivation for SaaS adoption is the inherent cost savings, for others it is the ability to access their work from any computer with a connection to the internet. Regardless of the motivation, smart decisions are what will ultimately make a software investment worthwhile. As a software vendor we have listened to the needs of countless grant makers and have been able to draw a few key considerations. By ensuring that the following are some of your top criteria, you'll have a useful system and not a headache that requires your attention day in and day out. 1. Flexibility: This is perhaps the single most important factor in selecting a grants management software solution. All software vendors know that a grants lifecylce typically begins with an LOI and ends with some sort of outcomes assessment, but only a select few understand that there are many ways to get from A to B. To this end...

In 2002, SmartSimple was founded on two distinct but equally important ideas: The internet will change the way people communicate, collaborate and ultimately do business. There existed fundamental shortcomings in existing enterprise software solutions. Specifically, they were either too restrictive; forcing companies to redefine their workflows and processes around the solution, or they were too passive; requiring tremendous human intervention to actually offer an ROI. Over the years, in an effort to truly understand the needs of our clients across many industries, we have learned 3 very important lessons. Business Is A Two Way Street While it is the case that virtually all businesses have similar functional needs (applicant tracking, collaborative scheduling and document sharing), each industry has very specific demands in terms of regulatory compliance, security and managing their eco-system. To this end, we are very proud of our ability to address not only functiona...