Jump to content

Relius ASP / Managed Services


CLE401kGuy

Recommended Posts

Our office is considering moving to Relius ASP - Managed Services where they'll host our use of the application and we can eliminate having servers to update, upgrade and maintain in our office. Does anyone have any experience with their Managed Services that they'd like to share. Leaning toward moving in this direction. Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've used Relius ASP for over eight years and would be happy to talk to you and answer some questions. You can reach me at jerri.olson@fbdmn.com

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I've been using ASP for almost a year. I can honestly say that I absolutely HATE it and it is probably the worst product Relius has. I loved their administration system, but can't say the same for ASP. I've told Relius this, so I am not speaking out of school. Their ASP document system is really good, but something is lost in the move to ASP for administration.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Essentially, it is the same, but there are some differences that slow down how I work. for example, reports take longer to generate using ASP. They somehow "offload" the report generating (I don't remember the term they use, but I joke about it being a person in the Philippines, but I know that is not really the case) and that makes it slower. You cannot have more than one report open at a time. You cannot quickly export files or save them to your computer hard drive. For example, I do a lot of exporting census and contribution reports. I used to just export as excel and it was right there on my hard drive. That doesn't work any more since my hard drive is no longer "where" the reports are being generated. I now have to save the file on the ASP drive then take an additional step to "move" that file (FTP) to my hard drive. Printing reports also requires an additional step. These are minor differences that add up to additional time to do the work. I would say that my time to complete any task has increased because of ASP. We've been on it for about a year now, so my learning curve has improved, but it is definitely slower now. I would NOT recommend ASP to anyone and I've told the people at Relius this. We have had a problem (it was frequent for a while, but is better now) with data being duplicated on reports. For example, i could print a census report and it would have every participant listed twice. I could print a Summary of Accounts and each person's balances (beg, ending, contribtion, etc) were doubled. How would you like to give a client a Summary of Accounts report that looked like that? We have to look very carefully at each report as we generate it. when this doubling issue happens it doesn't happen all the time and stay that way. I could print the report and review it and it would be fine, but then I could immediately print that report and save it as a file for you as my client and it would be wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I forgot a few points. the log in feature is cumbersome when you consider it took no time at all to just log into it when it was inhouse. The timeout feature is very short, so if you are logged in then move out to work on something else for a little while, you will get logged out and have to log back in again. Did I mention that it is not a quick easy log in? I work a lot of "off hours", either late at night or on the weekend. If I goof on the log in and get myself "logged" out, I'm stuck and can't work again till Relius is open to unlock me. Yes, I realize that this is operator error, but i'm only human and it happens on occasion. the log in is "fob" based, so now I have to keep track of this "fob" and the number on that is needed for the log in. Again, it's an additional step or 2 for everyhting I do and I don't like working this way. I've told Relius all of this and I've told them this is their worst product ever.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

Looking for an update on the Relius ASP system....jkharvey - are you still using the system?  If yes have things improved in the past 3 years?  CLE401kguy - did you go with the ASP system and if so what are your thoughts?

thanks in advance for any comments!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

We converted not long ago. Completely agree with jkharvey. I too have expressed this to Relius. It is a lot of small things that make up to be a big pain. Extra steps here, extra clicks there, being timed out after 10 minutes is ridiculous. Having to go through a "transfer program" to move files between the ASP environment and your local desktop. For as much money as it costs, it is sorely lacking in user friendliness. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...
  • 11 months later...

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...