ToucanTech

Avantages

The overall SaaS solution is helpful in tht all new features automatically show up without any delay or work on our side. Donation and now membership management are the two most critical aspects of what we use Toucan for. Our communications strategy is also well enabled by toucan. Their support is second to none. Always responsive, helpful and ready to support Occasionally a design expert comes to us to show how they could help make things look even better.

Inconvénients

Toucan could have more payment integration to enable less costly payment methods like direct debit or bank transfers. Being able to mass update fields and custom fields would help remove administrative burdern. In general they are able to take on feedback and look to build into the platform what we need.

Avantages

Toucan Tech is an intuitive system to use with an easy interface. The reason I chose to go with TT was because of the multi functionality - comms, payments, website, database all in one. It really is a one stop shop.

Inconvénients

As with any platform of this nature, there are restrictions on things like images, you need to make sure they are edited correctly before uploading for example - once you get used to it, you just know that they have to be edited first.

Avantages

The best thing about ToucanTech is having a back end fundraising and alumni CRM linked to a website / portal in the front end. This makes it easy for our community to engage with our School, and it is great for us as a small Development team, as it minimises data entry. It is fantastic to have events, email and donation functions built into the product - this means we are just using one system for all our fundraising and alumni needs. The filtering and reporting functions are very easy to use, and the email sync saves many hours manually uploading emails.

Inconvénients

The Wonde API hasn't quite worked for us in our first year, but we are working together with ToucanTech to resolve this.

Avantages

It's comprehensive and obviously has many features that are not relevant to some users

Inconvénients

I didn't find it very intuitive and would have found more hints useful when errors occurred, although I know ToucanTech are always looking to improve the system

Avantages

Technical support has been excellent and their flexibility and help with website evolution.

Inconvénients

Getting to grips with the Database. This is probably more me than ToucanTech but I find the search filters difficult to use to create bespoke mailing lists.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à ToucanTech

Avantages

ToucanTech has made a huge positive difference on the school’s alumni relations, particularly through the well-designed email templates and database. The filters have a great user interface and are easy to use, especially for anyone with little/no database management experience. There is lots of training available via the support website, online training and events and overall, I’d say using Toucantech is fairly intuitive.

Inconvénients

I don’t have any negatives. My role is mostly marketing as well as covering alumni/development within a medium-sized school, so given the limitations on my time I’d say the only downside is knowing that there are so many useful modules and features available but I mostly use the basic functionalities.

Avantages

I love that ToucanTech are quick to respond to any queries I might have with everything from day to day matters and more complex situations like our fundraising pathway and event management. They are always encouraging and supportive; exactly what you ask for in customer support, if you ask me.

Inconvénients

The system is incredibly clever and is always being updated so my one draw back, if any, is that there are some functions which require a lot more time to get to grips with and require more attention to detail.

Avantages

It is a great place to store school memories and communicate with the alumni either in groups or as individuals. I also like the twenty four hour support.

Inconvénients

I can't think of anything. My experience has been so good.

Avantages

Its features are intuitive and user-friendly. It handles all our alumni database needs.

Inconvénients

Can't think of anything at the moment. I appreciate that if there are certain things we can't do at the moment, it is included for consideration for future development updates.

Avantages

Quick response by the support team to queries. Combination and range of functions- data management and community platform especially.

Inconvénients

Advanced Filters- it can take a while to set up a filter and I'm not convinced it pulls up all the relevant records. Feels like there's a lot of room for user-error.

Avantages

One software for alumni relations, communications, donations records, moves management and online community feature
Ease of use
Excellent support and training
Attractive user interface
Continual expansion and development of the product following feedback from users
Ease of migration from previous provider to Toucan Tech
Commitment and knowledge of the product from all the staff from top to bottom
An understanding of Development Office work and what customers want

Inconvénients

No major complaints - any queries have been dealt with quickly and efficiently

Avantages

The best thing about this software is the front page it gives and the ease of use for both administrators and members. It's super easy!

Inconvénients

Sometimes there is not enough information about processes or how to change things, but a quick message to the Helpdesk normally resolves everything.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir ToucanTech 

Pourquoi passer à ToucanTech

Avantages

Creating our site with ToucanTech has been incredible for our school community and far exceeded our expectations. We started with the goal of having a central place for events, news & information, and a way for parents to network. All of these goals have been met and with better results than anticipated. The Event function, probably our most used, has brought our community together so that our events are more discoverable and inclusive. The number of events, type, and number of participants have all increased. For news and photo/video galleries, our site has lessened our reliance on email and allowed us to share more and have a central place for parents to search for anything they may have missed in newsletters (so much better than searching through emails). We have also expanded our offering of parent interest groups, allowing parents to take the initiative to create and manage groups on their own. This has been really fun and helped to create the “close-knit” community we hoped to build. Another great function has been networking – great for parents, but also great for our high school students looking for guidance about universities and career paths. It feels like the sky is the limit!

Inconvénients

There are a lot of functions the site has to offer that we have not yet fully explored & mastered. Our plan was to start slowly and then expand, but the lure of all of the features and potential positive impact for our community-led us to take on a lot all at once. We are still finding our way with managing content, and I think we will have a better plan in place for our 2nd year. Our first year was amazing, but we just made it up as we went along. Next year we’ll be more organized in our approach.

Avantages

It's easy to love a great product, it's easier to love ToucanTech because in addition to the amazing product, they offer a second to none service. The team at ToucanTech met us every time we had a question, an issue, or simply wanted to discuss improvements to the platform.

Inconvénients

There is really nothing that we do not like about the service or the product which is why we were one of the first international schools to jump on board and continue to be a loyal customer.

Avantages

As with most state schools every investment is carefully considered for return on investment and as an early adopter of Toucan Tech we are delighted with the added value it has given to our school Development and communication function. It enables us to create specific, targeted comms to specific community segments and to monitor the impact. Customer service is excellent.

Inconvénients

As a technophobe I've found parts of it a little more challenging to learn to use but overall delighted with the product.

Avantages

The human touch that is behind the company. From the sales representatives to the support team, everyone treats you with utmost care and attention, providing exceptional customer service. The product itself is very easy to use, you can customize and personalize the site so that it matches your needs. After much research I decided to go for Toucan Tech and I couldn't be any happier.

Inconvénients

There are no cons that stand out. There is a learning curve to learn how to use the product to its full potential but the tutorials and guides their support team provides are very useful.

Avantages

Easy design features to result in a professional looking website with no specialist knowledge. The ability to tag records to build up a comprehensive relationship history for each alumni member is great (and saves a great deal of time). We are just starting to the the fundraising module but so far it's been a great experience.

Inconvénients

Importing our database was a huge task but now that is done it's much easier. Understanding how filters work was a little tricky at first but after training and support it's now much simpler and v intuitive.

Avantages

The Customer support is excellent, quick and effective & patient!

Inconvénients

Updating the system quite often leave "my" IT skillset behind.

Avantages

I like how easy it is to use on the backend. I'm not a coder or website designer and I'm able to navigate it.

Inconvénients

It would be great to be able to customize the look of our members' offline records, but that's not available yet.

Avantages

The alumni crm and the site together work really well. Love the ease of use and setup.

Inconvénients

The reporting functions are good but can be better.

Avantages

Toucan Tech is so easy to use and the few times I needed support, the team was amazing

Inconvénients

I can't think of any - it was so easy to use and they were so helpful.

Avantages

Toucantech helped us create the ideal space for parents to connect with each other. It lets us communicate with them and also gives them the opportunity to independently bond and generate stronger experiences. Parents are satisfied with the information they find on the community and we are grateful to offer that too.

Inconvénients

Sometimes it's hard to spot if someone who joined is really part of the community or not.

Avantages

- A fantastic feature that ToucanTech offers is the Activity tracker – it shows us how people are engaging with our programme – from which emails they have opened to how many events they have attended. We are even able to sync external communications to the activity tracker so that all members of the team can view ongoing conversations.
- The events module and particularly how bookings are made is a lot easier to handle than our previous database.

T

Inconvénients

improved integration with other platforms. e.g.PASS

Avantages

I have used a number of member databases with online portals in my time in alumni relations and by a long stretch, Toucan Tech is the most intuitive and easy to use. It looks lovely with all the different colours and is clear and not overly complicated. If you can't figure something out initially , there is a brilliant list of resources on their support website. When we have had the odd further complication, the support team have worked through the problem with us on the phone until it is solved. The system really allows the administrator to feel like they have both ownership of and a brilliant overview of their data. Our alumni seem to find the online portal and interactive features easy to use and appealing aesthetically. When we have fedback to the support team that we would like a certain feature included, they have responded positively and actioned this when they can.

Inconvénients

There honestly isn't much to criticise! Small gripes are currently the list of member records does not come up with the most recenty viewed first, which I have found a useful feature in previous systems for instance if you working through a load of data entry. When you are embedding a video in a news article, you have to have a static image at the top of the page (and the video link beneath) whereas due to social media and Youtube users now expect to be able to click on the image and go straight into a video playing. That's about it!

Avantages

ToucanTech is an incredibly user friendly piece of software and it's very easy to build the online portal. The features we use the most are the mass email function, the events page, the online shop and the news section. Recently we've launched a second online portal for a different section of our community that can all be managed from the same database.

Inconvénients

There isn't a feature of Toucan that I would say I like the least. We were early customers of ToucanTech and the features and functionality that have been developed since we first used the software have only improved what was already a very good product.