The SmartSimple Blog

From October 19 th until October 22 nd , our SmartSimple sales team got to hang out with the movers and shakers of the community foundations world at the 2014 Fall Conference for Community Foundations. Symbolically hosted in Cleveland, Ohio – the birthplace of the community foundation – by the Council on Foundations, this conference celebrated 100 years of people working together to create dynamic local neighbourhoods. First conceived as a notion by Frederick Goff in 1914, his ground-breaking initiative, the Cleveland Foundation, was developed to inspire people to take charge and develop communities they were proud to call home. Since then, millions of people around the world have become active in improving and building their neighbourhoods, from Germany to New Zealand and from Mozambique to Egypt. Alas, this year’s event marked the final Fall Conference for Community Foundations, so we’re glad we were able to attend. The SmartSimple booth, located on the second floor of the ...

As a Software as a Service (SaaS) provider, SmartSimple regularly fields requests and queries from clients looking to improve efficiencies and streamline their work. These calls offer great insight into features we consider adding to improve our products for everyone, and are often the basis of our bi-monthly upgrade offerings. For example, one of our Grants Management GMS360 o solution users called, asking if there was a way they could use SmartSimple to help administer their board management process. They were using another program – which wasn’t ideal – and wondered if there was something we could do to help. Presented with a new opportunity to “wow” a client, we decided to see what kind of solution we could provide. We already had all the ingredients needed to build board books in GMS360 o via the Universal Tracking Application TM (UTA TM ). No new coding was needed, just a little mixing and blending (then bake at 375 o until golden…) to configure what our client n...

On Wednesday, November 5, 2014, SmartSimple will hold our very first Community Conference in Chicago, Illinois (a special thank you to the Chicago Community Trust for hosting this inaugural event)! Why a Community Conference? SmartSimple Community Conferences are an opportunity to meet, share and learn. More than just a platform for us to show what’s new, we open a dialogue with attendees about how our software makes work smarter and easier for them, learning from each other to ensure we’re creating the products our clients really need, with features they really want. This is a unique opportunity for people to provide Input, and conversation during demonstrations is actively encouraged. These discussions give us real input from real users, and are often the basis for upgrades and enhancements to our software. We’ve been holding conferences for years in Toronto, but with so many of our clients based in the U.S., we wanted to “share the love” with our neighbours to the south, ...

Every so often, one of our clients brings us a challenge that’s not only interesting but, like dropping a pebble in a pool of water, has a ripple effect that benefits the entire SmartSimple community. Take, for example, a request from one of our major retail clients. We’ve been working with this organization for many years and across several initiatives. Recently, they came to us with an interesting conundrum, giving us the opportunity to see what kind of innovative solution our team could come up with. As a foundation-based charity, they needed the ability to provide not only unique branding, but distinct entry points into the same copy of SmartSimple. The reason? Multiple funders were contributing resources to one major initiative, so the website could not be branded for any one company. Because their partners were also well recognized brands, there was a need to somehow create several “aliases”; distinct entry points into the same instance of SmartSimple, but appe...

The Turing mural in the lobby of our Toronto office  When you visit the newly renovated SmartSimple offices in Toronto, Canada, you’ll notice a series of murals featuring historical moments in computing. One in particular depicts the man considered by many to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence, Alan Mathison Turing. Born June 23, 1912 in London, England, Turing’s genius was apparent early on in his childhood, and by the time he was 13-years-old, he discovered a particular interest in both math and science. Turing attended King’s College at the University of Cambridge. In 1934, he delivered a paper, On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem (a German term meaning literally “decision problem”) , citing the notion of a machine capable of computing just about anything. This became the central concept for modern day computers. After Cambridge, Turing studied mathematics and cryptology at the Institute ...

Most organization use more than one tool to meet their operational requirements. It takes a balance of several tools that seamlessly integrate to create a complete solution.  That’s why SmartSimple – as a provider of research management software – was excited to attend a recent webinar presented by ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID), a fellow member of the research management community. By linking up with organizations like ORCID, we provide applicants and researchers with options such as the ability to import their profiles directly into SmartSimple, ensuring accuracy and saving time. The webinar, hosted in conjunction with the Health Research Alliance, was entitled Why Research Funders are using ORCID Identifiers . This informative session focused on how funders are using ORCID identifiers in their workflows and systems, and featured presentations by leaders at private and public funding organizations in the U.S. and Europe. Webinar: Why research funders are ...