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Architecture événementielle avec fonctions sans serveur - Partie 1

Architecture événementielle avec fonctions sans serveur – Partie 1

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Découvrez comment créer une architecture événementielle sans serveur avec des fonctions puissantes et flexibles dans cette première partie !

Première chose, architecture événementielle

When an event occurs, the application can take action. This could be as simple as logging the event or sending an email notification. It could also trigger a more complex workflow, such as a series of tasks to process the order. The key benefit of EDA is that it allows applications to respond quickly to events, without having to wait for a user to initiate an action.

Comment fonctionne l’architecture événementielle

L’architecture événementielle (EDA) est un modèle d’architecture logicielle qui utilise des événements pour découpler les différents composants d’une application. Dans ce contexte, un événement est défini comme un changement d’état. Par exemple, pour une application de commerce électronique, un événement pourrait être un client qui clique sur une liste, ajoute cet article à son panier ou soumet ses informations de carte de crédit pour acheter. Les événements englobent également des changements d’état non initiés par l’utilisateur, tels que des tâches planifiées ou des notifications d’un système de surveillance.

Lorsqu’un événement se produit, l’application peut prendre des mesures. Cela pourrait être aussi simple que de journaliser l’événement ou d’envoyer une notification par e-mail. Il pourrait également déclencher un flux de travail plus complexe, comme une série de tâches pour traiter la commande. L’avantage clé de l’EDA est qu’il permet aux applications de réagir rapidement aux événements, sans avoir à attendre qu’un utilisateur initie une action.

Fonctionnalités sans serveur et codage

Les fonctionnalités sans serveur sont une méthode de déploiement qui permet aux développeurs de créer et de déployer des applications sans avoir à gérer les serveurs sur lesquels elles sont exécutées. Les fonctionnalités sans serveur sont exécutées dans des conteneurs qui sont automatiquement gérés par le fournisseur de services cloud. Les développeurs n’ont donc pas à se soucier de la gestion des serveurs et peuvent se concentrer sur le codage.

Les fonctionnalités sans serveur sont particulièrement utiles pour les applications qui doivent réagir rapidement aux événements. Les conteneurs sont automatiquement déployés et exécutés lorsqu’un événement se produit, ce qui permet à l’application de réagir immédiatement. Les fonctionnalités sans serveur sont également très efficaces car elles ne sont exécutées que lorsque nécessaire et peuvent être redimensionnées en fonction des besoins.

Lorsque les fonctionnalités sans serveur et l’architecture événementielle sont combinées, elles offrent une solution efficace et évolutive pour les applications modernes. Les fonctionnalités sans serveur permettent aux applications de réagir rapidement aux événements et d’être redimensionnées en fonction des besoins, tandis que l’architecture événementielle permet aux applications de réagir aux événements sans attendre qu’un utilisateur initie une action.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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Optimisation des lignes d'objet d'email et mobile avec AI et ML

Optimisation des lignes d’objet d’email et mobile avec AI et ML

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Les entreprises peuvent désormais optimiser leurs lignes d’objet d’email et mobile grâce à l’intelligence artificielle et au machine learning. Une nouvelle ère de marketing commence !

Méthodologie

Architecture

La ligne d’objet et les titres des e-mails et des notifications push jouent un rôle important dans la détermination des taux d’engagement. La communication numérique nécessite la compétence de la conception de lignes d’objet convaincantes et de titres de notifications push concis qui captent l’attention de l’utilisateur. Les marketeurs conçoivent des lignes d’objet en fonction du ton du message à transmettre et du public cible visé. En «enseignant» efficacement cette compétence et en l’optimisant pour la communication numérique, les modèles d’IA générative offrent une avenue passionnante pour automatiser ce processus. L’article examine quelques approches pour créer des lignes d’objet et des titres de notifications push efficaces tout en les combinant avec des modèles classiques d’apprentissage automatique pour prédire les taux d’ouverture avec l’IA générative (Large Language Models).

Il ne s’agit pas seulement de créer des lignes d’objet accrocheuses que les LLM peuvent facilement générer avec le bon déclencheur. L’objectif est de générer un candidat idéal pour le contexte et le contenu qui incitera le destinataire à cliquer et à afficher le message. Les modèles d’apprentissage machine (ML), en particulier les algorithmes de forêt aléatoire, peuvent prédire avec une grande confiance la probabilité qu’un destinataire clique sur un message s’ils sont correctement formés. En combinant les LLM avec des modèles ML prédictifs, il est possible de générer des lignes d’objet et des titres de notifications push de haute qualité. Voici quelques moyens possibles.

La première approche consiste à entraîner un modèle ML prédictif sur un jeu de données historiques. Le modèle apprend à prédire le taux d’ouverture en fonction des caractéristiques telles que le sujet, le contenu et le public cible. Une fois le modèle formé, il peut être utilisé pour générer des lignes d’objet et des titres de notifications push optimaux pour chaque message. La seconde approche consiste à entraîner un modèle ML prédictif sur un jeu de données historiques tout en utilisant un modèle LLM pour générer des lignes d’objet et des titres de notifications push. Le modèle ML apprend à prédire le taux d’ouverture en fonction des caractéristiques telles que le sujet, le contenu et le public cible, tandis que le modèle LLM génère des lignes d’objet et des titres de notifications push optimaux pour chaque message. Enfin, la troisième approche consiste à entraîner un modèle ML prédictif sur un jeu de données historiques tout en utilisant un modèle LLM pour générer des lignes d’objet et des titres de notifications push optimaux pour chaque message. Le modèle ML apprend à prédire le taux d’ouverture en fonction des caractéristiques telles que le sujet, le contenu et le public cible, tandis que le modèle LLM génère des lignes d’objet et des titres de notifications

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Recruter des freelances

Recruter des freelances

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Trouver les bons freelances pour votre projet peut être un défi. Découvrez comment recruter les meilleurs freelances pour votre entreprise.

## Bénéfices du recrutement de profils freelances

Les avantages du recrutement de profils freelances

Le recrutement de profils freelances peut offrir de nombreux avantages aux entreprises. Tout d’abord, faire appel à des sociétés spécialisées dans le sourcing de profils freelances permet aux entreprises de gagner du temps et de l’argent en externalisant la recherche de talents qualifiés. Ces sociétés ont souvent accès à un large réseau de freelances et peuvent donc trouver rapidement des candidats correspondant aux besoins spécifiques de l’entreprise. En outre, elles peuvent aider les entreprises à évaluer les compétences des candidats et à s’assurer qu’ils sont bien adaptés à la mission et culture de l’entreprise.

De plus, le recrutement de profils freelances peut être bénéfique pour les entreprises en termes de coûts. En effet, faire appel à des freelances peut permettre aux entreprises de réduire les coûts, car elles ne recrutent pas de collaborateurs permanents mais font appel à des prestataires de services sur demande pour une durée déterminée, avec des compétences attendues référencées dans le contexte d’un objectif à atteindre. Une fois les travaux attendus réalisés par le freelance, le contrat prend fin par une simple notification du client.

Enfin, les sociétés spécialisées peuvent également apporter un avantage supplémentaire en termes d’agrégation des fournisseurs. En assurant la facturation des prestations sous-traitées par chaque freelance délégué, elles apportent une solution de consolidation de contrats pour les clients et une simplification des fonctions Supplier Relationship Management [SRM].

En somme, le recrutement de profils freelances peut offrir aux entreprises des avantages considérables en termes de temps et d’argent, tout en leur permettant d’accéder à des talents qualifiés et d’améliorer leurs processus de gestion des fournisseurs. Les entreprises qui souhaitent tirer parti des avantages du recrutement de profils freelances peuvent faire appel à des sociétés spécialisées pour leur fournir un accès à un large réseau de freelances et leur permettre d’accéder aux meilleures compétences disponibles sur le marché. De plus, ces sociétés peuvent aider les entreprises à évaluer les compétences des candidats et à s’assurer qu’ils sont bien adaptés à la mission et culture de l’entreprise, tout en leur offrant une solution de consolidation des contrats et une simplification des processus SRM.

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Créer une solution d'email de notification d'alarme de métrique de journal personnalisé CloudWatch avec Terraform

Créer une solution d’email de notification d’alarme de métrique de journal personnalisé CloudWatch avec Terraform

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Créer une solution d’email de notification d’alarme de métrique de journal personnalisé CloudWatch avec Terraform est une tâche complexe, mais pas impossible. Découvrez comment le faire facilement !

Comment intégrer des messages de journal d’application dans les notifications CloudWatch Alarm

En tant que scientifique informatique enthousiaste, je vais vous montrer comment intégrer les messages de journal d’application dans le corps de l’e-mail de notification lorsque l’alarme CloudWatch est activée.

Amazon CloudWatch est un service qui permet aux clients de surveiller une valeur de métrique ou une expression mathématique pour la métrique et de déclencher des actions lorsque la valeur dépasse une certaine limite. Ces alarmes peuvent être utilisées pour déclencher des notifications envoyées via Amazon SNS, e-mail, SMS, etc. Il est donc nécessaire que les messages de journal d’application soient inclus dans le message de notification de l’alarme afin que le personnel opérationnel puisse facilement identifier la cause racine de la notification de l’alarme.

Afin de mettre en œuvre cette solution, nous devons disposer des prérequis suivants : un compte AWS, Terraform installé et prêt à l’emploi, Python version 3.9 ou ultérieure, Node.js version 14.x ou ultérieure. Nous allons maintenant examiner l’architecture cible qui sera utilisée pour mettre en œuvre cette solution. L’architecture cible est représentée par le diagramme suivant et montre les composants impliqués dans cette solution ainsi que leurs interactions.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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Surveillance Linux OS avec HertzBeat Open Source en temps réel.

Surveillance Linux OS avec HertzBeat Open Source en temps réel.

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Surveiller votre système Linux avec HertzBeat Open Source en temps réel pour une meilleure sécurité et une plus grande efficacité!

## Introduction à HertzBeat

Introduction à HertzBeat

HertzBeat est un système de surveillance en temps réel open source, facile à utiliser et convivial qui ne nécessite pas d’agent et dispose de puissantes fonctionnalités de surveillance personnalisée. Il intègre la surveillance, l’alarme et la notification, prend en charge la surveillance des services applicatifs, des bases de données, des systèmes d’exploitation, du middleware, du cloud natif, etc., des alarmes seuil et des notifications d’alarme (e-mail WeChat Dingding Feishu SMS Slack Discord Telegram). Il possède des spécifications de protocole configurables telles que Http, Jmx, Ssh, Snmp, Jdbc, etc. Vous n’avez qu’à configurer YML pour utiliser ces protocoles afin de personnaliser et de collecter n’importe quel indicateur que vous souhaitez collecter. Pouvez-vous croire que vous pouvez adapter immédiatement un nouveau type de surveillance, tel que K8s ou Docker, simplement en configurant YML?

La puissante personnalisation, le support multi-types, l’expansion facile et le faible couplage d’HertzBeat espèrent aider les développeurs et les petites et moyennes équipes à construire rapidement leur propre système de surveillance. En tant qu’informaticien enthousiaste, je suis très intéressé par l’architecture HertzBeat et je suis impatient de l’essayer. HertzBeat est une excellente solution pour les développeurs qui souhaitent créer leur propre système de surveillance. Il est facile à installer et à configurer et offre une variété de fonctionnalités pour surveiller les performances des applications. Les utilisateurs peuvent surveiller les performances des applications et recevoir des notifications en cas de problème. HertzBeat est également très flexible et peut être configuré pour surveiller n’importe quel type d’application ou de service. La puissance de l’architecture HertzBeat permet aux développeurs de créer des systèmes de surveillance personnalisés pour leurs applications.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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21 Best CRM Software

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The best CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software solutions help sales teams streamline critical processes to improve productivity, track customer interactions and gain actionable insights to deliver a personalized experience to sell smarter, shorten the sales cycle and drive better retention rates.

This article reviews the 21 best CRM software to help you streamline your searches. We’ll cover the key features, user experience, pricing plans, strengths, and weaknesses. So, let’s get to it.

1. Salesforce Sales Cloud CRM

Salesforce Sales Cloud is a cloud-based customer relationship management solution that supports large sales teams and every customer touchpoint.

Over 150,000 companies, including world-leading brands like IBM, NBCUniversal, and Sonos, use the CRM system to streamline workflow automation. 

Key Features

Project Management — The software natively integrates with Slack, allowing you to seamlessly manage your Salesforce tasks in one central location and collaborate remotely with colleagues, customers, and partners in real-time. 

Sales Forecasting — Salesforce can estimate your future sales revenue using your current and historical pipeline data. Again, integrating with apps like revVana helps you gain better revenue insights.

Flexible and Scalable — This CRM software helps small businesses and enterprises meet their growing needs without sacrificing performance. Salesforce CRM is entirely cloud-based, supports over 8,700 integrations, and has an open API, making it highly extensible.

User Experience

Setting up an account only takes three steps.

The dashboard is clean and straightforward, making it easy to use. You can click the modules on the navigation menu to use its features. Additionally, the CRM software displays information in graphs, pie charts, and tables in an easy-to-understand way.

Salesforce Sales Cloud has a robust knowledge base to hit the ground running immediately.

Pricing

Salesforce offers four subscription plans, billed annually:

  • Essential $25 per user per month
  • Professional $75 per user per month
  • Enterprise $150 per user per month
  • Unlimited $300 per user per month

Strengths

  • It’s fully cloud-based (you don’t need to install anything)
  • 30-day free trial
  • Customer relations management automation
  • Supports over 8,000 integrations and apps
  • Multilingual and multi-currency support
  • Open API
  • Leads management and business intelligence tools
  • Round-the-clock support
  • Multiple appointment scheduling
  • Mass emailing capability

Weaknesses

  • It doesn’t support live chat
  • Not suitable for on-premise deployment

2. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is one of our top options for the best CRM software today. The cloud-based solution helps marketers set up their pipelines, track progress in real-time and automate routine tasks. Over 100,000 companies in 179 countries use the software.

Key Features

Real-Time Alerts — Pipedrive has a built-in reminder that keeps you posted on all your sales activities so you don’t miss a follow-up.

Reporting — The CRM provides detailed reports on pipeline performance. With this insight, you can measure your progress against your business goals.

Revenue Forecasting — The software can forecast your sales volume and revenue using your pipeline data. It automatically updates the estimate when a lead’s status changes.

Leads Capture — Pipedrive has a customizable web form that helps you capture leads for your pipeline. Also, you can segment the leads for personalized communications.

User Experience

Pipedrive is user-friendly. New users will be able to get the hang of it quickly. Also, the CRM software has a robust help center to help users set up and customize their accounts.

It features a visual pipeline that lets you see your sales strategies and process and update a lead status by dragging and dropping it. Additionally, it presents reports in easy-to-understand ways.

The software offers live chat and round-the-clock email support for quick resolutions. 

Pricing

Pipedrive offers four plans, billed monthly and annually.

  • Essential $11.90 per user per month
  • Advanced $24.90 per user per month
  • Professional $49.90 per user per month
  • Enterprise $74.90 per user per month

Strengths

  • Faster deal closing
  • Omnichannel lead generation
  • Efficient customer relationship management
  • Free trial (no credit card required)
  • Goal setup and tracking
  • Sales forecast
  • Over 350 integrations
  • 14-days free trial
  • API support
  • Real-time support

Weaknesses

  • No free plan
  • The dashboard could feel overwhelming

3. Oracle Netsuite CRM

Oracle NetSuite Customer Relationship Management software promises to deliver the real-time data you need to manage interactions with potential customers, existing customers, and suppliers, deliver exceptional customer experiences and drive sales.

Over 32,000 customers use Oracle NetSuite products.

Key Features

Sales Force Automation — NetSuite CRM SFA unifies your sales processes and provides unprecedented insights into every aspect of your customer relationship to supercharge your sales performance.

Marketing Workflow — You can create and launch targeted marketing campaigns to grow your leads pool. Also, the CRM lets you segment your leads to deliver a personalized experience, shortening the sales cycle.

Customer Service Management — NetSuite automates customer service management, allowing users to focus on other pressing day-to-day activities. For example, it can review the status of submitted tickets and reply with follow-up communications.

Partnership Relationship Management — NetSuite CRM is not just a customer relationship management software. Instead, the platform is a complete business management tool that helps you manage relationships with partners, share real-time information, and maintain control over partner-focused sales processes.

User Experience

This CRM could be more beginner-friendly if not for its many features and advanced functionalities. However, the software offers a search feature to help users find things faster. Another user experience challenge is Netsuite’s time-demanding customization.

Plus, some users have reported crashes and downtime.

Besides these challenges, NetSuite has an excellent user interface that makes it exciting. Also, it offers live chat support, helpful resources, and a comprehensive knowledge base.

Pricing 

NetSuite charges an annual license fee but doesn’t provide any pricing plans. You must contact their customer support to learn about the deployment needs of their CRM systems.

Strengths

  • A centralized data source that gives users unprecedented visibility into their sales process
  • Salesforce, marketing, and customer service automation
  • Partner relationship management
  • Advanced reporting and analytics
  • Great user interface
  • Sales forecasting
  • Mobile 

Weaknesses

  • No monthly subscription plans
  • Not-too-great user experience
  • Expensive compared to other CRM solutions

4. Zoho CRM  

Over 250,000 businesses worldwide use Zoho CRM software solutions. It helps management, marketing, support, and sales teams address their customer relationship management and omnichannel engagement needs.

The platform empowers users to deliver personalized experiences and drive sales through multiple channels.

Key Features

Sales Force Automation — You can create workflows to reduce manual data entry, eliminate redundancies and automate repetitive sales, marketing, and customer service functions. 

Journey Orchestration — Zoho CRM lets users create personalized customer journeys and track each prospect’s path to identify delays or loopholes and optimize the sales process.

Omnichannel — With the Zoho CRM software, you can engage and track customer interactions across multiple channels, including email, social media, phone, and the self-service channel. 

Sales Enablement — Zoho CRM enables frictionless sales processes. You can generate quotes, invoices, and orders within the CRM software. Also, it lets you set up partner portals to grow your business and manage relationships with stakeholders.

User Experience

The Zoho CRM dashboard is clean, straightforward, and user-friendly. So, you can use all of its features as a first-time CRM user.

For example, the software lays the module tabs above the fold at the top bar, making them easily accessible. The reports are also less overwhelming as you can drill into the report you want to see, one at a time.

Zoho CRM offers webinars, tutorials, free eBooks, and documentation for easy setup and customization. No live chat support.

Pricing

Zoho CRM offers four subscription plans billed monthly and annually:

  • Standard $18 per user per month
  • Professional $30 per user per month
  • Enterprise $45 per user per month
  • Ultimate $55 per user per month

Strengths

  • Mobile
  • Marketing and sales automation
  • Advanced template and layout customization
  • Insightful reporting and analytics
  • Team collaboration
  • Support customer self-service portal
  • Predictive sales and intelligence
  • Voice assistant
  • Multilingual and multi-currency support
  • App marketplace with several third-party developers
  • REST API support
  • Activity reminders and sticky notes
  • 15-days free trial

Weaknesses

  • No live chat support
  • Limited native marketing automation (needs extensions)

5. HubSpot CRM 

HubSpot CRM is a cloud-based customer relationship management solution for salespeople, marketers, customer service agents, operations managers, and business owners. Top global brands like Atlassian, Doordash, and Wistia use the HubSpot CRM software.

Key Features

Multiple Hub — HubSpot CRM offers five hubs—marketing, sales, customer service, CMS, and Operations—that lets you pay for your needs. In addition, you can integrate up to five hubs into a single CRM to streamline your business processes. 

Email Marketing — The software has a built-in email marketing capability for targeted campaigns to your audience. In addition, you can create customized emails with the intuitive drag-and-drop editor.

Lead Generation — With the built-in lead-capturing forms, ad management tools, and landing pages, you can generate leads online, feed them directly into the CRM and convert them to customers.

Customer Support Portal — You’ll get a customer support portal to manage customer services and support requests, minimizing the burden on your customer service team. With the portal, you can also set up your knowledge base.

SEO Advisor — The SEO Advisor provides actionable SEO tips which can help you rank essential keywords on Google search results. It comes in handy when creating blog posts or developing landing or website pages.

User Experience

You can set up HubSpot CRM quickly and get it running immediately.

The CRM is easy to use and has an excellent user interface. You can customize your dashboard to quickly view your sales pipeline all in one place to enhance your user experience. Also, HubSpot presents its reports in an easy-to-understand way.

It also integrates seamlessly with other tools. In addition, HubSpot offers onboarding services and multiple support channels—phone, email, live chat, and online community.

Pricing

HubSpot offers a free version but with limited access to its tools. You can extend its functionality based on your needs by subscribing to a plan in the appropriate hub.

Marketing Hub

  • Starter $45 per month
  • Professional $800 per month
  • Enterprise $3,600 per month

Sales Hub

  • Starter $45 per month
  • Professional $450 per month
  • Enterprise $1,200 per month

Customer Service Hub

  • Starter $45 per month
  • Professional $450 per month
  • Enterprise $1,200 per month

CMS Hub

  • Starter $23 per month
  • Professional $360 per month
  • Enterprise $1,200 per month

Operations Hub

  • Starter $45 per month
  • Professional $720 per month
  • Enterprise $32,000 per month

Strengths

  • Powerful collaborative tool, Integrating marketing, sales, customer service, CMS, and operations in a single CRM solution.
  • A free version
  • User-friendly and intuitive
  • Large CRM database
  • Sales and marketing workflow
  • Insightful reporting and analytics
  • Lead management 
  • Seamless third-party integration
  • Social posting from the CRM
  • Meeting scheduling
  • Mobile app

Weaknesses

  • Limited features that could push to acquire other HubSpot licenses
  • HubSpot licenses are on the high side.

6. Freshworks

Freshsales is a sales CRM software that promises to help you gain a 360-degree view of your customers, deliver personalized engagement, shorten the sales cycle and accelerate revenue with context-driven sales. Brands like Klarna, Blue Nile, and PharmEasy use the CRM system.

Key Features

Lead Generation and Scoring — Freshwok offers CRM tools to help you run personalized campaigns and generate leads from your website visitors. You can also score the leads based on their engagement level.

Deal Management — Freshworks provides a birds-eye view of the deals in your pipeline, making it easy to prioritize and work on them immediately. You can also collaborate with multiple salespersons on the same deal., 

Workflow Automation —The software’s built-in workflow automation lets users automate repetitive tasks to save and boost the sales force’s productivity. You can quickly create automation with the pre-set templates.

AI-Powered Insights —Freshworks’ algorithm, Freddy AI, does the heavy lifting so that you can focus on only deals that convert. Additionally, it delivers AI-powered insights that help you drive faster deal closure. 

Omnichannel — The software enables users to reach customers on their preferred channel without exiting the CRM software. For instance, you can connect with your contacts via email, phone, live chat, WhatsApp, SMS, and Zoom.

User Experience

You can set up an account in three simple steps and connect your email account to the CRM software.

The dashboard is clean and less overwhelming. As a result, you are likely to crack the software at first use without facing many challenges. Also, you can import your sales data and start using the CRM tools immediately without starting from scratch.

You can use the FAQ, help center, or live chat for quick resolutions when you run into issues.

Pricing

Freshworks offers the best free CRM software with basic features—ideal for beginner users. In addition, you can subscribe to a paid plan to access more tools.

  • Growth $15 per user per month
  • Pro $39 per user per month
  • Enterprise $69 per user per month

Strengths

  • Email marketing within the CRM software
  • AI-powered deal insights
  • Built-in lead generation capability
  • Seamless sales process automation
  • Multilingual and multi-currency support
  • Territory management
  • Omnichannel customer engagement
  • Over 30 reports
  • A free plan
  • Mobile app
  • 21 days free trial of the highest tier plan
  • Provides a 360-degree view of the business
  • AI-based leads scoring
  • Pipeline visualization

Weaknesses

  • Hard-to-reach support
  • Limited third-party integrations

7. Monday

Monday CRM software is one of the best CRM software in the industry. Over 125,000 businesses use it to generate leads from multiple sources, qualify them in a central location, and track and manage all aspects of the sales cycle, from pre-sales to post-sales, all in one place.

Key Features

Email Tracking — With Monday, you can centralize your email communications and track essential email metrics to learn when to reach out, saving you time on cold leads. It also lets you create personalized emails with built-in templates.

Sales Process Automation — You don’t have to waste time on repetitive sales processes. It’s one of the best CRM software for automating your workflows, enabling you to focus on essential things. For instance, it can assign leads to sales reps, notifies you when a prospect opens an email, and more.

Leads Capturing — You can feed your sales pipeline with steady streams of qualified leads collected from multiple sources, qualify them on the CRM, and automatically score them based on pre-set criteria.

Post-Sales Management — Monday’s post-sales management capability lets you continuously manage customer relationships and drive after-sales customer satisfaction to boost customer retention.

User Experience

You can quickly sign up with Gmail and set up your account in a few more steps.

You can sell your sales pipeline and customer journey at a glance. Also, the user interface is excellent, and the software presents information in ways anyone can quickly grasp. In addition, it has a desktop notification feature that keeps you updated on your sales activities in real-time.

Users can customize their dashboards to see only the things they like. Unfortunately, the support doesn’t provide live chat support; however, it tries to compensate for this with a robust help center and round-the-clock email support.

Pricing

Monday offers a free plan for its CRM software and four premium subscription plans.

  • Basic $10 per month
  • Standard $14 per month
  • Pro $24 per month
  • Enterprise (custom package)

Strengths

  • Free and custom plans
  • Workflow automation
  • Email tracking and centralized communication
  • Pipeline visualization
  • Customizable reporting dashboard
  • Built-in lead management (capturing and auto-scoring)
  • Post-sales customer relationship management
  • Third-party integrations
  • Mobile app
  • Online community and robust help center

Weaknesses

  • Limited native marketing automation
  • No live chat support

8. Keap

Keap is one of the leading sales CRM solutions that cater to small businesses. The software promises to help them grow their leads, improve revenue and drive customer retention through enhanced customer relationship management and marketing workflows.

Key Features

Email and Text Marketing — It’s the right CRM software for small businesses seeking to bring email and SMS marketing into their marketing mix and manage them in one place. They can quickly create email and SMS campaigns with built-in templates and send them to their segmented lists.

Sales and Marketing Automation — With Keap, small business sales teams can automate critical sales and marketing processes to deliver a personalized experience to customers and drive targeted business growth while saving valuable time and human resources. 

Lead Capturing — You can acquire and track leads at every touchpoint. This CRM software comes with CRM tools for capturing leads like landing pages, dedicated sales funnels, forms, and appointment schedulers, which you leverage to generate consistent leads. 

eCommerce — Keap supports payment processors like Stripe, PayPal, and Wepay, allowing you to send and receive payments within your CRM software. The platform has facilitated over $2.6 billion in online sales since its launch.

User Experience

Keap promises a 14-day free trial. But I need help accessing the feature after signing up; the offer is only available to randomly selected businesses.

If the software can deliver on its promises, it will be great for the user experience. 

Pricing

Keap offers three subscription plans, billed monthly and yearly.

  • Pro $129 per month
  • Max $199 per month
  • Max Classic (custom plan)

Strengths

  • A referral program that pays up to 30% commission
  • A high-reaching user community
  • Knowledge base and help center
  • Native payment platform
  • Built-in email and SMS marketing
  • Advanced automation
  • Expert assistance

Weaknesses

  • No mobile app
  • Limited subscription plan
  • Expensive annual packages
  • The free trial is often unavailable
  • unreliable

9. Sage

Sage integrates sales, marketing, and service modules to deliver world-class customer relationship management software.

It’s one of the best CRM software in the market. With this solution, you can gain valuable insights into where your business stands to make better business decisions.

Key Features

Service Module — This module brings customer service management functionality within the CRM, enabling you to deliver an exceptional experience to prospects and customers, nurture them into long-term relationships and generate repeat businesses.

Sales Modules — With this module, you can automate your sales processes to accelerate sales performance and boost productivity. The company’s customer data shows that sales reps using this feature improved productivity by up to 40%.

Marketing Module — You can plan and run omnichannel, targeted marketing campaigns within the CRM and optimize campaigns to deliver more results with the built-in insightful reports.

User Experience

Sage doesn’t offer its pricing plans upfront. Also, you can’t sign up online. Instead, you’ll need to leave your business information online and wait for their support team to call, which might take time to come.

The user interface is excellent, but the CRM software integrates with only limited applications. In addition, real-time case resolution still needs to be improved. However, the software offers a community forum.

Pricing

Sage doesn’t have public pricing information. 

However, the software license could cost approximately $600 annually for each user. In addition, one-time initial implementation and related services could take the total cost to about $8,000. 

Strengths

  • Single modules to fully Integrated solution
  • Powerful real-time insights 
  • Team collaboration
  • Sales and marketing automation
  • Customer service management

Weaknesses

  • No straightforward signup
  • No subscription plan
  • Limited integration

10. Insightly CRM

Insightly is a popular CRM tool developed to help businesses streamline their processes, collaborate across teams, and integrate all the applications they need to drive sustainable growth.

Over 25,000 companies, including Bloomberg, Bosch, and Sanofi, use the platform, making it one of the best CRM software platforms today.

Key Features

Relationship Mapping — You can link your customer data to existing contacts to map and understand how your customers relate. This feature helps you get a high-definition picture of your customers.

Marketing  — Insightly’s unified marketing platform enables marketing teams to build sales pipelines, attract and engage ideal customers with intelligent and segmented campaigns and automate marketing processes to grow the business faster.

Sales  — You can centralize your customer data in one place, managing leads and spotting and prioritizing those most likely to convert. You can also create and send emails within Insightly and automate your workflows.

Service  — Insightly empowers customer service teams to solve customer challenges more effortlessly. You can receive customer support tickets in one place, quickly share information across the organization and receive actionable insights to improve customer experience.

Integrations  — You can connect all the tools you need to grow your business and manage them under one app. Also, Insightly’s AppConnect supports this CRM’s users in building custom integrations and workflows.

User Experience

Insightly has a clean design with a user-friendly interface. 

Some users complained that it could be challenging to grasp all its possibilities fully. However, it features a knowledge base, videos, and tutorials that could bring you up to speed as quickly as possible. The platform also offers live chat support.

The filters and bulk email could be better.

Pricing

Insightly’s CRM systems come in three plans, billed annually:

  • Plus, $29 per month
  • Professional $49 per month
  • Enterprise $99 per month

Strengths

  • Custom integration and workflow builder
  • Project management and team collaboration
  • Sales and marketing automation
  • Module for customer service teams
  • Scalable CRM
  • Live chat support
  • Free trial
  • Low-entry cost
  • Mobile app
  • Customer relationship mapping

Weaknesses

  • Annual billing
  • Learning curve

11. SugarCRM

SugarCRM is one of the best CRM platforms in the market. It delivers CRM solutions that help companies gain a comprehensive high-definition view of their customers in the past, present, and future to enable predictability, boost situational awareness and reach new levels of business performance. 

Key Features

Predictive Forecasting — SugarCRM leverages historical and real-time data from multiple points to identify issues, root causes, and opportunities and deliver actionable sales insights. In addition, it offers automatic alerts for fast response.

Sales and Marketing Automation — You can automate anything with SugarCRM, from data collection, leads routing, and quote approval to leads scoring and marketing to deliver meaningful buying experiences, shorten the sales cycle, and drive revenue.

Customer Service Management —SugarCRM native customer service management support enables you to deliver a personalized, positive experience to customers at every touchpoint. In addition, the software automates critical processes to reduce the burden on your customer support team. 

User Experience

SugarCRM has a solid user interface.

However, you must pay for at least three users before you sign up for any plan, making the software expensive. Also, the CRM software offers a more complex signup process. You’ll need to fill out an online form to contact support.

SugarCRM has a user community and resource center that can help you quickly set up your account and learn how to make the most of the CRM software. Also, phone support is available in four languages.

Pricing

SugarCRM has four monthly plans, billed annually and requiring a minimum of three users.

  • Market $1000 per month/user
  • Sell $45 per month/user
  • Serve $80 per month/user
  • Enterprise $85 per month/user

Strengths

  • AI-Powered prediction
  • Full situational awareness
  • Sentiment assessment
  • Powerful automation and workflow
  • The built-in customer service solution
  • On-premises deployment
  • Omnichannel customer engagement

Weaknesses

  • No complimentary or trial plan
  • Lacks a mobile app
  • Expensive plan

12. NetHunt

NetHunt is one of the best CRM platforms built for Gmail and Google Workspace users, designed to help them manage leads, nurture prospects, and stay on top of their sales performances. The solution also plays well with LinkedIn and eight other tools.

Key Features

Data Organization  — With NetHunt, you can organize your business data effectively and productively. Also, the solution organizes your deals and sales pipelines in an easy-to-understand manner, providing insights into what works and doesn’t.

Sales Force Automation  — Using this sales CRM means your sales team won’t have to waste time on repetitive tasks. Instead, the solution automates key sales processes like leads capturing and nurturing, contact updates, and others so they can focus on other things.

Centralized Communication  — You can centralize your business communications, regardless of your customer’s preferred channel, whether social media, email, telephone, messenger, or live chat, and manage everything on the go under one app roof.  

User Experience

You can create an account in three clicks. The interface is clean and user-friendly. You can quickly update your deals by dragging and dropping them and visualize your pipeline to see your entire sales process and performance at a glance.

Also, you can set up workflows and integrations in a few minutes. Both processes are intuitive and might not require any learning curve. In addition, NetHunt has a help center and offers live chat support.

Pricing

NetHunt is available via four subscription plans, billed monthly and annually.

  • Basic $24 per month
  • Business $48 per month
  • Advanced $96 per month
  • Custom plan

Strengths

  • Zapier integration
  • Advanced data organization and visualization
  • Workflow automation
  • Omnichannel communication
  • Mobile apple
  • Live chat and phone support
  • Code-free web form for leads capture
  • Low-entry fee
  • Free trial and custom plan
  • Chrome browser extension
  • Open API
  • Cancel anytime

Weaknesses

  • Available only to Gmail and Google Workplace users
  • Limited integration options
  • Limited marketing automation 

13. FreeAgent

FreeAgent CRM helps teams collaborate more effectively to get things done. The software promises to help users track their progress in real-time and gain actionable insights to optimize their performance. Over 1,000 businesses worldwide use the platform.

Key Features

All-In-One Solution — With FreeAgent CRM, you won’t need to open multiple browser tabs to get your job done. Instead, you get everything done in one place. You can also automate repetitive tasks to get more done in less time. 

Workflow Optimization — You can streamline business processes to complete more work efficiently. The CRM tool can help you organize and prioritize deals so you can focus on those most likely to move the needles for your business.

Code-Free Customization — FreeAgent code-free customization enables you to set your account to meet your business’s unique needs. The software also integrates with other apps, making it highly extensible.

User Experience

FreeAgent CRM is easy to use and has a visually appealing user interface. The software enables complete funnel visualization and presents reports in ways anyone can understand.

You can quickly connect with the company’s in-house CRM experts to set up and customize your account to explore its full possibilities. The solution also offers live chat and helpful resources.

Pricing

FreeAgent offers “Unlimited Users” and “Per User” pricing packages with different plans, billed monthly and annually. The Per User package has three plans.

  • Starter $45 per month
  • Professional $90 per month
  • Enterprise $120 per month

Strengths

  • Highly extensible
  • All-in-one solution
  • Fully cloud-based
  • Code-free customization
  • Workflow automation
  • Full funnel visualization
  • Customer service management
  • Third-party integrations
  • Live chat support
  • Custom app
  • ISO 27001 compliant

Weaknesses

  • No mobile app
  • Poor search and filter

14. Creatio CRM

Creatio CRM is one of the best CRM software used by small and medium-sized businesses in over 100 countries to automate end-to-end customer journeys with no code. You can purchase separate modules or deploy the software as a unified CRM tool. 

Key Features

Marketing Creatio — With this module, you can automate your marketing campaigns, lead management, and deliver personalized omnichannel communication to boost business revenue and drive customer retention.

Sales Creatio — Creatio supports sales teams to collaborate across boards and automate mission-critical sales processes to get more things done. The software also provides a 360-degree view of customer journeys to personalize their experience.

Service Creatio — You can automate and manage customer service workflows on Creatio to save the support team valuable time and deliver an enhanced, personalized experience to customers. The software uses AI to streamline the handling of service cases.

Studio Creatio — Creatio’s no-code UI builder helps non-technical users build business applications and processes with maximum freedom using easy-to-use drag-and-drop visual design tools.

User Experience

The analytics and reporting are insightful, and you can quickly visualize the data in a few clicks.

The software’s no-code capability means you can complete projects that usually take months or even days. In addition, support is multilingual, so you’ll always get assistance whenever the need arises in your preferred language. 

Also, the platform has helpful resources for quick self-help.

Pricing

Creatio has different subscription packages for each module (Creatio). 

The monthly sales and service modules subscriptions range between $25 and $60, while Marketing Creatio goes for a $1,000 to $100,000 yearly fee. You’ll need to contact support to understand the cost of deploying its unified CRM solutions.

Strengths

  • Cost Calculator
  • Cloud and on-site deployment
  • 360-degree customer view
  • Unlimited no-code customization
  • End-to-end workflow automation
  • Real-time analytics
  • Trial plan
  • Custom plan

Weaknesses

  • Expensive plan
  • No mobile app

15. Close

Close is a cloud CRM solution for remote salespeople. As one of the best CRM software in the industry, it makes team onboarding a breeze, automates and analyzes workflows, and helps you grow revenue quickly. It also integrates well with some of your tools, bringing your software stack to one place.

Key Features

Calling — Close has built-in call software to help you reach more people effortlessly and double your call volume and velocity. With the predictive dialer, you can call multiple numbers at once, and the software automatically routes answered calls to available reps.

Video — Close natively support Zoom, enabling remote selling with videos. The software can connect your Zoom account and sync your previous recordings with the CRM software. It also alerts you five minutes before every meeting, and you can add notes during the meeting for context.

Call Coaching — With Close, you can train your sales team, no matter where they are, all within the CRM without needing to invest in expensive online training tools.

Workflow Automation — The CRM solution offers in-app email and calls automation that can simplify your workflow and help you get more work done. Also, you can save and share winning templates with team members to boost the reach rate and close deals faster.

User Experience

Close is an easy-to-use CRM software for busy salespeople with no learning curve. 

You can quickly create an account, set up your workflow sequences, and immediately put the CRM to work. The software also has dynamic smart views that let you prioritize your leads and quickly find what you need.

Close offers free migration and support, so you can get assistance whenever needed. However, it might not be real-time since the software doesn’t offer live chat.

Pricing

Close offers four subscription plans billed monthly and annually.

  • Starter $25 per month
  • Basic $59 per month
  • Professional $89 per month
  • Business $129

Strengths

  • Remote selling
  • Power and predictive dialer
  • Built-in email and SMS marketing
  • Powerful reporting insights
  • Free trial, migration, and support
  • Sales force automation
  • Phone and email support
  • Pipeline visualization

Weaknesses

  • No mobile app
  • No live chat support

16. Nutshell

Nutshell is an all-in-one B2B CRM software designed to help teams manage contacts and leads, sell smarter and gain valuable insights to track performance and optimize the sales process. Over 30,000 sales and marketing professionals use the software to streamline their workflow.

Key Features

Pipeline Management — Like most CRM, you can visualize your customer’s journey at a glance. With this feature, you can view, manage and prioritize leads for a faster closing.

Sales Automation — From lead assignments to scoring, task reminders, and more, Nutshell automates these tasks at the snap of a finger, allowing your team to focus on actual closing. 

Email Marketing Campaigns— Nutshell helps you send targeted, beautifully designed marketing emails. You can save time with the built-in template and see who engages with the email in real time. 

Leads Capturing  — The CRM has a native web form to capture leads and feed them directly to your pipeline. In addition, you can embed the form on your website to generate leads from web visitors.

User Experience

Nutshell reporting is top-notch, with an excellent interface. 

However, some users complained the email builder is subpar and could need improvement. Also, it offers limited customization.

Besides these, the software is excellent for quickly connecting all your software tools and accessing them in one place. The company doesn’t charge for customer support, and they can help you migrate your data to hit the ground running immediately.

The CRM offers several helpful resources to help you resolve issues and put the software to full use. 

Pricing

Nutshell offers two plans, billed monthly and annually. Here’s the cost per user per month:

  • Nutshell $19
  • Nutshell PRO $49
  • Nutshell Marketing (custom plan)

Strengths

  • Open API
  • Mobile apps
  • Free Migration
  • Sales force  automation
  • Leads generation
  • Pipeline visualization
  • Email marketing campaigns
  • Sales forecasting
  • Dependable support 
  • Custom marketing plan

Weaknesses

  • No live chat

17. Nimble

Nimble is one of the best CRM software for small and midsize businesses, used by over 140,000 professionals. Also, world-leading brands like UpWork, GoDaddy, and Flexjobs use the platform. 

Key Features

Nimble Prospector — With Nimble, you can efficiently prospect leads on any social site, website, or cloud application and connect with them in less time. The prospector is available as a browser extension, making it readily available.

Relationship Management — The software helps users manage customer contact details, automate key business processes, enable social listening and gain valuable business intelligence to deliver superior customer experience.

Email Marketing — The built-in email campaign management functionality means you won’t need to switch tabs or need third-party services to engage customers via personalized emails and track your progress.

Smarter Actions — Nimble provides actionable business and customer intelligence to take more intelligent actions to gain complete control of your sales process. For example, you can visualize your sales funnel, gain social insights to prepare for meetings, and discover engagement opportunities.

User Experience

You’ll likely start your Nimble experience by importing a CSV file of your existing contact database; thankfully, the software makes this process very straightforward. Also, the CRM makes importing and syncing data with other apps seamless.

Additionally, Nimble’s “Today Page” feature provides an overview of all your upcoming activities, deals, and engagement opportunities from social mentions and essential contacts to reach out to, making prioritizing more effortless.

The software has a support center and a live chat for quick assistance.

Pricing

Nimble offers only one subscription plan—Nimble Business, available for $25 monthly for a user. However, you’ll pay only $19 if you opt for the annual plan.

Strengths

  • App Marketplace
  • Native leads prospector
  • Browser extension
  • Activity tracking and team tasks management
  • Built-in calendar
  • Pipeline management
  • 360-degree view of customers and leads
  • Marketing automation
  • Contact management
  • Live chat
  • Business and customer intelligence
  • Office 365 and Google Workspace integration
  • Low entry fee
  • Social listening and mentions

Weaknesses

  • No mobile app
  • Limited subscription plan

18. MailChimp

Mailchimp is not just an email service provider. It’s also one of the best CRM software for small businesses. With this solution, you can build better customer relationships and sell to them more creatively. In addition, the CRM is scalable and can support your business growth and needs.

Key Features

Contact Management — Whether importing an existing contact database or building from scratch, MailChimp helps you manage them all from one location. Also, you can create or use the built-in segments to organize your contacts.

Email Marketing — Email marketing and campaign management are probably MailChimp’s best selling point and are natively supported in the CRM, meaning you can run effective email campaigns. Also, it comes with pre-built email templates, and you can run A/B tests in-app.

Behavioral Targeting and Personalization — MailChimp can predict customers buying behaviors, enabling you to segment your contact effortlessly to launch campaigns that feel like a one-on-one conversation at the right time or deliver personalized product recommendations. 

User Experience

You’ll only need to fill out three fields to sign up. However, it would have been better if users could create accounts automatically with their Gmail. It’ll save you the stress of logging into your email to activate the MailChimp account.

Mailchimp’s user interface is excellent, with many white spaces, but I don’t find the yellow background and black font colors easy on the eyes while signing up. Also, the software can integrate neatly with other tools, so you can easily manage your stack in one place.

MailChimp support is excellent, and case resolution is always fast.

Pricing

MailChimp CRM offers free, and three paid plans.

  • Premium $350 per month
  • Standard $20 per month
  • Essentials $13 per month

Strengths

  • Highly scalable
  • Mobile app
  • Predictive segmentation and behavioral targeting
  • Holistic audience view
  • Live chat support
  • Seamless contact management
  • Actionable customer insight
  • Free plan
  • Low-priced starting plan
  • Extensive third-party integrations

Weaknesses

  • Limited native Salesforce automation

19. Apptivo

Apptivo is a CRM software used by over 200,000 businesses, including Sephora, UNAIDS, Exult, and Los Angeles Times. The solution simplifies customer relationship management so sales and marketing teams can be more efficient and close deals effortlessly.

Key Features

Win and Loss Analysis — You can track the sales opportunities your sales team prospected and analyze the employees that contributed to winning the opportunity. Additionally, the app can help you analyze lost opportunities and the reasons behind them.

Territory management — You can quickly delineate and manage your sales territories to boost team collaboration, improve sales efficiency, and maximize territorial benefits. With the built-in assignment rules, you can automatically segment leads based on territories.  

Sales Planning — With Apptivo, you’re sure you won’t be tracking your sales targets with spreadsheets. Instead, the software comes with a sales planning app to measure your team members’ KPIs and implement scalable sales processes to facilitate faster deal closing.

User Experience

Apptivo has an excellent user interface.

But new users might need help navigating the software. Also, the customization and app integrations are not a walk in the park. 

However, the CRM system offers an extensive knowledge base for self-help. 

Pricing

Apptivo offers three subscription plans.

  • Lite $10 per month
  • Premium $15 per month
  • Ultimate $25 per month

Strengths

  • Project management
  • Integrated CRM software
  • Activity tracking
  • Performance analysis
  • Pipeline visualization
  • Contact Marketing
  • Email campaigns
  • Leads management
  • Salesforce automation
  • Sales planning
  • Territory management
  • 30-day free trial
  • Mobile apps

Weaknesses

  • Hard customization
  • No real-human live chat

20. Act! CRM

Act! is a cloud-based CRM software designed for small and midsize businesses to manage customer relationships and sell better seamlessly. The CRM system has been in play for over 35 years, powering over 800,000 users worldwide.

Key Features

Marketing Automation — Using Act! means you won’t need to spend much hiring and maintaining an in-house marketing team. Instead, this CRM software can handle most of your crucial marketing processes effectively.

Sales Pipeline Management — With Act! built-in sales pipeline management, you can automate your sales tasks and maintain a 360-degree view of your customers and their journey to close deals faster.

Activity Management — Act! helps you stay on top of all the happenings around you, including critical projects, enabling you to prioritize and stay more productive.

User Experience

Act! offers a user-friendly interface and intuitive customization. 

However, some users complained that each new update tends to drag the software backward. Additionally, you might need help setting up custom reports and dashboards. 

Also, I can’t vouch for their support. You might struggle to reach them whenever the need arises. However, there is an extensive resource you can always fall back on for self-help.

Pricing

Act! offers two plans billed annually.

  • Act! Premium Desktop $37.50 per user per month
  • Act! Premium Cloud $40 per user per month

Users opting for the Premium Cloud plan pay an additional $10 monthly for desktop sync.

Strengths

  • Sales and marketing automation
  • Customer management
  • Sales pipeline visualization
  • Activity tracking
  • Advanced reporting capabilities
  • 14-day free trial
  • Live chat support
  • Flexibility and Extensibility
  • Cloud and on-premises deployment

Weaknesses

  • No mobile app
  • Limited pricing plans
  • Annual billing

21. Agile CRM

Agile CRM is one of the best CRM services in the market. It promises to help you sell and market like Fortune 500 companies. In addition, the software packs several core CRM features like sales enablement, marketing automation, and customer service.

Key Features

Sales — The CRM system can help your sales teams manage their contacts in one place, track deals to keep the sales process on track, and automate sales calls. The CRM system also lets you manage appointments and gamify sales.

Marketing — Agile CRM has an intuitive drag-and-drop builder to set up a marketing workflow and build landing pages in minutes. It also extends its CRM capabilities with social media, email, and SMS features for multichannel marketing campaigns. 

Service — The software streamlines your customer service management so that your support can focus on only tasks that matter. It also allows you to provide pre-formatted replies for faster and more consistent responses.

User Experience

Agile CRM has a clean and intuitive dashboard. Using the features doesn’t require any learning curve. Also, the CRM software displays information in an easy-to-understand way.

The customer relationship management software has a robust knowledge base. Also, you can schedule a chat with any of their specialists within a few minutes.

Pricing

AgileCRM has free CRM software alongside three premium packages, billed monthly, yearly, and bi-annually. If you go for the bi-annual plans, you’ll pay the following:

  • Starter $8.99 per user per month
  • Regular $29.99 per user per month
  • Enterprise $47.99 per user per month

Strengths

  • Free plans with ten users
  • Yearly and bi-annual subscription plans
  • Lead management
  • Appointment scheduling
  • Two-way telephony
  • Contact management
  • Email and SMS marketing
  • Marketing automation with exit intent.
  • Social monitoring
  • Project management
  • Landing page builders
  • Chrome extension
  • Post-call automation
  • Push notification

Weaknesses

  • No mobile app
  • No live chat support

Choosing the Best CRM Software

The right CRM software providers for your business would offer you the best customer relationship management and engagement solutions. So, consider only CRM software vendors that offer you business solutions to meet your specific needs within your budget and integrate seamlessly with all your business tools.

 

Featured image via Unsplash.

Source

The post 21 Best CRM Software first appeared on Webdesigner Depot.

Source de l’article sur Webdesignerdepot

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Hangfire Introduction and Implementation in .NET Core 6 Web API

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Prerequisites

  • Basic understanding of .NET Core 6 API and C#.
  • Visual Studio 2022
  • SQL Server

Agenda

  • Create .NET Core API using version 6
  • Configure Hangfire in .NET
  • Look into the different types of jobs that are present in Hangfire.

Overview

  • Hangfire is open-source and used to schedule the job at a particular event and time.
  • It is also used to create, process, and manage your background jobs.
  • We use this in background processing without user intervention.
  • Hangfire is reliable and persistent. It will take care of all things once the job is scheduled.
  • Hangfire dashboard is also available for us to manage all things easily.

Why Hangfire is Required in Background Processing

  • Sometimes we need to do lengthy operations like database updates and database maintenance so it’s managed periodically. 
  • Batch import from XML, JSON, and YAML files.
  • Recurring reports on a periodic basis.
  • Mass notification on subscription and sign up basis.

So, these are things that we are able to do periodically over a certain period of time as per our requirements.

There are different types of jobs that are present in Hangfire. We will look at them one by one.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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Case Study: Redesigning Todoist for Android

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Todoist is a to-do list app that 25 million people rely on every day to keep their lives organized. As part of the Doist design team’s goals for 2021, we aimed to redesign the Todoist Android app to take advantage of the latest Google Material Design guidelines.

In this post, we cover the design decisions and processes behind redesigning the Todoist Android app for Material Design. We explore the Design and Android team’s collaboration practices that brought the app update to life, which resulted in winning the Material Design Award 2021 in the large screen category. Let’s get started!

Opportunity

When we started the project, our design implementation on Android was ready for a major overhaul. The last milestone redesign on Android was initiated after the release of the first Material Design guidelines in 2016. Since then the team successfully worked on continuous improvements to the Android app, but we saw the opportunity to improve Todoist on Android on a more holistic level.

We set out to clean up instances of older UI components, colors, and text styles and update them with the latest Material Design components. We observed that some interactions and navigational patterns had become inconsistent with what users were expecting on newer Android devices and were eager to modernize this experience. With new hardware and software changes in mind, we set out to make the experience on larger phones and tablets even better, so Todoist could take full advantage of the latest generation of devices. Material 2 and 3 provided an incredible new framework to rethink the current app experience. With this in mind, we set out to challenge what a modern Android app should look like and innovate on top of the default user experience.

Solution

The team set itself the goal of redesigning our Todoist Android app and aspiring to make it the best-designed productivity app on Android. The project was ambitious and scheduled to take several months to complete. We set ourselves the following targets while working on the project:

  • Review the current implementation and older design specs.
  • Study the latest Material Design Guidelines and assess what is relevant for our project.
  • Research great Material Design apps and case studies and learn from their execution.
  • Define the new Todoist Android app design language and document the changes.
  • Design and development work together to assess the proposed solution and implementation.
  • Test an early version of the new app internally to gather feedback and make adjustments.
  • Invite beta testers to the new app to gather feedback and make adjustments.
  • Refine the app and address core issues before launching to the public.

Review

The project was kicked off by reviewing the current Todoist Android app implementation, noting down what areas needed to be fixed and what was up to date. While reviewing, we took screenshots of the app implementation for reference. This way we could easily see the current state of the app and compare it to the new design proposals that would be created. Once the review process was finalized, we had a comprehensive overview of the current state of the app and the layout, component, and styling changes we wanted to make.

Study

We continued the project by studying the latest Material Design Guidelines, assessing the components and practices that were most relevant to Todoist.

When the project kicked off in February 2021, Material 2 was the most recent version of their design system. Since Material 2 had already been released for quite some time, we anticipated that design changes to Material would be announced soon at the Google I/O event in May 2021. Rather than wait, because we expected the changes to be iterative, we pushed ahead with our work.

We identified 25 components and UI patterns that we wanted to change across the app. The changes included buttons, forms, menus, sheets, navigation drawer, app bar, system bars, text and color styles, and more. We started by creating a table view in a Dropbox Paper document with the component changes and references links to Google’s Material Design Guidelines.

This components list was a starting point for discussion to plan the scope and complexity of the changes. Close async discussions between the design and development team in Twist and Dropbox Paper comments helped us make decisions about scope and complexity early on and set a solid foundation for the project.

Research

In the initial Material Design study, we also researched inspiring Material Design apps, Material studies, Play Store apps, and Google Workspace apps to learn from their execution.

We started out by studying the Material Design Award Winners 2020 and tested out the products that were showcased. The showcased winners struck a good balance between implementing the Material Design Guidelines while maintaining their own product’s brand within the system. This balance between Google’s guidelines and the Todoist brand was also key for us to get right and so we strived to find this mix across the work we created and implemented in the project.

Along with the MDA winners, we researched the Material Studies that Google produced to showcase what apps could look like with branding and Material Design guidelines applied. It was a great reference to see how far components could be customized while maintaining the core platform principles. The Reply case study in particular offered valuable insight to us as its content type and layout came closest to Todoist. It showcased how components like the app bar, navigation drawer, and large screen layouts worked while being customized.

We continued our research by searching the Google Play store for inspiring app examples. Google Tasks, Press, Periodic Table, and Kayak stood out to us as the level of polish and quality of the apps were on par with the experience we were aspiring to create.

Sometime later in the project when Material You was released (more on that later), we stumbled upon the Google Workspace apps blog post which previewed Material 3 changes that Google was introducing to their own products. It offered a great glimpse at what was to come before the Material 3 Design Guidelines were officially released. This post sparked new internal discussions and further design explorations that we considered for future Todoist Android updates.

Design Spec

As we started to define the new Todoist Android app design language and document the changes, we opted to create a design framework, focusing on creating components rather than designing every screen in the app. This allowed us to consistently apply the design system in the app. We did so by using the previously defined component list that we created during the review and study process.

Core screens from different areas of the app were chosen to demonstrate how the components could be applied. We chose to mock up the Todoist project view, navigation drawer menu, project view edit screen, settings, and project detail view, among others. These screens gave us a good overview of how buttons, forms, drawers, lists, and other components would work together and in different states; selected, pressed, disabled, etc.

During the project, we were transitioning our Doist design system to Figma and started creating our first components in the new Doist Product Android Library. We started by using some components from the Material Design UI kit – Components library from the official Google Figma resource file and added them to our Doist design system. We then continued to build up the Product Android Library file with our Todoist-specific components such as task list & board views, detail views, sheets, colors, typography, etc.

We continued by documenting color and typography changes that were based on the Material Design guidelines. The design team opted to implement a new Design Token framework that would share the same values between our design system and the development implementation. The development team would output the values they had in the current implementation and the design team would analyze which values were needed and which could be merged, changed, or deleted. This informed the new Design Token color and typography system which we then documented and discussed with the team to implement. Later in the project, we were happy to see a similar token system introduced by Material 3 in the latest guidelines which validated our thinking and principles behind the new design system.

The design documentation expanded to hold other edge-case mockups that could sit alongside the design system. We documented different responsive screen experiences between phones and tablets against the previous implementation. Additional sections were created to document the motion that should be used for certain components and screens by referencing existing Material Design guidelines examples or prototyping custom motion in Principle and After Effects. The design spec also touched on haptic feedback that should appear on touch targets, how dark mode should work across the new components, documenting Todoist themes within the new design language, and more.

Design Implementation

At Doist, the benefit of the squad is that cross-team collaboration is built into the make-up of the team. Designers, developers, support, and product managers work together in a squad to deliver the project. This close collaboration from the start is key to bridging the gap between scope, estimations, design, development, and delivery. The squad discussed their findings on a daily basis and came up with the best plan of action together.

Designers started by creating components in Figma and shared them with developers in Dropbox Paper. We used screenshots to document the current implementation next to the new designs and linked to the default Google Material Design components. This allowed the team to compare all references in one place. Developers shared their feedback, adjustments would be brainstormed together as the designs were iterated.

Designers on the project would share their work in progress on a weekly basis with the rest of the design team in a design review Twist thread. Here details about the designs were discussed, alternatives mocked up and bigger picture plans made. Design reviews brought up topics like FAB (Floating Action Button) placement, theme options, accent color usage on components, consistency with other platforms, navigation options, and shadow elevation. After thorough discussions and alternative mockups were presented, the design team aimed to find the right balance between Material Design and Todoist brand guidelines. The development team, also part of the design reviews, gave their feedback on the solution and raised technical complexities early on.

Eventually, the design was stabilized and consistencies updated across components and mockups. The design spec was kept up to date so the development team could always review the latest designs in Figma.

Testing

As soon as the development process started, the Android team provided early screenshots and videos in Twist threads while they were implementing the design spec. This practice allowed us to review the app implementation early and often. Designers could review the development work and share feedback in Twist, which resulted in getting the implementation to a high quality. Alongside Twist discussions, the team set up a Todoist project to track ongoing issues and fix bugs. Designers logged new issues, developers would solve them and share the new implementation for designers to review.

When the team had the first stable version of the Android app, we shared it internally at Doist to get more insight and feedback. Other Doisters could access the redesign via a feature flag that could be turned on in the app settings and test the new version for however long they wanted. The feature flag system allowed people to give us early feedback on the design decisions we made and report bugs. Feedback was submitted by the wider team through a dedicated Twist thread and designers and developers could discuss how best to address the feedback during the active project implementation.

After we refined the app implementation further and addressed early feedback we opened up the app update to our beta users. Here users had access to the new Android redesign and were able to give us feedback. Our support team gathered feedback and shared it with us in a dedicated Twist thread. The squad aimed to analyze every comment and looked for patterns where we could make tweaks and improvements to the user experience.

As part of these tweaks, we made changes to how the bottom bar and navigation drawer worked. Some users reported frustrations with the way the new bottom navigation and menu drawer worked. In its first implementation, the drawer was half raised when opened and had to be swiped up to be raised again to see the full content list. This was an issue for some users as it was slower to get to the content below the list. So we decided to fully raise the drawer by default when opening. We also made it easier to open the navigation drawer by sliding up from the bottom app bar. This was a small shortcut but it enabled users to get to their content faster.

Material You

While we were in the testing phase and about to wrap up the project, Google unveiled Material You, and sometime later the Material 3 Guidelines were published. With the newly announced resources, we went back to study the latest guidelines and references we could find to see where the Todoist Android app redesign fits in and which adjustments we might need to make now or in the future.

Dynamic Color was a big new feature that was announced as part of the Material You update. As Todoist supports many different themes the Material You Dynamic Color feature seemed like a good fit for our product. We decided to prioritize this feature and implement Dynamic Color light and dark themes as part of our Todoist theme settings options.

To implement Dynamic Color, the development team started off by creating a demo prototype that utilized the Dynamic Color system and showcased how we could select from a range of color choices that the system defined based on the wallpaper choice. From there, we tried to incorporate system behavior in our design mockups. We designed a range of different color mockups and components to see which ones could fit with which components. We then came up with a color system that worked for the Todoist app and the new themes. These new Dynamic Color themes would sit alongside our current theme options in the Todoist app settings. From here users could choose between Dynamic Color Light and Dark themes.

Along with Dynamic Color, the team also created a customizable bottom app bar, allowing users to set up the app in a way that’s most convenient to their workflow. The location of the Dynamic Add Button can be changed to the center, left, or right corner of the screen. The order of the Menu, Search, and Notification buttons can be rearranged to best fit the ergonomics of the user’s dominant (left or right) hand and optimize their navigation patterns.

Launch

As critical beta feedback was addressed and stability tweaks were made, the squad felt ready to release the new Todoist Android app to the public. The team logged the issues that could not immediately be addressed for future reviews and updates.

The design and marketing team readied the launch by creating What’s New banner artwork and copy that are displayed within the app when launching the update. The Doist marketing team also created release notes and shared the app update announcements on our social channels. The brand and product design team worked together to create custom image assets and copy that summarised the project work in a simple and beautiful way.

What’s Next: Material 3

After a successful launch of the redesigned Todoist for Android app, Google contacted Doist to announce that Todoist was selected as the Material Design Award 2021 winner in the Large Screen category. The team was excited to be recognized for their hard work and it felt like we achieved the goal we had set out to accomplish.

Internally, designers and developers continued to study and discuss the Material 3 updates. The design team started exploring mockups and design changes inspired by Material 3 and Google’s Workspace app updates. Some of our current Todoist explorations include changing the FAB styling, updating the app bar, further removing elevation shadows, and more. Here is a preview of what a future Todoist update could look like.

We hope these insights into Doist’s design process and collaboration practices have sparked your interest. Thank you for reading and stay tuned for future design updates!

Takeaways

  • Study the Material guidelines, Material Design winners, Material studies, and Google Workspace apps to make informed design decisions when designing your next product or app update.
  • Evaluate which Material Design components and practices are right for you and implement them into your product.
  • Carefully balance the Material Design guidelines with your brand guidelines to create a unique and consistent experience between your product and the platform it lives on.
  • Collaborate with your Android developers early and often to ship app updates efficiently and increase the design implementation quality.
  • Use design components and build a design system along with practical mockups to create an efficient design spec.
  • Consider how the latest Android features fit into your product and which have the most impact on your users before deciding to implement them.
  • Test and review builds with your internal team and external beta users to get valuable feedback and make adjustments before releasing them to the public.
  • Create announcement artwork to showcase your latest app or feature update along with a clear description to share in-app and on social media.

Source

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Using Micro-Interactions to Drive UX

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Micro-interactions effectively communicate brand identity and ethos while strengthening ties with the customer. These habit-forming tools make for a fun and seamless user experience. Facebook’s ‘likes’ and Tinder’s ‘swipes’ are two classic examples. 

Micro-interactions originated with the need to guide customers who had hit a snag while using a service or a product. The goal was to ease customers into being more product-savvy via subtle reassurance and feedback. Micro-interactions are now employed by everything from washing machines, to coffee makers.

Along with feedback, prompts, and recommendations, they can also present customers with an appealing visual reward upon finishing a task. When used optimally, micro-interactions drastically enhance the navigation and simplify how users interact with sites and apps.

How Micro-Interactions Work

Here are the four structural elements to a simple micro-interaction: triggers, rules, feedback, and loops. Every micro-interaction has a significant component to organize the operational cycle. It lets you control feedback and runs, so the users understand the consequences of their performance and feel motivated to follow through.

Triggers

This feature begins micro-interactions of both the user-initiated (prompted by user) and system-initiated (driven by the system) kind. For example, a click, scroll, swipe, tap, and pull are common triggers that users carry out. So making a payment, booking a cab, and clicking or tapping on the hamburger menu all fall under this category. On the flip side, the user’s alert prompt upon entering a wrong password is a classic system-generated trigger. 

Rules

This element determines what happens after the user sets a prompt into motion via tapping, clicking, scrolling, or swiping. Rules refer to the fact that apps decide the triggers that users employ — Tinder’s ‘swipe’ feature illustrates this point. These rules gradually become a habit-forming action that users get accustomed to while regularly engaging with an app.

Feedback

During this process stage, the system informs the user via auditory, visual, or haptic cues. It engages the users and encourages them to proceed further in their process. For example, the progress bar of a download, the visual representation of steps cleared in a circle, or the visual, aural, and tactile indication upon the success or failure of payment are all a part of the feedback mechanism.

Loop/Modes

This final stage entails tiny meta-rules of the process and determines the frequency and duration. A classic example from an ecommerce app is the ‘Buy Now’ transformed to ‘Buy Another’ Before the user loses interest in the app, the app typically uses such a loop to get them to re-engage with the app. 

How to Use Micro-Interactions

We’ve established that micro-interactions are fabulous, but not every UX interaction on your app or site needs one throughout the wireframe. Overusing this tool could saturate the overall creative experience your design may want to offer. Worse, it might even end up confusing the information hierarchy. It undermines the design and unbalances the user experience of discomfort and irritability. So it’s crucial to know when exactly to use them.

Let’s find out how few quick tips on micro-interactions can elevate and humanize your mobile user experience:

  • Swipe right or left: A signature move made entirely on swiping micro-interaction featured in the famous Tinder app. Swiping is an easier action than clicking or tapping.
  • Call-to-action:  As part of the last step during payment or order, place a ‘Confirm Order’ or ‘Book Now’ prompt, which gives the task a sense of urgency. As a result, having acted on it feels like a minor achievement. 
  • System status: Your app user wants to know what’s happening. System status lets them know they are moving in the right direction and helps avoid confusion. Sometimes, users even run out of patience while uploading a picture, downloading a file, or filling up the registration form.
  • Classic notifications: Users need a quick reminder of products selected/wishlist in their abandoned cart with a reduced attention span. A simple notification can nudge them toward finalizing the purchase. 
  • Button animation: Animated buttons are not only cute, but they also help users navigate the mobile app swiftly. Try out attractive colors, fonts, sizes, shapes, and clipart elements corresponding to the animation and create that cool button to pop up when tapped or hovered on. 
  • Animated text inputs:  A simple process of a likable element like zooming in while entering data into a form or filling up card details for payment can enhance the user experience.
  • Reward an achievement:  Especially true for educational and health apps, micro-interactions celebrating big and small milestones with a badge or a compliment of encouragement can strengthen a user’s engagement with the app. 

Benefits of Micro-Interactions

  • Brand communication: A successful brand ensures that the transmission to the buyer is engaging, positive, and hassle-free. When micro-interactions show a process status clearly, it creates and reinforces a positive image for your brand.
  • Higher user engagement: Experts say micro-interactions engage users better. These tiny elements subconsciously create the urge to keep interacting with your app. For example, each push or nudge notification acts toward redirecting your customers back to your app.
  • Enhanced user experience: From shopping to banking to traveling to learning to staying healthy, there’s an app for everything. A wide range of activities elevates the overall user experience and stays ahead in the game. Micro-interactions can work that magic for your brand. 
  • Prompt feedback: It’s frustrating not to know what’s happening behind the blank screen, especially during a purchase. Instant feedback via visual, sound, or vibrating notifications makes for a pleasant user experience. 
  • Visual harmony: Micro-interactions initiated even with a tap, swipe, typing, or scrolling are all a part of the UX design’s overall appeal. The trick is to keep all the interface elements in perfect sync with the app’s visual features.

Micro-Interaction Best Practices

Here are a few basic principles you should follow when you introduce a micro-interaction to the user experience.

1. Keep it simple, stupid (KISS)

KISS is a famous design principle that becomes even more important in the case of micro-interactions. The goal is to make the user journey delightful and not be a distraction.

2. Keep it Short

It has ‘micro’ in the name itself. But, again, micro-interactions aren’t supposed to be show stars, and a lengthy micro-interaction only distracts the user. 

3. Pick the Right Place

You should always consider the options carefully before choosing the spot for any micro-interaction. The widely used user-interaction designs are popular for a reason. Many people have already approved them, so you can safely continue with them. The use of micro-interaction should also sit well with your brand image. 

See also if the placement of a micro-interaction is reaching your ideal customer or not. And even consider whether you need a micro-interaction to begin with. 

And That’s a Wrap!

As UX designers, we can profoundly impact the overall design of sites and apps, the user’s journey, their interactions with our product/service, their connection with the brand, and the ease of doing a transaction.

We want customers to connect to our brand, love our products, and experience our exceptional customer service. But most of all, we want to earn their trust and loyalty.

 

Featured image via Pexels.

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Developer’s Guide to Building Notification Systems: Part 4 – Observability and Analytics

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This is the fourth and final post in our series on how you, the developer, can build or improve your company’s notification system. It follows the first post about identifying user requirements, the second about designing with scalability and reliability in mind, and the third about setting up routing and preferences. In this piece, we will learn about using observability and analytics to set your system and company up for success.

Developing an application can often feel like you’re building in the dark. Even after development, gathering and organizing performance data is invaluable for ongoing maintenance. This is where observability comes in—it’s the ability to monitor your application’s operation and understand what it’s doing. With close monitoring, observability is a superpower that allows developers to use various data points to foresee potential errors or outages and make informed decisions to prevent these from occurring.

Source de l’article sur DZONE

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