I recently received an e-mail from Jason Fried, founder, of 37signals about the launch of Highrise. Highrise is an online contact manager that allows you to keep track of “who you talked to, what they said, and what to do next” according to the High Rise homepage. There are several ways to utilize Highrise.
First of all, you can share co-worker contact information across the network. You can also assign tasks, set follow-ups, and send thank you notes through the task assignment feature. And you can also keep a history log of calls, conversations, and e-mails from customers and vendors.
Signing up for the software for 30 days is free so that you can browse the features in depth before deciding whether this software is for you.
Basic plans start at $24/month and as you would like to add more features such as file sharing upgrades or adding more users, the price-per-month increases to as high as $149/month.
I decided to test the software out with the 30-day free trial.
To register, you need to enter your first and last name, the time zone, the company name, and choose a username and password. Once you sign-up, you are also assigned a unique Highrise website address.
As you can see, there is a Dashboard where you can maintain contact invitations and tasks. There is also a separate contacts page where you can view the contact information of the various users in the groups. Another page for task management is also available.
On the task page, you assign due dates and categories to the individual tasks. The last tab on the page is Cases.
The Cases page is where you can discuss projects and also share files amongst other users in the account. Cases require a Plus, Premium, or Max plan.
Another interesting feature of Highrise is the ability to upload vCards to the website. “vCard is a file format standard for personal data interchange, specifically electronic business cards.”
Upon inspecting Highrise software, I strongly believe that this online collaboration tool could be useful for companies of any size. Organization within a company is always quintessential.
