Highrise is a tool created by 37Signals to help individuals and small business ingest and organize the plethora of information that we get each day through simple communication with other people. It does a superb job of organizing our client interactions. It can do the same for yours.
What is Highrise?
At the foundation of Highrise is a contact manager. A lot like the address book on your computer, you can add people, where they work and then contact information for the individual and the company. You can enter all kinds of information into the initial screens in order to stay in touch with the contact, but once you finish entering the contact information the real power of Highrise begins to set in. It is also a full-fledge customer relationship system designed for web users and firms that need a way to organize contact simply and efficiently.
How does it work?
In short, it works the way you do. It has a unique capability of integrating very easily with your email routine. When you first login, you are presented with the Dashboard which provides you with an overview of the most recent activity along with a search box to find contacts quickly and your tasks listed by due date. Along the top are tabs that allow you to jump to the major components of Highrise.
If you search for a contact or click on the Contacts tab, you can drill down and see their contact information along with any tasks specific to them and their own feed of contact history. You can also add important dates, create new tasks regarding this contact and even add a generic note.
The next tab is the Tasks section. This gives you a list of tasks assigned to you. It also allows you to view tasks that you have assigned to others, and, if you’re the Administrator, you can even view all of the tasks assigned to others.
Moving on we come to the Cases tab. Cases are groups that contain multiple contacts and companies surrounding a specific project or event. They can act stand alone with their own notes, but you can also attach contacts’ notes to Cases for tracking. It’s a great way to keep real cases organized together.
On we go to Deals. Deals are a lot like Cases in that it is a container for other notes, but Deals are more akin to prospective work and winning that work. You can set a status and an amount of money the project is worth and some other details such as who is responsible. It’s a great way to keep prospective clients and communications with them organized.
The final tab is Tags. Tags can be assigned to any contact or company and gives you a way to categorize them. Click on a tag here and it shows you a list of tagged contacts.
Now, I mentioned above that it integrates with your email. You can, as with most web apps, have Highrise email you task reminders, but you can also email information to Highrise. Every user is given a Dropbox that they can email to. If you are sending an email to a client and place the Dropbox address in the BCC field, Highrise will automatically recognize the email and who it is to, then attach it to that contact. This only scratches the surface of what it is capable of.
If you want to learn more, visit HighriseHQ.com where you will find training videos and more in depth descriptions of each tab. As we progress here at Opveon University, we will add more in depth and focused articles surrounding Highrise. It’s a wonderful tool, especially suited to small groups and solo firms. Enjoy!
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