Customer Reviews

Marketcircle Daylite V3.0 (Mac)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I had first tried Daylite several years ago when I returned to the Mac platform. The one application I really missed from the PC world was ACT. Although I thought Daylight was interesting, the learning curve was really steep - (it is sold without a printed manual - which you can order at an extra cost. - You do get a PDF version of their manual and a good help interface). After a while, I returned to using Now's popular CMS for the Mac.

I recently gave Daylite another try, and am happy to report that Mac users now have a real CMS on-par with ACT and GoldMine. Daylite 3 is a huge improvement over previous versions. I have spent several hours learning the features of Daylight 3 - and have felt this is a very worthwhile investment. There are many ways to customize the application to organize information and contacts in a way that's most useful to the way your work, and your business.

You can add an optional application that allows you to link your contacts with your Mac email - a very useful function. I use a Blackberry, and with Pocket Mac I am able to sync my Daylite files on my Blackberry - another crucial factor for me. Anyone trying to track projects, proposals, clients - and just be more organized, will find Daylite a valuable tool. In my opinion, this is the best CMS available for Mac.

Only if you purchase "Daylite Mail Integration" does Daylite integrate with Apple Mail. This product DOES NOT integrate with Apple Mail as a stand alone. Daylite Productivity Suite ($189) does, but not Daylite 3 alone.

The product description is misleading as written. The fact that DMI is not advertised as a "frequently purchased together" option reinforces the deception (albeit unintended, I am sure).

BUYER BEWARE!

Let me add also, that while the promise of Daylite is great, and even more so, with the addition of an iphone extension, the setup and execution of this app across even a small LAN is extreme. EVERY desktop must be set up as a separate exercise and the extent of every setup can be hundreds of dollars. The learning curve is extraordinary. This product is anything but plug and play.

BUYER BEWARE!

I have to disagree with the previous reviewers. I have used Daylite almost since its inception. It was one of the most promising applications of its kind. Now Up to Date & Contact took too long to move to OS X. Chronos Consultant eventually became SOHO Organizer. Out of the available options, I chose Daylite. It was powerful, had a nice interface, and was rapidly evolving.
Fast forward to a few days shy of 2009. My choice these days is Contactizer Pro.
Is it better? Not necessarily. I don't think there's an adequate PIM/CRM application for the Mac. Both of these are "almost" there, but neither truly fulfills its potential. Daylite does have additional functionality, although that often comes at an expense. Mail integration and other modules are not free.
Support from both companies is inadequate. Daylite offers a manual, a forum, and mail support. Unfortunately they have a history of dropping the ball and not following issues all the way through. Contactizer Pro has no manual or tutorials, and I haven't visited their forums for a long time.
Other options:
The free Chandler is only at version 1 and Now Software has not yet released Nighthawk, but these are potential alternatives. And let's not forget Entourage.

My recommendation is to visit sites like Versiontracker and Macupdate to read more user reviews, visit the developers' forums and see how they respond to user requests and/or bug reports, download a copy, try and compare these (and other) programs.
I used to recommend Daylite and Billings, but haven't done that for a long time now. Maybe their next version will be great. For now I don't use Daylite (or Billings) anymore.

UPDATED JANUARY 2012

With OS X Lion and improved syncing capabilities, new versions of Daylite and switching to BusySync, I've resolved all the sync'ing issues mentioned below. Now, I can manage all my appointments, sales opportunities, projects and tasks in one package. A really lovely thing to use! There's nothing on the market that does it all like Daylite, at least for my life. I could have cobbled together individual parts and pieces, but it's so much nicer to have it all in one place.

PREVIOUS REVIEW FROM 2010

I bought Daylite a couple months ago, and have been exploring its functionality extensively. I manage dozen of projects and opportunities. I used to use ACT!, and was the system administrator, so I had lots of experience in setting up, troubleshooting and using a full-featured CRM. I also had a fair amount of experience with their technical support team, since I migrated data, and set up about 20 users with geographical territories and rules.

However, I use a Mac and prefer using Mac software. Daylite has a lot of great features and reporting functions. The degree of customization is great, allowing the user to customize almost every drop-down menu and category. It takes time but it's no harder than other software I've used. The interface is better than ACT!. Daylite Mail Integration is great! And I've had no issues with lost data although I struggled for some time with multitudes of duplicate contacts, before I disabled sync'ing.

Sync'ing with Address Book and iCal has been nothing short of a nightmare. I've spent at least 25-40 hours troubleshooting sync'ing, in spite of the fact that I spent $200 on a Premium Support Package for Daylite to get "Premium Help" for 3 months. While the techs are nice, the Premium Service has not been worth it in terms of providing solutions.

I gave up trying to sync contacts (I have about 3500) since the interface between Daylite and Sync Services (an Apple product) is seriously flawed. I have completely given up trying to sync contacts. Now, I import the contacts I need manually, which is not so hard but annoying to have to do it. Note that I easily sync 3500 contacts with Google Apps and my phone without issue using Spanning Sync, and so I know it can be done well. To get around not being able to sync, I now import new contacts using WhoPaste, a great program, into both Daylite and Address Book simultaneously.

I'm now struggling with iCal sync'ing, and so far it's no more functional than Address Book syncing! Reading through the tech support pages on the Marketcircle site, I find others that have my problems too, but it appears that many do not as well. Not sure what that means.
At this point, I still have hope for Daylite, and I want it to work. It promises great things and will be valuable when the company fixes the small number of fatal flaws.

Daylite is a really complex, full featured, supposedly beautiful product.
Sadly, simply put, Daylite loses extensive amounts of data. I'd happily pay twice what they charge for their product if only it didn't lose the things that I value. Things like phone numbers and email addresses.

Today (May 4. 2010)I logged in and yet again the fields that were supposed to contain this valuable information literally said "No value" for 367 of my 1087 contacts. As someone running a small business I consider these fields extremely valuable, especially when paired with things like client name! I have been battling Marketcircle on this data loss issue for a long time!!!

Daylite does many things well like integrating customized letters to all of your clients. Sadly, it just doesn't do the critical things well, much of the time. Things like data integrity.

If Daylite had data integrity I'd probably give the product 4 to 4.5 stars. Alas, Data Integrity is a mandatory feature and my rating at this point is negligible.

I tried Daylite due to a recommendation from Apple Store Business reps. As a consultant I needed an application to track my activities and there were not a lot of Mac based choices. I've had it for over 18 months and I regret all the time I have wasted with it. It is very unstable, it has caused my MacBook and all applications to be unstable, it crashes a lot and slows everything down.
First off, the promotion on what you buy is misleading: The items promoted on Amazon look like it is a full productivity suite: it is NOT. You have to buy another application ($40) to get the email integration. What? a contact management software that doesn't integrate with your core communication process? Duh? But wait: there is more:
Don't even go near the the iPhone application. To do that, you need to set up a 24x7 server ( at $900+), buy their Daylite Server app, buy the Daylite application, learn programing languages and buy an annual license.
But wait there is more!
As I mentioned, it is buggy at best, Market Circle does numerous releases that often causes more problems to fix their bugs( and there are plenty).
And the support is crap.
If you are smarter than me, you will stay away from this piece of crap, I have lost more hours fixing things, than using it to improve my productivity. A good email file system, paper based organization system results in better productivity.

I really don't know if the tech support for this product could be any worse. It's more like a tech gauntlet. I don't want to be spending my time e-mailing back and forth over periods of weeks. Productivity tools are only an advantage if they improve your productivity. This company does not take customer service seriously.

The software has promise but the company lacks focus on its customers.

I had contemplated switching from a PC to a Mac for a long time and one of the key things holding me back was the amount of information I had in ACT! databases on my Windows machine. So I was thrilled when I found this product and after a great deal of research bought it being fairly confident it could fit my needs.........that was a HUGE mistake!

From the little I saw the software itself seems to be designed very well. The problem is that two critical aspects of the program are not actually included and cost extra!!!! Specifically the mail integration and the ability to covert over from ACT! are things you need to pay an extra $49 and $199 dollars for respective. This is in light of the fact that the company's own website presents these as being part of the software and does not make it clear their is additional cost until after you've made your purchase. At best this is deceptive advertising!!!

And to top it all off, as other reviews have mentioned, the tech support for this product is atrocious!

I've worked quite a bit in the fields of tracking and managing projects and relationships. I've struggled because of the large amounts of data involved. I also prefer working with a Mac, both in stability and the environment for developing my solutions. I ran across Daylite when searching for a CRM. Warning, you will not be up and fully functional in a matter of minutes with this product. The learning curve is pretty steep even with the manual, there is just too much flexibility to be simple. But that is also it's strength. I use this product for CRM in my Real Estate business and in my Software Development/Consulting. The product is that flexible, and with that much flexibility, there is great amounts of work to get it working like a well oiled machine.

Now I don't forget my clients birthdays or where I am in a Transaction or Code Development project. I know which prospects are where in my chain of sales development, I print merged letters, both in an email and in print. This thing can do it all, just getting it set up is where the cost is, after that, it's all profit.

It is very rare for me to feel compelled to write a product review, but Daylite and Billings (D/B) are those rare products that warrant the effort. Following a one week trial of D/B, I recently purchased both. I am an affordable housing attorney who just set up a solo practice. These two programs will be essential to the management of my practice. I tried "Things" (too simple) and read the extensive reviews on the net regarding time management/productivity and billing programs. I did not see anything that provided the comprehensive capacity of D/B. And nothing that I would feel comfortable using in my practice.

Yes, there is a learning curve, but that's true with any sophisticated software that can perform as many functions as D/B. For what they do, neither program is inherently complicated. You just have to use it. I am convinced that it will all be second nature to me in a short time.

Fortunately (and despite what others may have said), the customer service I received was EXCELLENT. Sean and Jim were extremely responsive and knowledgeable, and fun to talk with. Getting that kind of service is not typical, and it made the decision to purchase D/B very easy. Had the customer service been poor, I probably would not have purchased D/B and instead relied on a simpler time management/productivity program, and had my billing done by an outside service. I feel very confident that D/B will be as invaluable to me as it has been for many others. The number of hours it will save me is incalculable (even netting out the learning curve time) and I know it will be a huge help in serving my clients. Service, that's what it's all about.