As rule, the day you begin with the Setup tab in your new CRM should feel more like your birthday than Halloween. That is to say, you should be experiencing the joy of the gift given, rather than the surprise of monsters jumping out at you with complicated configuration expectations just to make the basic things in your system go.

As a new user within Nonprofit Vertical, I was pleasantly surprised with the initial Setup page and wanted to point out a few nice features. The first is the predictive search option that you see when you enter the Setup page. It searches all Setup options based on your search criteria and navigates directly to the specific topic or area you are looking for. In the example below I entered the search term “Twitter”:

Once the term is entered, simply click from the drop down options to go directly to your desired area of setup:

Whether you are a new user or the system administrator, your first stop in Setup will be the “Personal Settings” tab. Here you can enter your basic information in a concise layout that also has some nice personalizing features such as time zone and signature block. You can also update your password and email settings here. I’ve included a video walkthrough as part of our onboarding video series chronicling the journey from opening the “Home Page” to completing the “Personal Settings” tab.

 

As intuitive and straightforward as this Setup phase is, it’s important to remember that setup in any system is a process, so be patient – this was only the first tab! Rest assured that the time you spend in Setup initially will pay big dividends down the road. Here are three ways how:

• Thinking through your options from the beginning will eliminate 80% of your problems down the road (believe me – if I had a dime for every organization that wishes they had done it right in the first place…)
• Enabling most or all of your features (which WILL take time) will allow you to maximize the potential of the system
• Becoming aware of additional functionality you didn’t even know you had might yield unexpected efficiency or communication gains

Setup is the foundation upon which your CRM comes to life, so take your time and enjoy the gift. At least with Nonprofit Vertical, you won’t go running for IT just to get through your initial screen and that means the goblins and ghouls can stay safely stashed away until Halloween.

For more information about Nonprofit Vertical CRM click here.