Read on, as this article will compare Slack and Microsoft Teams in terms of their features and capabilities to help you decide which platform is right for your needs.

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• To find the right provider for your API management software, you should start by determining the top features that will be the most valuable to your organization’s needs. Then, by identifying and creating a list of the essential components for your organization’s API management, you can determine which vendors provide software that would suit your organization.
• If you find yourself stuck between two comparable vendors, it may be helpful to read up on user reviews, case studies, and testimonials to give you a better idea of what you can expect from the company’s services.

API management software solutions help organizations build and scale secure API programs that provide value to their business endeavors. While some developers may have the skills and resources necessary to develop APIs without these tools, API management software enables even non-tech-savvy users to create APIs faster with automated and repeatable processes.

ALSO READ: 5 Capabilities an API Management Tool Should Have

API management solutions also provide a plethora of advantages to organizations regarding security and even allow them to analyze APIs in secure environments both before and after deployment. With all of the advantages API management software offers, it’s no wonder so many organizations are utilizing these tools to help them create and manage their API products.

Top API Management Software Solutions

• Mulesoft is best for adopting security policies that users can apply across each of their APIs.
• Apigee is best for building RESTful APIs, API proxies, and a customizable API workflow for easy management.
• 3Scale is best for integrated capabilities, which provide more functionality for API development, API gateway configuration, and application building and deployment.
• Fusio is best for open-source API management, enabling users to control their REST API development, monitoring, deployment, and monetization.
• Akana is best for API life cycle management and provides features that help users understand and visualize their APIs and API connections.
• TIBCO Cloud is best for automation and allows organizations to easily gain more value from their APIs through event-driven behaviors.

Mulesoft: Best for API Security

Mulesoft’s Anypoint API Manager helps users develop and control their APIs and microservices with a high-performance API gateway and provides several beneficial security features.

The solution provides security by enabling users to adopt pre-built or custom security policies. They also secure microservices with a service mesh so users can implement zero-trust and apply traffic control policies. An excellent aspect of the software is that users can apply policies across each of their APIs for a consistent management experience.

The solution also allows users to access API data analytics insights, making it easier to determine the best course of action to improve the performance and value of their APIs.

Mulesoft pros

• Valuable insights from API data analytics
• Can build APIs without fluency in programming languages
• Declarative programming practice for easier testing, less errors, and faster development
• Robust features

Mulesoft cons

• Learning curve only supported by minimal documentation
• Nonintuitive UI
• Some unnecessary features for standard API management
• Expensive compared to other API management systems

Mulesoft key features

• Anypoint integrated access management: With Anypoint’s integrated access management, organizations can easily control the access of their software to authorized teams and individuals.
• Anypoint API governance: Anypoint’s API governance lets users maintain the quality and security of their API with self-service tools. This means they can define their design standards by creating control groups, and apply these standards consistently to any API.

Apigee: Best for API building

Apigee is a platform that offers various features for API development and management. In addition, users can create and scale their API programs for monetization purposes.

Users can use Apigee to build RESTful APIs and expose APIs directly on Apigee by building API proxies that act as managed ‘facades’ for backend services. With the Apigee platform, users can develop API proxies and generate an API workflow with customizable API settings, policies, and behaviors.

The API proxies are valuable features of Apigee’s API platform. API providers are implemented to expose APIs on Apigee while shielding apps from backend code changes. They decouple the app-facing API from users’ backend services, so if users make backend changes to their services, the applications will continue to call the API without interruption. This makes it easy to manage updates and changes.

Apigee pros

• Compatible with any API architectural style (REST, gRPC, SOAP, GraphQL, and more)
• Users can define rate plans for their API products
• Agigee’s advanced API Security regularly assesses managed APIs and recommends solutions

Apigee cons

• Not a cost-effective API management system
• No version control
• Steep learning curve

Apigee key features

• Hybrid development features: Apigee’s hybrid deployment options allow users to choose where they wish to host their APIs and position their API gateways close to their API traffic, allowing them to use existing API security settings while gaining cloud capabilities.
• Apigee Integration: With Apigee Integration, users can connect their existing data and applications as APIs, exposing them directly and accessing management and visibility over them.

3Scale: Best for integrations

Red Hat 3scale API management supports cloud-native API development, security, and control. The software centralizes the management of the API program using a distributed cloud layer, enabling them to gain more understanding and control over their API data analytics, access monetization, development processes, and more.

While 3scale offers a range of independent capabilities, users can gain even more functionality by harnessing the integrated software features. For example, users can integrate with Red Hat Fuse to develop APIs, and they can build applications on Red Hat OpenShift to configure their API gateways. The OpenShift connection also enables users to use their gateway to easily create and deploy applications using Linux® containers and automated processes.

3scale pros

• All components supported in on-premises, cloud, or hybrid locations 
• Wide range of encryption, authentication, and authorization protocols
• Hybrid cloud support for all components residing in on-premises software or the cloud
• Access to life cycle technical support

3scale cons

• Difficult setup
• Steep learning curve
• Difficult to revert accidental setting changes made within the system

3scale key features

• API traffic control: The API traffic control feature provides users with better management over their traffic, security, and access policies. Users can also control their integrations with external self-managed or cloud components.
• Red Hat Fuse integration: The integration with Red Hat Fuse provides more helpful capabilities for creating APIs and applications.
• Red Hat OpenShift integration: This integration enables access of Linux® containers, which are delivered at scale for APIs. Integration with the 3scale API gateway lets developers build and run applications in a contained and automated way.

Fusio: Best for open-source API management

Fusio open-source API management software helps users create REST APIs for monetization purposes. In addition, the Fusio backend app provides control to users over their API and API monitoring.

The software comes with a wide range of features to support the development of an API program. Fusio makes it easy for organizations to monetize from their APIs by charging for specific routes. Their payment system lets users create Plans, which can be purchased through the developer portal. For each purchase, the user will receive points to be spent on protected API routes.

Fusio pros

• Users can build APIs without coding from different sources
• Users can charge for specific routes
• Automatic SDK generation for clients

Fusio cons

• Training can be difficult to understand
• Limited functionality compared to other systems

Fusio key features

Multiple programming languages: Users can develop actions in different programming languages, including PHP, Python, Java, and Javascript. Alternatively, they can also build APIs in a low-code style.

SDK and schema generation: Fusio provides an endpoint for automatically generating RAML and OAI specifications and can automatically generate an SDK for your API from the defined schema.

Akana: Best for API lifecycle management

Akana provides an API management platform for accelerating digital transformation by deploying secure APIs across multiple clouds. Its software is intended to accelerate time-to-market with features that support the fast design and development of APIs.

Users can manage their APIs throughout their life cycles with features that support their greater understanding of their APIs and API connections. Additionally, Akana integrates with many mainstream and open-source application development tools, enabling connections that expand the functionality of their software. API and app provisioning can even be automated within organizational workflows, using configurable forms that can easily be integrated into third-party tools and processes.

Akana pros

• Cloud agnostic system can be used in multiple cloud environments
• Ability to control some on-premises and cloud workloads
• Centralized platform to manage and understand disparate applications
• Connection capability with many application development tools

Akana cons

• Limited search functionality
• No integrated billing feature

Akana key features

• API Lifecycle Management View: This provides a graphical representation of an API’s asset-to-asset relationships. Akana provides visibility into users’ existing APIs, services, and other assets, their relationships, and their roles within the organization’s business processes and technical landscape.
• API developer portal: Akana’s API developer portal provides security to users through their authenticated and authorized access and automatic application of security policies. Developers can even customize their portals according to their API needs.

TIBCO Cloud (Mashery): Best for API automation

TIBCO Cloud API management (formerly Mashery) is designed to support organizations in maximizing the business value of their APIs. Their software can be deployed anywhere and allows for the deployment of API-led microservices through their cloud-native design.

Users can design, test, develop, and manage their APIs with the management software solution to discover the full potential of their API products. The platform enables users to build and connect their APIs using Open API (OAS), GraphQL, gRPC, or AsyncAPI. In addition, with the visual modeling features, users can create flows between data sources and discover and access business data through their APIs.

Additionally, users can configure API products and cloud-native microservices for reuse across all supporting TIBCO Cloud capabilities like integration, automation, data virtualization, and analytics. This aspect enables users to gain the most from their TIBCO API management solution by connecting their organizational efforts with a variety of digital services.

TIBCO pros

• Cloud-native design
• Event-driven API creation
• Internal service registry to share, discover, and re-use API assets
• End-to-end service chain observability

TIBCO cons

• Nonintuitive UI
• Limited integration options
• No built-in support JWT token API security

TIBCO key features

• Automated API flow: An especially advantageous aspect of the TIBCO cloud API management platform is that users can create automated API flows between their applications and servers and develop event-driven API products.
• Visual API modeling: The visual API modeling experience is a codeless API creation environment for generating OpenAPI and AsyncAPI documents. Users can also create mock implementations of their APIs within the visual modeling interface to test the behavior of their APIs with modern CI/CD practices before deployment.

Choosing the Best API Management Software

To find the right provider for your API management software, you should start by determining the top features that will be the most valuable to your organization’s needs. Then, by identifying and creating a list of the essential components for your organization’s API management, you can determine which vendors provide software that would suit your organization.

Once you have discovered which vendors provide software that checks off your necessary boxes, you can narrow down the best tool for the job. If you find yourself stuck between two comparable vendors, it may be helpful to read up on user reviews, case studies, and testimonials to give you a better idea of what you can expect from the company’s services.

Finally, testing a software solution is one of the best ways to see if it is suitable for your needs. Many solutions provide free trials of their services to potential customers, which can allow you to experience the software features and user interface firsthand.

Looking for the latest in API Management solutions? Check out our API Management Software Buyer’s Guide.

The post Best API Management Tools for 2023 appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

To provide top functionality to users, mobile technology must keep up with workers’ demand for better software. As the number of field-based employees rises, companies need mobile apps to give them greater access to business-critical information outside the office.

When looking for a new field service app, make sure that your options have the best features for your particular business. These may include:

• Cloud backup: Save invoices, customer history, and vital job information in the cloud where both office and field technicians can access it securely.
• Payments: Take payment at the jobsite, and the company’s accounts will reconcile more quickly.
• Image, document, and note attachment: Document unique customer needs and job requirements right at the site. Images help clarify otherwise messy issue descriptions.
• CRM features: Track customer needs, review maintenance histories, and identify upsell opportunities right at the job site.
• Dispatch, scheduling, and time tracking: Make the workforce more flexible and efficient with mobile-ready dispatch. Automatic time tracking via GPS or geofencing makes payroll easy.
• Internal document storage, contracts, and tax information: Give technicians and managers access to job-critical documents in the field and reduce confusion over agreements and job scope.

To get you started in your search for the best field service app for your business, here are six options that do mobile the right way.

• • FieldEdge is best for providing communication and notifications through the app for things like automatic job status changes, so every team member can stay in the know.
  • RazorSync is best for customer experience, as it has GPS technician tracking and a customer portal so teams can provide better customer communication and efficiency.
  • Miracle Service is best for scalability, as its modular features allow developing businesses to customize their needs as they grow.
  • Salesforce Service Cloud is best for its technician support, providing resources for technicians all in one centralized app.
  • HouseCall Pro is best for payment processing, as it provides consumer financing capabilities and flexible payment collections so your customers can easily pay your team for their services.
  • FieldPulse is best for team management, as it is designed specifically for mobile teams with features for scheduling, timekeeping, invoicing and commission tracking.

Field Service Apps That Do Mobile Right

FieldEdge: Best for communication and notifications

FieldEdge is a field management service software tool that helps your team members both in the office and in the field. Its Performance dashboards and mobile app allows fast access to important features for purposes like developing service agreements and price presentation. An integrated CRM puts customer details at their fingertips, where techs can also access invoicing, review mobile payments, and create on-the-spot changes to jobs.

Alerts and notifications are always helpful for both businesses and their customers. FieldEdge knows this and lets users apply automated alerts and communication to notify all relevant individuals of important updates. It also keeps the customer, the tech, and dispatch in sync with the latest job changes via notifications from the app.

FieldEdge pros

• FieldEdge Mobile reminders for staff members to clock in and out
• Automatic invoice reminders
• Visual pricebook to provide purchase and quote information for technicians
• Integrated payment solutions, including QuickBooks integration

FieldEdge cons

• Difficult user interface
• No report customization capabilities
• No inventory management features

FieldEdge key features

• Automatic job status updates: FieldEdge monitors and updates the job status according to a tech’s movement through the app rather than relying on the individual to manually update the job status as it changes.
• dESCO ESC software: FieldEdge is the cloud-based field service management app from the company behind dESCO ESC. This mobile-ready app is designed to streamline communications with the office and reduce workflow-disrupting calls or trips back to the home office.

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RazorSync: Best for customer experience

RazorSync comes equipped for use on any device—mobile, tablet, or desktop—and is priced for both small businesses and enterprise companies looking to improve their mobile field service management. The app also has Quickbooks integration, mobile payments, work orders, and fast billing.

RazerSync takes the cake for customer experience. The platform provides teams with easy access to all important customer info, so your workers can provide the best possible customer service. Like many of the options here, RazorSync tracks technicians as they move from job to job via GPS. This tool helps improve customer communication and dispatch efficiency. And one-on-one training provided by RazerSync can help them better serve their customers.

RazorSync pros

• Custom notifications for alerting customers and staff
• Time tracking to simplify payroll reporting
• Automated billing
• One-on-one trainings

RazorSync cons

• Glitchy mobile interface
• Not user-friendly
• No purchase order system

RazorSync key features

• Customer portal: The customer portal allows for increased communication and scheduling for better customer service. Both the office and technicians can see conversations and customer actions within the portal, and customers can self-serve scheduling, job updates, and billing.
• At-a-glance customer history: Users can quickly access important background information for customers to better serve their maintenance needs, like historical service records for customers’ service locations.

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Miracle Service: Best for scalability

Miracle Service is a simplified service management tool for service industries to increase their efficiency and profitability. The solution comes standard with features like scheduling, contract management, and billing to keep the field service office under control. The mobile service option gives technicians access to a range of administrative tasks, greatly reducing the need for in-person check-ins with the office.

The Miracle Service system is suitable for growing companies, as it offers a wide range of features that customers can choose to implement within their ideal solution. Miracle Service is modular, meaning businesses are able to choose and only pay for the features they need. They can later adjust their solution to gain additional features as they grow and their business needs change.

Miracle Service pros

• Preventative maintenance for field service equipment
• Document manager for digital files and images
• Profitability analysis for individual items or services
• Inventory management

Miracle Service cons

• Limited invoice formatting options
• No claims management
• No software updates for existing solutions

Miracle Service key features

• Modular capabilities: You can mix and match the important features your company needs and expand your options as your business grows. 
• Mobile technician management: This is the feature that makes Miracle Service a mobile app. It is an optional add-on, but it’s worth the extra charge for the flexibility.
• Integrations: Miracle Service also offers integrations to 20 accounting apps including QuickBooks, Microsoft Dynamics, and SAP, so organizations of all sizes can easily perform their accounting activities.

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Salesforce Service Cloud: Best for technician support

The Salesforce Service Cloud is a popular field service app that allows employees to work from anywhere, even without cell service. Offline features save to the phone and back up to the cloud later when the device connects to cell service or internet. Service Cloud is IoT-connected and can monitor machinery with connected devices, making it perfect for maintenance companies and facilities management teams that need to passively monitor systems.

Salesforce Service Cloud includes supportive features to help your team members complete their work quickly and efficiently. For example, its scheduling and routing optimization feature automates scheduling and dispatching while reducing travel times by determining the best routes. And better yet, Salesforce’s Field Service mobile app will enable your workers to access necessary data and tools when they need them.

Salesforce Service Cloud pros

• Automated scheduling for more streamlined dispatching
• Customer platform with automated service tools
• Offline mobile access
• Asset performance monitoring and management
  

Salesforce Service Cloud cons

• Learning curve
• May be too pricey for small companies and startups
• Slow UI responsiveness
  

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HouseCall Pro: Best for payment processing

HouseCall Pro helps users build better businesses by making mobile-connected field service easier for both the company and customer. HouseCall Pro enables users to harness customizable automations to simplify and accelerate their processes. It also handles scheduling on third-party apps like Facebook, Yelp, and your website, and the app provides automated marketing features such as email, follow ups, and direct mail.

Collecting payment from customers is easy with HouseCall Pro, as its one-click invoicing lets users instantly transform service estimates into personalized invoices for customers. The system files customer payment information and collects deposits prior to the start of the job to give your organization peace of mind. Its QuickBook integration also syncs data and information between the platforms for streamlined accounting.

HouseCall Pro pros

• Drag-and-drop workflow management to track customer lifecycles
• Customer intake flows for easy scheduling
• Robust reporting capabilities
• Online instant customer booking

HouseCall Pro cons

• Difficult to make adjustments to invoices and estimates
• Customer support could be more helpful
• Limited schedule customization capabilities

HouseCall Pro key features

• Instapay transactions: Collect payments, keep track of electronic invoices, and speed up the office’s invoice-to-cash cycle with Instapay, which makes fast transfers into the company’s bank account.
• Consumer financing options: Housecall Pro lets organizations provide consumer financing options. More financing options for customers, like instant financing or allowing payments over time, can help businesses attract more paying clients.
• Custom SMS messaging: Technicians can securely talk to customers and the office through a custom SMS messaging tool. With this tool, technicians don’t have to share their personal mobile numbers with customers.

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FieldPulse: Best for team management

FieldPulse is a field service management software designed specifically for mobile teams. Its platform enables users to manage their jobs, perform scheduling, and even support their customer relationships. Its customizable invoices and payments also make it easy to bill clients for services.

In addition, FieldPulse provides plenty of capabilities for service businesses to manage their contractors and teams. This includes Gantt-based scheduling for greater dispatch clarity, a GPS-driven employee time clock for reduced manual entry errors, and even commission tracking to motivate on-site selling. Teams can take payment on-site through Square and manage their books with QuickBooks-connected accounting tools.

FieldPulse pros

• Ability to customize invoices
• Mobile estimating software for contractors
• GPS vehicle tracking
• Easy invoicing

FieldPulse cons

• Report exporting could use improvement
• Steep learning curve for new users
• Non-intuitive UI

FieldPulse key features

• Item repository: FieldPulse makes building invoices fast with an item repository. Technicians can save their most common invoice items and add them quickly. This feature reduces office errors and results in faster billing cycles.
• User management: FieldPulses user management lets admins manage staff members in various ways, like assigning their teams, tracking their locations, and scheduling jobs directly within the app.

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Choosing the Best Field service App

FSM software is improving as fast as the industry is growing. Look for mobile apps that make life easier for technicians and the back office, as these will reduce job times and costly manual back-and-forth communications.

Looking for the latest in FSM solutions? Check out our Field Service Management Software guide.

Top Field Service Management Software Recommendations

The post Best Mobile Apps for Service Technicians appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

• Sales mapping software eases travel times and increases productivity for your dispersed teams.
• You can plan more strategic routes, build more effective territory maps, and easily share your data with management teams and accounting . . . or you can blindly dispatch your sales team and let them find their own way.

Sales mapping software is a fairly new addition to the tech world, but integrating sales data with geolocation and mapping is quickly becoming a best practice for outside sales. The least technical versions of sales mapping software overlay spreadsheet data on maps. The most advanced integrate CRM data and administrative tracking capabilities.

ALSO READ: 5 Ways Business Mapping Improves Sales

Your accounting department should be shouting for this software. Building the shortest routes between customers gives your sales team more time to meet with more clients and cuts fuel and mileage costs. Many of these tools also include check-in capabilities, so managers can keep an eye on their reps without making half a dozen phone calls.

This list gives you several sales mapping software options to choose from, depending on your business needs. Some products provide advanced features and broad horizontal integration, while others just cover the basics. 

Sales Mapping and Beyond

Badger Maps: Best for dispersed sales teams

Badger Maps is an automatic territory management software that helps field sales representatives streamline their processes and expand their clientele. It has universal compatibility with almost any CRM, as well as spreadsheets and calendars, making Badger a strong contender in the sales mapping space. You can also report from the app to target customer segments and find new lead openings.

Badger Maps designed their app with dispersed sales teams in mind. The mobile interface plots the fastest route between customers, and live traffic updates help you avoid delays. With all that extra time, you can use the app to search for new leads in your area. As sales reps work their way through a route, a check-in feature updates the system to keep managers and other stakeholders informed. The check-in feature also stores information about client visits to keep follow-ups from falling through the cracks.

Badger Maps key features:

• Lasso: The Lasso feature lets users generate routes by circling a set of points on the map. This makes it easy to find the best routes and instantly reassign accounts geographically, so your dispersed workers can take jobs in their assigned regions.
• Route Stats: Workers can view important information about their routes, such as seeing the mileage, travel time, and full-day time of your routes, so they can generate accurate mileage reports quickly and easily.

Portatour: Best for planning

Portatour’s mobile interface connects with your CRM to build sales territory maps and driving routes. It pulls existing customers, calls, and appointments, and builds the fastest and most direct routes for your sales team. You can even automate your schedule updates so the maps reroute your teams based on the latest data. Custom reports keep managers informed of progress on sales goals and accounting status.

Portatour’s strength is its focus on planning. Prepare your routes up to 28 days in advance, and they’ll automatically adjust to missed or deferred calls and schedule changes. Portatour suggests its software for sales teams with more than 100 clients in an area; it can plan for large territories as well as overnight stays in the middle of routes.

Portatour Key Features

• Customer Database: The built-in customer database holds up to 1,000 customers and schedules up to 125 calls at once.
• Surrounding Customers: The surrounding customers feature provides automatic suggestions of surrounding customers, making it easy to reach out and arrange opportunities all within one area.

Callproof:  Best for flexibility

Callproof’s mobile mapping software is great for large outside marketing teams with rapidly changing schedules that need flexibility, but also manager oversight. Upload customer information to build your routes through Google Maps, and even use Street View to locate clients in unfamiliar areas. Create and save multiple routes at the same time, and give managers oversight of all sales movements with geo-tagged check-ins.

This software’s flexibility lets you add new customers on the fly and alerts reps based on customer-specific notifications. A newsfeed of all check-ins and movements keeps everyone informed, and managers can import or export data from the app. A direct Wufoo integration gives reps direct access to business forms and contracts and updates completed forms in real time.

Callproof key features

• Business Card Scanning: This feature lets users take a picture of a customer’s business card to automatically fill in their data and save their contact information.
• Integration with Google Workspaces and Office 365: These connections allow data to be synced between systems, and will make it easy for workers to stay in the loop about business plan updates.
• Places Feature: Users can automatically add new clients, and the feature also color coordinates contacts based on their customer status.

Yellowfin: Best for integrations

Yellowfin’s software platform extends well beyond mapping into business intelligence (BI) visualization. However, if you need a system capable of many visualizations for multiple departments, Yellowfin meets that need. Because it caters to the BI crowd, Yellowfin connects all sorts of data to help you build your maps, not only CRM.

This software’s major benefit is found in its connections marketplace. Yellowfin has built lots of integrations with major business brands and useful tools, including geocodes, MailChimp, Salesforce, Zendesk, and Expensify. If you can’t find what you need, use the developer API access to build custom connections with your in-house databases.

Yellowfin key features:

• Action-based Dashboards: Yellowfin offers fully-customizable dashboards that can be built to your specific need.
• Automated Business Monitoring: Set thresholds for alerts to let you know of any changes in your business over a long list of options.

eSpatial: Best for salesperson support

eSpatial is powered by Microsoft Azure and overlays data points on existing or drawn territories to build sales maps. Whether you bring your own data or use free worldwide census and government data to inform your maps, all of it can be segmented, filtered, and analyzed.

eSpatial offers seamless Salesforce integration and is available on the Salesforce AppExchange. Route planning is built with all the bells and whistles required by salespeople including turn-by-turn driving directions. Territory-based businesses will enjoy the visualizations that go beyond territory and route mapping and even combine other types of chart data for complex analysis.

eSpatial key features:

• eTerritory: This territory alignment system feature helps salespeople map out their sales data to minimize time wasted, generate alignment territories, and share alignments with their other team members.
• Visual Maps: Insights are revealed through visual maps, which use data to display information about sales costs, marketing costs and ROI, so sales and marketing teams can plan and control their expenditures.

BatchGeo: Best free option

Batchgeo lets you share maps with stakeholders or embed a custom map in your website for customer use. This option wasn’t specifically made for sales, but the general functions work well enough to build sales maps with. Try out the free tier, but if you don’t want ads on your maps, you’ll need to upgrade to the Pro edition. 

Other Pro edition extras include heat maps, faster data processing, streetview overlay, and enhanced security. BatchGeo also offers a native app for all pay levels with built-in filtering capabilities and driving directions to keep your sales team from using multiple apps while driving.

Batchgeo key features:

• Grouping fields: The free and Pro versions of BatchGeo let users discover insights geographically by grouping data within territories on the platform’s map.
• Map clustering: Free and pro account users can access the basic map clustering capabilities to gain insights from their clustered datasets.

Maptive: Best for security

Like many other options on this list, Maptive runs as an overlay on the Google Maps enterprise platform. They offer a couple of options for uploading data: directly from a CSV file or through automatic API sync. The entire platform is browser-based and lives in the cloud, protected by 256-bit SSL encryption.

While Maptive doesn’t include a lot of the extras found in other sales mapping solutions, its simplicity is appealing in itself. Customize your maps and share them with stakeholders. Use easy segmentation to build sales territories, and drive quickly from one location to another along the fastest route.

Maptive key features:

• Geocoding: Maptive data is geocoded through Google and secured using 256-bit SSL encryption to ensure security.
• Backup and Recovery: The platform performs fully redundant backups on stored data and offers disaster recovery so all data is protected in case of emergency.

Mapline: Best for customer management

Mapline is the most basic of all of the mapping solutions on this list. It’s not designed specifically for sales, but would adapt well to a sales team. Companies using spreadsheets for client data can import from Excel to overlay on a map of their area. You can draw territories according to custom shapes, client concentrations, or government areas.

Once you’ve built your map in Mapline, your data can live there for future route mapping. You can embed and share reports, or assign information to map pins. But if you want to analyze your maps based on client location, proximity, activity, or other segments, you’ll need to export all or part of the data back into Excel. Mapline is a stripped-down solution for basic mapping tasks.

Mapline Key Features

• Spatially-enhanced forms: Mapline’s configurable, spatially-enhanced forms let sales teams communicate quickly and efficiently with customers.
• Dynamic Data Automation: Businesses can set their dynamic data columns to update data changes automatically. This enables easy access to relevant real-time information about customers, sales, and more.

Choosing the Best Sales Mapping Software

Sales mapping software eases travel times and increases productivity for your dispersed teams. You can plan more strategic routes, build more effective territory maps, and easily share your data with management teams and accounting . . . or you can blindly dispatch your sales team and let them find their own way.   

If you still need help navigating (haha pun) the mapping software market, give us a call for a free assessment. We’ll help you decide which solution is the best choice for your team.

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Growth Is Driving Job Demand

Within the past few years, the business intelligence industry has shown remarkable growth, which is expected to continue as more businesses emphasize data-driven decision-making. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global business intelligence market is projected to grow from $24.05 billion in 2021 to $43.03 billion in 2028 at a CAGR of 8.7%. It should go without saying that this growth creates enormous job opportunities.

Business Intelligence Analyst

Average Annual Salary: $90,143

A business intelligence analyst, or BI analyst, helps organizations reach success by reviewing and analyzing their business data. They are tasked with interpreting this data for trends and patterns that can help businesses identify areas of improvement or make decisions to support their growth. BI analysts will then create reports from this data that explain their findings to their clients or hiring organizations.

To become a BI analyst, you should possess technical data mining and analytics skills. You must also be proficient in ETL (extract, transform, load) and data visualization software and tools. This job can also lead to advanced career opportunities, as BI analysts may be able to move up to higher-level roles, like analytics managers or business intelligence architects.

Data Analyst

Average Annual Salary: $65,736

Data analysts collect and analyze the business data to reach valuable insights and report on their findings to help companies and organizations make data-backed decisions. These professionals are tasked with various data management, analysis, and reporting duties.

They collect information from data sources, ensure the quality and accuracy of the data, and organize it in a way that allows it to be analyzed, often through database technology. Once the data is analyzed, data analysts interpret the results and generate reports to communicate them to organizational decision-makers.

To land a job as a data analyst, you should have knowledge of programming languages and be proficient in data software tools and statistical packages. The employment of operations and research analysts, which includes data analysts, is projected to grow 25% from 2019 to 2029, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Therefore, this job can set you up with a promising career.

Business Intelligence Manager

Average Annual Salary: $77,299

A business intelligence manager oversees an organization’s business intelligence team, including data analysts, developers, and other related professionals. They manage the team by supervising the staff activities, administering projects, and analyzing the organization’s processes for maximum efficiency.

Aside from ensuring the efficiency of team members, business intelligence managers are tasked with additional responsibilities, like maintaining reporting requirements, communicating insights to decision-makers, and leading the design and deployment of business intelligence programs.

To become a business intelligence manager, you should have a bachelor’s degree in a related field like business administration, computer science, or statistics. You should also have experience in analytics, and gaining a certification can help advance your career.

Analytics Manager

Average Annual Salary: $111,362

Analytics managers develop effective data analysis and reporting strategies and oversee the data analytics projects for their organization. They often work with the business intelligence team to design new procedures for improving operational efficiency and develop data systems that will serve the organization’s needs.

Analytics managers should also have good communication skills, as they will be leading other analysts, coordinating with IT departments, and discussing business objectives and insights with decision makers.

Analytics managers should have a bachelor’s degree in related fields and employment history in a role with leadership responsibilities. Experience in data science or data analysis positions will definitely help you achieve this role.

Data Consultant

Average Annual Salary: $105,640

Data consultants work with organizations or individual clients to analyze their business data usage and management. They use their expertise to develop data strategies to improve the effective utilization of data technology and tools.

The role also involves tasks like creating reports and making recommendations to higher-ups on ways to refine the data processes of the organization.

This position requires a strong knowledge of the latest data software tools and technology. A bachelor’s degree in a related field like IT, computer science, or business is typically required as well as additional work experience in related roles.

Business Intelligence Developer

Average Annual Salary: $101,037

A business intelligence developer designs, builds, and manages BI software and infrastructures. They create these solutions to help organizations make data-backed business decisions to solve problems and reach their objectives.

In addition, BI developers execute database queries and conduct testing on existing BI tools to develop effective business intelligence solutions. The role often involves collaborating with IT and related teams to integrate their systems.

BI developers also communicate with organizational officials to identify their business needs and report on development projects.

A bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or a relevant field will help you attain this job. You should also have experience in related data science or BI development roles and knowledge of BI software systems. SQL querying knowledge may also be required for this position.

If you are hired as a business intelligence developer, you’re in luck — the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the software developer career to grow 22% from 2020 to 2030, which is much faster than the average rate.

Data Engineer

Average Annual Salary: $115,243

Data engineers create systems to transform raw data into usable information for business data analysis. They develop and maintain data systems that work to improve data quality and accuracy, maintain datasets, and convert raw data into a format that can be analyzed.

In addition, these data engineers work with data scientists and build solutions for them to generate actionable insights for the organization’s business objectives. Tasks may include optimizing data collection, building algorithms, creating data pipelines, and monitoring data systems.

Becoming a data engineer could be a smart career move, as it is a growing field. According to the 2020 Dice Tech Jobs Report, it was the fastest-growing tech job in 2019, having grown 50% over the previous year.

To land the role, you should first have a degree in IT, software engineering, computer science, or a related field. Additionally, previous experience and relevant professional data management certifications are always helpful.

Start Your Business Intelligence Career Now

Interested in starting a career in business intelligence? TechnologyAdvice is now hiring! Visit the TechnologyAdvice careers page to learn more about available business intelligence positions.

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Just last year, in 2021, there was a 50% increase in overall attacks per week on corporate networks compared to 2020, and in Q4 of 2021, there was an all-time peak in weekly cyberattacks per organization, according to research from Check Point.

When an organization’s software system has vulnerabilities, attackers can easily exploit them and gain unauthorized access to critical data and information. Therefore, organizations should adopt a cybersecurity strategy that includes effective vulnerability management solutions to avoid exposing sensitive information through vulnerabilities.

Best Vulnerability Management Tools and Software

If you are interested in adopting a vulnerability management software system to improve the security of your organization’s network, you’re in luck. We’ve compiled a list of the best vulnerability management tools available from vendors in 2022.

GFI LanGuard

GFI LanGuard provides endpoint protection solutions that grant users visibility into their networks, so they can identify and patch up their vulnerabilities. The solution covers all devices within an organization’s network, and users can easily manage their devices within the system’s central management dashboard.

The solution scans networks to identify missing patches and non-patch vulnerabilities, and users can control how they would like the system to resolve these security issues. The tool can also deploy patches and agents centrally or on different machines, and the system even provides automated security compliance reports.

Kenna Security

Kenna Security is a Cisco solution for risk-based vulnerability management. The software tool harnesses machine learning and data science to identify and score organizations’ risks across multi-vendor environments. With 55 prebuilt connectors across 30+ vendors, the software can generate an accurate view of an organization’s vulnerabilities.

Additionally, the tool analyzes security data from external threats and exploit feeds, so users can have the information to stay one step ahead of their attackers. Predictive analytics and machine learning help the system to predict vulnerability risks, prevent exploits, and forecast the weaponization of new vulnerabilities with a 94% accuracy rate.

Rapid7

Rapid7 provides solutions for users to gain insights into their vulnerability risks across users’ network environments. The InsightVM solution scans all of the user’s endpoints, cloud, and virtualized infrastructure to identify and reveal their security risks. In addition, insightVM live dashboards display a view of users’ risks and are interactive with simple language, so users can track the progress of their security processes.

Another remarkable feature would be their container security, as InsightVM integrates with users’ CI/CD (continuous integration and continuous delivery) tools and repositories to assess containers for vulnerabilities before deployment to reduce their risks. The product also has many automated features to assist with vulnerability patching and automated compensating controls.

Tripwire

The IP360 tool by Tripwire uses risk scoring technology to help users manage their network vulnerabilities. The scoring works by ranking vulnerabilities numerically according to their impact, age, and ease of exploitation. This way, users know what vulnerabilities to prioritize to increase their organizational IT security.

The tool’s architecture is scalable to users’ largest deployments and can help them manage their network devices and software components across their hybrid environments. In addition, the IP360’s open APIs (application programming interfaces) make it easy to integrate other solutions for greater vulnerability management functionality.

Tenable (Tenable.sc & Tenable.io)

Tenable provides tools to help organizations maintain network security with Tenable.sc and Tenable.io vulnerability management solutions. Tenable.io is the cloud-based vulnerability management solution that is powered by Nessus technology to help users understand their organization’s vulnerabilities.

The end-to-end solution grants users visibility into their assets with active scanning, passive monitoring, and agents, so they can be aware of the vulnerabilities within their IT infrastructure and across their organizational network and assets. In addition, the system provides risk scores to users’ vulnerabilities based on data science, so users can assess and prioritize their risks.

The Tenable.sc is the “security center” solution, which also helps organizations understand their IT security and compliance, so they can protect their critical assets. The risk-based vulnerability management solution is controlled on-premises to conduct a continuous assessment of the organizational network in real-time.

Tenable.sc provides IT teams visibility into their network with unlimited scanners powered by Nessus technology, allowing them to find and focus on vulnerabilities. Users can access data insights through customizable dashboards, workflows, reports, and built-in risk scoring.

Qualys Cloud Platform

Qualys provides vulnerability management solutions through their Qualys VMDR 2.0 with Qualys TruRisk, which works to provide visibility and insight into cyber risk exposure. Users are able to manage their critical vulnerabilities in real-time across their global hybrid environment.

The software works to detect all environment assets and lets users identify and categorize them for better asset management. In addition, users can manage risks across their assets to help them prepare and defend against stackers. When a vulnerability is automatically detected with the system’s six sigma accuracy, users can then automate the remediation processes with no-code workflows or integrate with ITSM tools for at-scale threat remediation.

Orca Security

Orca Security’s vulnerability management solution discovers and manages vulnerabilities within the cloud. It uses SideScanning technology to detect vulnerabilities in users’ cloud environments without affecting their performance.

Orca’s software creates a visual context map of users’ assets, asset roles, and connectivity. It then contextualizes the data in a graph to understand the impact of a vulnerability within the context of users’ cloud environments. When a vulnerability is detected, the system prioritizes risks by providing an asset map of the relationships between the effective assets.

The context-based risk prioritization enables users to determine the best method of remediation for each of their vulnerabilities.

Detectify

The online vulnerability scanner by Detectify is an automated tool to help users test their web applications for vulnerabilities. Built by ethical hackers, these tests use the latest security funding and research to create up-to-date scans and test the security of web applications.

This is another solution that can be useful for developers, as it can check code for vulnerabilities to ensure users are developing secure apps. Helpful features of the solution include customizable security scans, team functionality with user permission controls, descriptive reports on security issues, and report exports for easy sharing.

Invicti

Acunetix by Invicti is a network and web security management solution. It tests the security of network services, network devices, and web applications by conducting vulnerability scans from the integrated OpenVAS engine and Acunetix engine.

Once the solution has identified security vulnerabilities, users can then manage and prioritize their vulnerabilities and decide whether to conduct further penetration testing or to carry out remediation processes. The interface can also integrate scanning into CI/CD pipelines to prevent the likelihood of misconfiguration in users’ virtual machines and issues in production environments.

The post Best Vulnerability Management Software appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

Read on to learn how the best data storage solutions function to address the BI needs for organizations in 2022.

What is a BI Data Storage Solution?

Business intelligence requires the use of raw data that is transformed into insights and actionable information, allowing organizations to make data-driven decisions. Therefore, organizations must store their BI data in accessible but secure locations.

How are BI storage needs different from other storage needs?

BI operations depend upon software solutions to analyze data and transform it into actionable insights. The software needs to be able to access the data from the data storage solution. This data movement from the storage site into the BI solution is commonly referred to as the data flow. An organization’s BI data storage solution should support data flow into their analysis software solution.

Depending on the amount of data an organization needs to utilize, organizations may require much more storage space for their BI operations than they would need otherwise. Hence, scalability is a necessary feature of any BI data storage solution. Additionally, data stored within BI data storage solutions should be secure and address the appropriate compliance standards, as these locations will house important information that should not fall into the wrong hands.

The data stored within these solutions can come from multiple data sources and may be varying and complex. For this, storage solutions should also be able to organize and manage data in a way that allows it to be easily retrieved and used by other systems and for data queries.

What are the Key Features of BI Data Storage?

Space and scalability

Organizations often require lots of space to store their data, which can add up. However, utilizing cloud-based or hybrid solutions often enables users to purchase only the amount of data they need and scale up as necessary.

Accessibility

Data held in these storage solutions should be easily accessible for use in the organization’s other BI analysis, reporting, and visualization solutions. In order for organizations to gain real-time analysis and insights from their data, the storage solutions should be able to allow quick access to support the necessary data flow for these operations.

Management

The raw data that enters the BI data storage solutions may be unstructured and complex. Therefore, many data storage solutions provide ways for users to manage their data storage or will manage the data storage processing for users to ensure data is properly organized within the system.

Security

These storage solutions should come with features to protect organizations against the risk of data loss. They should also provide end-to-end encryption and appropriately meet the organization’s compliance standards.

What are the Benefits of a BI Data Storage Solution?

BI data storage solutions can provide many benefits to the organizations that use them, allowing for fast and safe data use within their analysis systems. To appropriately discuss the various benefits of data storage solutions, let’s look at some advantages that different types of BI data storage solutions can offer their users.

Data warehousing

Data warehousing solutions can provide users with more control over their data and can be a scalable option for BI data storage. They can help users maintain and clean up raw data from multiple disparate sources. The data is then stored within the data warehouses, which are an excellent interface for querying, transforming, and extracting data.

Data lakes

Data lakes can store all structured and unstructured data. This option is beneficial for performing machine learning, profiling, big data analysis, and real-time and predictive analytics on organizational data.

Cloud-based solutions

Cloud storage solutions are easily accessible for users at any place and any time, so long as they have internet access. They are also often an economical choice, as many cloud storage providers only allow users to pay for their required storage space. Storing organizational data in a single location through the cloud can also provide a single source of truth for users and lowers the likelihood of having duplicate datasets and data complexity.

Analytical databases

Analytical databases are great for querying, BI analysis, and managing Big Data. They let users benefit from fast query response times and can handle high volumes of data. They are also highly scalable, SQL-compatible, and allow for efficient data compression.

Explore Top Business Intelligence Job Opportunities | TechnologyAdvice.com

5 Top Data Storage Solutions for BI

Snowflake

This cross-cloud data storage solution lets users access all of their data on one platform, including their structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data. Many different workloads can be supported through the system using the user’s choice of language, making it an accessible choice for a variety of users.

The system allows organizations to query their semi-structured data with speed and flexibility. By running pipelines through Snowflake’s elastic processing engine and streamlining pipeline development through their language of choice, users can process their data without the need for excessive maintenance.

Data stored in the Snowflake Data Lake is secure, as users can protect their data across clouds with scalable role-based access policies. The system’s Classification feature lets it automatically identify sensitive data and enable secure collaboration with live, secure data sharing.

Oracle’s Autonomous Database

Oracle offers many different data solutions for business intelligence. The Autonomous Database is an excellent solution for organizations that desire fast data storage and processing with a low likelihood of human error. The cloud database is fully automated and formatted to support fast database provisioning, extracting, loading, and transforming data.

This is a nice choice for non-experts and experts alike, as it offers robust data management capabilities while being a hands-off, autonomous system. With auto-scaling, auto-securing, auto-tuning, auto-backups, auto-repairing, and auto-patching, organizations can manage their data while reducing their administrative costs.

The solution also provides self-service data management tools, enabling users to easily load and transform their data to generate actionable insights. Additional features include machine learning capabilities, graph analytics, and spatial analytics.

Google BigQuery

Google BigQuery is an enterprise data warehouse where organizations can store and analyze their data. The solution stores user’s data in a columnar storage format to support analytical queries. BigQuery automatically replicates its storage across multiple locations to provide high data availability.

BigQuery is designed to enable users to run analytic queries over large datasets. As a managed service, BigQuery automatically allocates storage for users as they move data into the system, so users only need to pay for the storage they utilize. The solution also protects users’ data from data loss by replicating it across multiple availability zones as well as encrypts all user data before it is written to disk.

Users can load their data into BigQuery through batch loading sets of data records, streaming individual records or batches of records, generating new data using queries or overwriting the results to a table, or by using a third-party application or service.

IBM

IBM’s Enterprise Data Storage Solutions are integrated data storage platforms that act as a single source of truth for users within an organization. They offer data storage software solutions for simplified management and secure data protection.

IBM provides a range of storage solutions for advanced data services, long-term data retention, artificial intelligence (AI), business continuity, and scalability. Users can choose between enterprise storage solutions designed to support the capabilities of IBM Z hybrid cloud environments, SAP HANA data demands, and self-service storage container environments.

The solutions are designed to manage storage networking challenges, so data is accessible across the user organization’s hybrid cloud infrastructure, with scalable AI and security features.

AWS Amazon S3

Amazon Simple Storage Service is just one of Amazon’s cloud storage solutions. This object storage service is a scalable and secure infrastructure for organizations looking to virtually store and protect their data. Users can use the solution for structured and unstructured data to create and scale their own data lake in a secure environment.

AWS provides services for AI, HPC (high-performance computing), machine learning, and media data processing that users can run on their data lakes, enabling them to gain insights and information about their stored data. The solution also supports integrations with many third-party service providers, so users can easily analyze and transform their data.

With data lakes, users can remove data silos and gain insights by analyzing diverse datasets. Transferring data to the Amazon Simple Storage Service is simple with the AWS data transfer services for hybrid cloud storage, online data transfer, and offline data transfer.

Check out more top BI tools and solutions with our comprehensive Product Selection tool. | TechnologyAdvice.com

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Data can be sourced from many different tools and systems involved in a business’s processes. Therefore, being unable to develop insights from data sources could mean missing out on some vital information that could otherwise propel a business to success.

You never know what data could be monumental in transforming business practices for the better, which is why it is so important to be able to access and analyze as much as possible. In order to do this, data integration strategies can facilitate the transfer and use of data between locations.

What are the must-have predictive analytics tools for your business? | TechnologyAdvice.com

How Does Integrated Data Impact BI a Company?

Integrated data can support BI for companies, as it can enable them to gain insights to help them make actionable decisions. These insights inform organizations of the best possible methods for achieving their desired results and help them determine ways to adjust their business strategies to incorporate this knowledge.

What outcomes are possible?

Businesses that integrate their data can find ways to improve their business decisions and processes to generate beneficial outcomes.

For example, suppose a business was to integrate its data to enable it to use the data for analysis within a software system. This could help the business determine insights and develop methods to improve its return on investment, promote its services and products, and predict future business scenarios.

Data integration can also help to improve communication and collaboration among decision-makers, enabling them to determine methods for reaching better business outcomes.

What Important Data Integration Speedbumps Might Impact Your BI?

Of course, the value of an insight brought on by data analysis depends on the accuracy of the data being analyzed. Unfortunately, speed bumps can pop up throughout the data integration process, which could compromise the value and usefulness of the integrated data.

Data silos

Data silos are usually accessible by a select group of individuals and can create issues with data sharing and integration. In addition, the inaccessibility and limited visibility of this data mean that it can often be misunderstood or result in poor data quality. This can also cause inconsistencies in data that may overlap across other locations, threatening data integrity.

Data inconsistency

Data inconsistency refers to a situation where different versions of identical data exist in multiple places, creating an incorrect representation of the information within a database. This can cause significant issues with analyzing data. Some forms of data inconsistency can include temporal, semantic, structural, and transformation inconsistency.

Disorganized data

Disorganized data, or unstructured data, is data that does not follow any predefined structure or organization hierarchy. Disorganized data can be problematic when integrating data from various sources for use within a separate system.

Compromised data integrity 

Many of the aforementioned issues can result in compromised data integrity, which means the data is no longer accurate or consistent. Compromised data serves no value to BI, as it cannot be analyzed to gain real insights about the business.

Strategies for Integrating Data Into BI

Application-based integration

Many enterprise applications use prebuilt connections to facilitate the transfer of information from the source into the desired location. These applications can usually automate the retrieval, transformation, and movement of this data information, making it an easy integration option.

While this may be an ideal method for data integration, built-in connections are not always supported between software systems. Therefore, using another data integration method in these cases may be helpful.

Middleware data integration

Middleware enables the sharing of data between multiple applications. For data integration, businesses can use middleware to transfer data from source systems and into a central data repository, where it can be accessed for data analysis.

A helpful aspect of middleware data integration is that middleware platforms can validate and format the data before transferring it to the data repository. This ensures businesses won’t end up with compromised data integrity or disorganized data.

Common storage (data warehousing)

Common storage integration, otherwise known as data warehousing, is a data integration method where data is copied from the source location, and the copied data is then transferred to a data warehouse. The data warehouse will store the information and display it in a consistent format.

The data is transformed prior to being copied and stored, so all of the information in the data warehouse has a consistent uniformed appearance. This integration method is also beneficial for supporting data integrity, as all data information can be accessed from the data warehouse as one single source.

Data consolidation

Data consolidation is a method where information from multiple data sources are combined within a system, which acts as a new single source of truth for the organization. The data consolidation technique can enable organizations to maintain less storage locations for data.

ETL (extract, transform, load) technology is an example of a system that uses data consolidation to move large amounts of data. It does so by pulling data from sources, cleaning, filtering, transforming, and applying business rules to the data before finally transferring it to the end location.

Hand-coding (manual data integration)

Hand-coding is the manual data integration process where humans will evaluate and categorize data without using a software system. This way, the business can develop its own strategies and custom code for organizing and integrating data information.

While this method may provide more control over the integration process, it has several drawbacks. Hand-coding can be a slow and tedious job, and the lack of automation also means a greater likelihood of human error throughout the process. Manually integrating data also means needing to manually change code when integrating new data, which can make it challenging to scale and maintain the information for larger datasets.

The post Top Data Integration Strategies for Business Intelligence (BI) appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

While SAP‘s  ERP software can streamline your organization’s operations for optimized efficiency, there are potentially better alternatives depending on your business’s needs. After all, a business’s production, finances, and output quality are not areas to be taken lightly, and ERP solutions can handle even more business aspects than that.

So, if you’re searching for alternatives to SAP’s ERP solution, be sure to consider the key features offered by many ERP products and how they could best work for your enterprise management needs.

Best SAP ERP Alternatives for Financial Management Features

The SAP ERP software provides several features for financial management processes, such as working capital management, financial planning and analysis, budgeting, efficient billing and business models, continuous accounting, and the ability for users to connect their finances to their entire company.

Features such as these allow users to benefit from a streamlined and integrated financial process. Therefore, it’s important to see how SAP alternatives compare in terms of financial management features.

Sage X3

Sage Business Cloud X3 grants users full access and control over their organization’s entire financial management processes. It provides real-time data visibility over financial data with analytics, notifications, alerts, and configurable inquiries on any data table, so users can gain actionable insights.

Organizations can track their fixed assets throughout their life cycle with traceability of capital expenditure. The other financial management features include cash flow management, bank management, budgets, commitments, accounts payable, accounts receivable, and cost and analytical accounting.

Oracle Netsuite

Oracle Netsuite allows users to automate core financial processes like assets management, revenue management, and bank reconciliation. NetSuite’s financial, operational, and headcount data provides real-time visibility and can produce reports, budgets, and forecasts and model what-if scenarios, so users get the most from their financial datasets.

In addition, the system offers revenue recognition in compliance with accounting standards like ASC 606 and IFRS 15 as well as features for governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) and financial consolidation.

Best SAP ERP Alternatives for Manufacturing Features

SAP provides users with ERP software to optimize manufacturing production processes. Its features involve real-time data insights, MRP (material requirements planning) and production planning, project manufacturing, manufacturing engineering, and collaboration tools.

Below are some alternative ERP solutions that provide their own services that support manufacturing operations.

Plex Systems

Plex Systems has a smart manufacturing platform, enabling users to connect with each area of their manufacturing processes across people, machines, systems, and supply chains. Users can track and analyze their data from each end of their productions to better understand their organization and maintain quality and control.

Moreover, the system automates manufacturing workflows and business processes like integrating processes with EDI (electronic data interchange) for accuracy in supplier actions. Users of the Plex ERP system can also minimize their risks with the tool’s features for maintaining compliance with statutory and industry regulations.

Epicor

Epicor’s software for manufacturing enables users to streamline their manufacturing operations with real-time visibility across inventory and business and increase their uptime.

In addition, the solution has features for anticipating consumer demand to determine production capacity and cost management as well as financial tools for manufacturing-related processes. That way, teams can accurately plan their productivity to increase profits and revenue and accelerate their business growth.

A nice aspect of this software is that it enables users to leverage advanced technology in their manufacturing enterprise resource planning, like machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Best SAP ERP Alternatives for Supply Chain Management Features

Supply chain processes are not always easy to manage, but ERP systems can organize them in a way that provides control and visibility for users.

For example, SAP’s Supply Chain Management module is a part of their ERP tool that provides agile supply chain planning features like supply chain networking, coordination, logistics management, and information management. However, IFS and Infor CloudSuite also provide remarkable supply chain management capabilities for their users.

IFS

IFS provides supply chain management functions that help organizations meet customer demands, develop their business reputations, and simplify their inventory management among other capabilities. IFS also has features for managing inventory and improving margins and cash flow.

Users of the product can benefit from supply chain visibility across their entire ecosystem, enabling them to better manage their costs, shorten production life cycles, maintain quality, and accelerate turnaround times. This transparency can also make identifying and resolving issues and mitigating risks within the supply chain processes easier.

Infor CloudSuite

The Infor CloudSuite ERP solution for supply chain management offers end-to-end resources for streamlining supply chain orchestration. Users gain visibility over real-time supply and demand signals with predictive alerting for important events.

Its automation features can perform financial tasks like chargebacks, claims processes, and invoice processing and approval, saving time and effort for users.

In addition, the product life cycle management software uses data to produce insights for better decision-making, and the collaborative in-network execution tools are a significant aspect of the product, as users and suppliers can collaborate in real time on orders, forecasts, and capacity.

How to Choose an SAP ERP Alternative

There are many ERP solutions on the market, each of which come with its own capabilities to help users execute their resource and planning tasks. When deciding on the best SAP ERP alternative for you, consider what aspects of SAP’s product are essential to you and would be most beneficial to conducting and improving your organization’s business.

If there is a feature you prefer, look for products that also provide similar features or ones that offer the same result. For example, suppose you appreciate SAP ERP’s financial analysis tools. In that case, you may want to consider whether Sage X3’s financial data tables and analytic capabilities would provide the same benefit for your organization.

Furthermore, some alternatives to the SAP ERP software may offer their own unique features, which could be more advantageous for your organization. Oracle, for example, has asset life cycle management for determining the financial potential of your assets, which the SAP ERP software does not possess.

Analyzing your options based on the features that would be most beneficial to your organization’s ERP needs is an effective way to pinpoint the optimal ERP solution for you.

The post Top 6 SAP ERP Alternatives appeared first on TechnologyAdvice.

In this article, we will look at the features and functionalities of GoDaddy and several of its best alternatives. Popular web hosting vendors like Bluehost, Domain.com, Dreamhost, and HostGator offer similar services to its clients. We’ve done the job of analyzing these GoDaddy alternatives based on multiple factors, so you don’t have to.

Jump to:

• About GoDaddy
• Best GoDaddy Alternatives
• Top features of web hosting services
• How to choose the best web hosting provider

About GoDaddy

GoDaddy provides its users with a structured system for building websites and online digital spaces. Their drag-and-drop website creation system grants members an easy, user-friendly experience, and their unlimited disk space lets members limitlessly execute their ideas.

For those newer to website building, the GoDaddy website builder provides a variety of templates and customizable themes as well as mobile designing and editing. In addition, users can manage all of their online presences, including their website, email, and socials, from the GoDaddy integrated platform. At the same time, businesses benefit from their personalized marketing tools and the option to upgrade their memberships for e-commerce features.

If you just want to register your domain elsewhere, customers can purchase a domain name from Google Domains for as little as $7/year.

Best GoDaddy Alternatives

Product	Free Domain Name with Plan Purchase	Managed WordPress Hosting	VPS Hosting Plans	Dedicated Servers
GoDaddy	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Bluehost	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Domain.com	Yes	No	No	No
DreamHost	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
HostGator	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Who are the top GoDaddy competitors, and do they provide better hosting than GoDaddy? To answer these questions, we have evaluated several GoDaddy competitors and alternative website hosting providers to see how they stack up based on their features and services.

Bluehost

Bluehost is a drag-and-drop site builder with unlimited disk storage and data hosting. It is easy to use and customize with its intuitive control panel. Bluehost memberships include the general features of similar hosting platforms, such as a free domain name for users, easy-to-use website creation, and WordPress integration. However, Bluehost provides more email accounts than GoDaddy as well as unlimited databases.

User and website data is safe with multiple disk data mirroring through their dedicated hosting plan. Additionally, there are numerous other options for ensuring security, such as password-protected directories, IP address blocklists, digital certificates, and private key management. Users can decide which security measures they would like to take. The drawback is that they must do daily security backups themselves as Bluehost’s services do not include automated daily security backups.

A great Bluehost feature for business needs is digital marketing services like advertising, website SEO, social media marketing, and business visibility. Managed WordPress hosting and e-commerce hosting options are available for users to make their business and marketing websites, and they boast a 99.99% uptime and Cloudflare integration for faster website loading. In addition, their features for ensuring speed and reliability make them a good option for users who want a website built for speed, customization, and reliability and do not mind the lack of automated daily security backups.

Pros

• Free domain name for the first year
• One of the most affordable options on this list
• Intuitive user interface and good customer support

Cons

• No cloud hosting options
• Renewal price is much higher than the entry rate

Domain.com

Domain.com supports its users with unlimited databases, FTP logins, and add-on domains. They also have hosting plans for shared accounts and WordPress hosting. Shared hosting plans are available for higher-tier memberships and allow users to host multiple websites on a shared server. Users can also create unlimited subdomains and utilize the free cloud storage and scalable bandwidth through the system.

The platform has dependable uptime and free domain name registration for one year, although the domain extension will cost a fee after the year is up. Furthermore, it takes care of security for its users through free SSL certificates, so users and business owners especially can feel safe in their website transactions, making it a great option for e-commerce businesses looking for GoDaddy competitors. Their security also includes a password-protected directory for easy and secure access.

While Domain.com has many great features, they fall behind when it comes to accessibility and integration. For example, their system has WordPress hosting but lacks options for Windows-based, cloud, reseller, and dedicated servers. But if that doesn’t deter you, you can use the software’s e-commerce tools, unlimited storage, and WordPress hosting plans to help your business thrive.

Pros

• Good uptime levels
• Easy-to-use website builder
• Unlimited domains available with higher pricing plans

Cons

• Only shared hosting and WordPress hosting available
• No monthly plan options available

DreamHost

DreamHost provides users with unlimited internal storage and bandwidth as well as content and email hosting capabilities. Security is taken care of with a free SSL certificate for every site hosted. Additionally, users are protected by the software’s auto backups, which save website data automatically.

One of the best features of DreamHost is its ease of use from the start. Their one-click installation process means that new users can get started with their website building fast. They have various app integrations, including WordPress sync, and their file transfer protocol (FTP) is a part of the installation process. In addition, their intuitive navigation set-up uses navigation trees to help lead their users to their destinations and provides preloaded themes for website building.

The platform is designed for the average user’s use, rather than an expert in website design. For example, they provide users with access to an administrator dashboard, which is less cluttered than a cPanel but offers fewer options. If you’re a new user without much experience who values simplicity and limited features over complicated customization options, then DreamHost might be right for you.

Pros

• 100% uptime guarantee
• Free domain name registration for the first year
• Unlimited bandwidth and 50GB of storage

Cons

• No phone customer support available, only live chat
• Few server locations

HostGator

HostGator is a good GoDaddy alternative for website hosting, especially for business owners looking to use a website to develop their brand. Their plans come with credits for advertising on Google and Bing, and their system can allow unlimited traffic to your websites. Managed WordPress hosting is also available.

HostGator is on top of security for its users and has business safety features aligned with the values of the majority of its users. This includes features like free SSL certificates and the Virtual Private Servers, which keep sites secure and private. While smaller businesses can operate on shared servers, dedicated servers are also available. Large enterprises that require advanced online business security and more bandwidth can benefit from using dedicated servers, but this option does come at an increased cost.

Unfortunately, a lot of the unique features of HostGator come at hidden costs. For example, their lower-cost plans allow for just one domain name rather than unlimited domains. However, the lowest plan still meets the basic hosting necessities for small business websites. Users also have access to the free content management system, various helpful resources for web development, and easy one-click integrations with other apps and tools.

Pros

• Free domain name registration for the first year
• Responsive 24/7 customer support
• Very affordable prices

Cons

• Only offers US-based servers
• Windows servers aren’t available with all hosting plans

Top Features of Web Hosting Services

Web hosting platforms offer different options and features to provide for the needs of their users. So instead of asking yourself what the best GoDaddy alternative is, consider which factors would be most helpful for you to have in your website building experience.

Ease of Use vs. Advanced User Options

Ease of use is important for users that are looking for simple and effective website building options. Features like one-click installation and intuitive navigation help users to make their sites quickly, with less confusion. However, these features may come at the sacrifice of advanced user options. For example, Dreamhost has an easy-to-use dashboard feature rather than a control panel that would allow for more website customization options.

Reliability and Speed

Web hosting platforms must be fast and reliable to keep your site running quickly and smoothly for visitors. Reliability can be calculated as a percentage that reflects the average uptime of a website’s server. For example, Bluehost reportedly has a 99.99% uptime, reflecting reliable website functionality, and features like their Cloudflare integration help with website loading speed.

Shared and Non-shared Server Options

Some users may wish to utilize non-shared servers, usually referred to as private or dedicated servers. Generally, larger businesses have websites operating on their servers, which can improve their security and performance. However, non-shared servers can be more costly through web hosting platforms and may require more technical knowledge to operate.

Accessibility and Integrations

Accessibility and integrations are essential for sharing data and working with external systems. Many hosting platforms offer one-click integrations for programs like WordPress and other marketing and content management systems. However, Domain.com is an example of a platform with WordPress plans, but unfortunately lacks options for Windows-based or cloud servers.

Data Synchronization

Data synchronization allows users to move their sensitive data onto their website hosting software to access and utilize it there. While a lot of web hosting platforms have quick data synchronization options. Network Solutions takes it a step further, providing domain name transfer and website forwarding for their users.

How to Choose the Best Web Hosting Provider

When considering GoDaddy alternatives, you should look for a web hosting company with comparable reliability, ease of use, speed/web performance, and additional features.

The best features for your needs may depend on the type of website you wish to build, your user experience level, and the magnitude of your operations. For example, if you have experience with website building and are planning to create a website for a large enterprise, look for software with a non-shared server option. On the other hand, if this doesn’t sound like you, and you’re just dipping your toes into website design and management, it’s wise to begin with a more user-friendly, shared hosting platform as a suitable GoDaddy alternative.

Read next: Best Website Hosting Services & Companies

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