The SmartSimple Blog

Trees are trimmed, presents wrapped, cookies good to go! While our team is getting ready to celebrating with our families, we haven't forgotten our SmartSimple community needs us, too! This holiday season, we’re offering the following hours from our Support Desk to serve you through this merry season. Holiday Support Hours: Monday, December 22 8 am - 9 pm EST (Regular Hours) Tuesday, December 23 8 am - 9 pm EST (Regular Hours) Wednesday, December 24 8 am - 5 pm EST Thursday, December 25 Closed Friday, December 26 8 am - 5 pm EST Monday, December 29 8 am - 9 pm EST (Regular Hours) Tuesday, December 30 8 am - 9 pm EST (Regular Hours) Wednesday, December 31 8 am - 5 pm EST Thursday, January 1 Closed Friday, January 2 8 am - 9 pm EST (Regular Hours) Please note, our  critical@sm...

Bright lights, festive music and glittering parties abound at this time of year. But for many families, the holiday season brings more stress than joy. It’s hard to think about buying presents for your children when you’re not sure if you can both pay rent and put food on the table.   Fortunately, there are organizations like Holiday Helpers and their Adopt-a-Family program, and once again, SmartSimple is taking part by providing a traditional Christmas to a family in need. “It’s been such a rewarding experience for us, being able to give an entire family not just presents but the entire holiday experience,” says Sarah Jane Nicholson, Relationship Manager at SmartSimple and coordinator of the Adopt-a-Family initiative. “We get a wish list from the parents for every member of the family, so we know we’re giving them and their children what they really want. It’s so much more personal than just providing the necessities. We get to give the fun stuff too!” Goodies bake...

As 2014 draws to a close and the New Year approaches, the SmartSimple team wanted to share our favorite new features from this past year. While it’s not easy to narrow down the best of the best, we think the following five are worth an honorable mention: Arcadia X Arcadia X Before In May, SmartSimple brought you Arcadia X, the next generation of our Arcadia interface and our alternative to an icon-based portal. Arcadia X gives System Administrators a new way to build personalized, role-based portals with features like tab-based navigation, list views, enhanced filtering and searching options. Change permissions, add portals, lock down, grant access and reassign as you see fit – it’s all up to you! Arcadia X After We did a little tweaking of the interface in November, making it even more intuitive by moving the menu tabs to the top of the page and grouping them. Simplify Integration Over the summer, SmartSimple’s GMS360 o was the first solution to go live with...

SmartSimple is pleased to announce that we are now a United States Government General Service Agreement (GSA) Advantage supplier. What is the GSA Advantage? GSA Advantage is the United States government’s online superstore. Their website provides access to millions of products and services from thousands of contractors and suppliers. Being listed on this site lets all levels of government – from federal to municipal – know that SmartSimple is an authorized supplier. This ensures government agencies can take advantage of pre-negotiated prices while enjoying the security of dealing with a GSA approved source. What does it mean for SmartSimple? Being a GSA Advantage supplier means we’re part of a short list of pre-approved companies providing services for any government agency looking for a grants management software solution. It makes us a much more attractive option to potential government clients. What does it mean for SmartSimple clients? GSA Advantage status giv...

Join SmartSimple founders Michael Reid and Keith Yau as they recap and showcase their favourite SmartSimple enhancements from the past year, as well as changes to SmartSimple as a company.  This interactive half hour webinar will highlight what changes we've made to help improve your processes and how you interact with your communities. You'll also have the opportunity to learn and discuss what we did in the past year and hear about our exciting plans for what we have in store for you in 2015. Tuesday, December 9 th @ 1pm EST Friday, December 12 th @ 10am EST Visit our Events page to register!

There are a lot of things that make SmartSimple a great place to work. We make cool software, we collaborate with awesome organizations, and we have super smart people from all over the world who make our offices dynamic, creative environments. It takes a variety of people to create a space that’s inclusive and unified, and that includes welcoming new Canadians to our head office team in Toronto. A number of our employees are new to Canada, and there are things we like to do at SmartSimple – not just as an employer but as people – to ensure everyone feels welcome and valued. For starters, when you visit the offices at 111 Peter Street, you’ll see a plethora of international flags proudly displayed in the reception area. These flags represent where we all originally hail from, and include places like India, China, Barbados, Greece and Morocco among them. The other thing you’ll notice is we also have a sign by the door identifying us as a Positive Space. Our Positive Sp...

The SmartSimple team broke out the sun block and headed to the annual Technology Affinity Group (TAG) conference in Turnberry Isle, Miami, from November 10 th – 13 th . This four day event brought together experts from foundations, not-for-profits and technology suppliers to network, learn and share industry best practices. The theme for the 2014 conference was Data: Gather, Analyze, Act! , and the agenda featured sessions on how foundations and other organizations are using technology to improve the granting process. “The conference was a great opportunity for everyone to gain insight and ideas,” says Brian Lai, Business Analyst at SmartSimple. “Discussion topics included business process improvement, security and information management. TAG also provided an app for all attendees, making it easier to track when and where events were happening, and included options to register and confirm attendance.” SmartSimple President Cameron McLean at the TAG Conference. Our Pre...