Relationship: Getting Along Has Never Been Easier

Let’s face it: relationships are complicated things. Between keeping track of personal details, remembering dates, communicating efficiently and more, it’s a small wonder that we manage to get along at all.

And that’s just with personal relationships  what about professional relationships, where sometimes the extent of your contact with an individual is a series of digital transactions?

Jumsoft jumps to the rescue with an update to one of its award-winning pieces of productivity software, aptly named Relationship. This little gem is a piece of customer relationship management software geared towards the small business market. With its attractive price tag and competitive features, it’s easily established itself as a staple of the consumer corporate world, and the 1.1 update brings only improvements to the tried-and-tested formula for success.

When we originally reviewed Relationship last year, the software was still in its fledgling state, and many of its ambitious features had not yet been fleshed out to their full potential. With the release of version 1.1, Jumsoft has endeavored to streamline their practical one-window interface (in keeping with what seems to be an increasingly popular trend in software design) and speed up the response times for everything from searching old data records to importing new ones.

This speed boost is especially evident when working with larger numbers of stored contacts. Relationship has also retained its ability to import records in the form of VCards and tab-delimited files which can then be organized using classic features like colour labeling.

One of the most acclaimed features of the original Relationship was its integration with the Mac’s native Address Book, and Jumsoft has expanded upon this integration by allowing users to effectively manage their contacts entirely from within Relationship: from basic information-gathering, to advanced scheduling and mass-emailing capabilities that work seamlessly together to ensure that you’ve got everything you need at your fingertips.

The ability to create groups and “Smart Groups” based on any criteria you like makes keeping people organized a breeze  and each of these groups can be customized with an infinite number of user-defined columns and sub-columns for additional information. Not to mention the ability to attach files and add notes to any contact or group.

If there’s one thing that relationships thrive on, it’s collaboration. And Jumsoft  perceptive fellows that they are  have added a brand new feature allowing different users to collaborate over the Bonjour network. Perhaps the most obvious thing that a relationship needs, though, is security. Relationship is up to par on this account as well, as the update includes the ability to back up all your data securely to your .Mac account. This addition helps augment the previously-existing ability to password protect the entire application, or simply individual groups containing more sensitive data.

Relationship is available for download from Jumsoft’s website either individually for $39.00, or as part of their excellent Business Trio package (which includes the latest versions of Relationship, Money, and Operation) for $59.00. When it comes to managing customer relations for your small business, consider Jumsoft’s Relationship and become your own PR Department.

If you already have, why not tell us how the experience has been for you? How does this Address Book usurper cope with your small (or large) business’ needs?

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