By Colin Dixon, App-X Maybe its because I spend my days supporting our customers, but I’ve become increasingly aware of poor customer service now when I see it outside of work and I’m amazed at how prevalent it is and even how easy it would be to fix. Recently I was at a retail outlet...

Jason gets excited talking about dashboards. So here’s a video of him talking about customizing them.

Thanks to all who joined our webinar on De-duping Account and Contact Information in AIM. We hope you found it informative. For anyone who missed it, all you need to get caught up is below. Video recording of the webinar: Slide deck from the webinar is here. If you have any questions or if you’d...

By Beth Busenhart, App-X With the summer vacation season almost upon us, I thought I’d take a few lines of the blog to talk about how AIM fund management software can help make your summer trip more enjoyable. Unfortunately, AIM won’t apply sunscreen for you and it won’t tell you how to avoid lines at...

Reposted from PRWeb. PRWeb (Press Release) – May 10, 2013 – BROOMFIELD, Colo. — Broomfield, CO—Application Experts (www.app-x.com), a provider of cloud-based funds management software tools, announced today a milestone in App-X history with reaching 1,000 users of AIM software. While only passing the 500 user mark only 18 months ago, App-X is seeing tremendous...

Reposted from PRLog. PRLog (Press Release) - May 9, 2013 - BROOMFIELD, Colo. – Broomfield, CO—Application Experts (http://www.app-x.com), a provider of cloud-based funds management software tools, announced today a webinars series providing tips and techniques to its customers of AIM technology. In an effort for AIM users to stay sharp on skills related AIM and continue to understand how to better...

Organize and personalize your tabs in AIM fund management software to make you more efficient. Colin shows you how.

By Kevin Kelly, App-X Its hard to believe that we’ve just surpassed the 1000 user milestone. Back in 2007 when AIM was coming into being, I think we all saw a huge future for fund management software and for App-X and it’s very rewarding to see a lot of those aspirations and goals come to...

By Jill Montera, App-X Next month App-X will be rolling out a new webinar series aimed at making our clients as effective with our AIM solution as possible. With AIM, a portfolio management software, it’s important for users to stay sharp on the skills that are related to the system and continue to figure out...

By Ben Hendershot, App-X Regardless of how you’re currently running your Monday morning meetings, there are a few steps that your organization is probably going through each meeting when not using a fund management software program. First, you’re accessing data from wherever it is that your organization stores it. Then you are disseminating that information...

By Colin Dixon, App-X This blog post has nothing to do with spring cleaning since I believe in cleanliness as a year-round pursuit, but specifically as it relates to data in your fund management software (CRM), a clean database can unclutter your life, make you more efficient, and even save your firm some cash. We’re...

By Kevin Kelly, App-X It’s a scenario we encounter a lot.  A fund manager brings on a CRM system to manage their fundraising or investing, they had heard that this system does everything, that it will solve all of their problems as soon as they turn it on, and 6 months after implementation it sits...

Tennessee-based Tenth Street Capital has implemented AIM to consolidate their account and contact management, manage fundraising, and track their portfolio. They are also using AIM’s dashboards to drive internal meetings and keep track of their fundraising and investing pipeline. Tenth Street Capital is a private mezzanine investor in the lower middle-market, investing $1 million to...

By Jeff Williams, App-X Last week we talked about how hosting your annual meetings can be made easier and less time consuming through the use of fund management software. This week, I’d like to discuss some of the ways that annual meeting attendees can use software to get more out of the annual meetings they...

By Jason Viado, App-X I used to mow my lawn with a weedwacker. It was a small lawn and I couldn’t really afford a lawn mower. But the weedwacker served its purpose just fine and in the end it really didn’t take much more time to cut the grass in my parking-spot-size lawn with a...

Don’t let your annual meeting tie you down. Learn how the right fund management software can save you time, so that you can focus on your business. It’s your annual meeting. The time of year when you get all of your investors together to feed them full of information on how your company has been...

Nonprofit Inveneo implements the PULSE metric tracking software system to improve data collection and to gain better insights from collected data. The result is a streamlined collection process and a deeper level of understanding of the effect their work is having. PULSE streamlines data collection and provides meaningful and actionable insights that allow Inveneo to...

App-X would like to announce the addition of its newest team member, the very highly qualified and highly motivated Donald Davis. Donald comes to us most recently from Intralinks where he was a Senior Sales Executive based in San Francisco. Before Intralinks, Donald was the Regional Director of Sales for Merrill and also sold technology...

By Jeff Williams, App-X Its your annual meeting. The time of year when you get all of your investors together to feed them full of information (and food and booze). And to most it’s a necessary evil that requires months of preparation and some serious time away from your core business activities. For fund managers...

Your team is bound to amass a library of documents during both the fundraising and due diligence processes. Storing these documents in an organized manner is critical to efficiency and there are now a variety of services available to help you store these documents in the cloud rather than on a local shared drive. With...

Mass Stay in Touch is a Salesforce feature that helps you keep your contacts’ information updated. Colin shows us how it works.

To accommodate the increased reporting requirements and reduce the extra administrative work of managing their growing portfolio, Plexus Capital implements AIM by Application Experts to help ramp up deal flow, increase efficiency, and facilitate information sharing between team members. AIM by Application Experts helps Plexus track deal flow, institutionalizes due diligence, and provides real time...

By Jason Viado, App-X Here at App-X, we definitely have a tendency to geek out to database theory and fund management technology more than most. If you’ve read our blog, you find that it’s full of stuff that would put many people to sleep, but we find this stuff fascinating and we enjoy keeping you...

Salesforce Touch–a version of Salesforce that’s designed specifically for touchscreen mobile devices–is now updated for 2013 and has some updates for AIM users. The Spring ’13 release still doesn’t have all of the functionality of the full browser version of AIM but the Touch interface is now a viable option for AIM users as it...

Today’s online services are more widespread and user friendly than ever with the help of–well, I’ll just let Colin explain it. Here’s how to reset your own password.

Our own Jeff Williams was featured in PE Manager Magazine this month discussing data management and how fund managers can make use of technology in his article “Private Fund Manager 2.0.” Jeff writes “I’m willing to bet that in looking through the investment opportunities you’ve seen over the last 18 months, you probably remember where...

St. Louis-based Millstone Capital Advisors have partnered with Application Experts (App-X) to begin using AIM to manage fundraising and investor relations for their first fund. They will also be looking to App-X for advice on best practices related to investor tracking. Millstone will also be using new investor correspondence functionality in AIM to perform capital...

Changing users? Colin shows us how to change a user’s email address within AIM.

By Kevin Kelly, App-X In our industry, we certainly encourage fund managers to adopt technology that makes them more efficient and that streamlines their processes. When managers contemplate integrating front office and back office systems, however, efficiency shouldn’t be the only goal and a good case can sometimes be made for looser integration, slightly more...

Multiple disparate software systems made fund and portfolio management difficult and time consuming for Accion and knowledge sharing was limited. So ACCION implemented AIM and PULSE to streamline their deal pipeline management, manage portfolio tracking, and adopt IRIS reporting standards. Read the case study here.

The Excel Connector can be a complicated but invaluable tool for fund managers using AIM. Colin starts simple by showing us how to query and update records.

Rick shows us how to add a deal in the latest version of AIM. Oops, this video shows some new features that aren’t quite ready to be revealed to the world.  Stay tuned for its release sometime soon.

Harbour Group implemented AIM by Application Experts to organize historical data and then provide efficient and insightful access to that data. AIM provides enhanced reporting functionality that provides the entire team with up-to-the-minute reporting to enable better decision making. Read the case study here.

Just in case the world ends tomorrow, we wanted to get the best blog posts of the year posted once more for anyone who missed them the first time.  Stay tuned for more updates from the world of App-X coming (more than likely) in the new year. Mining “Big Data” with Fund Management Software Jeff...

Colin makes the holiday season just a bit less stressful with a video of how to send mass holiday cards or any other mass email.

PULSE and AIM user Accion’s Frontier Investments Group is an early and growth stage impact investing fund focused on catalyzing a new approach to financial inclusion. It invests in innovative technologies and disruptive business models that enhance the efficiency, reach, and scope of products and services for the unbanked. Accion is a global nonprofit organization...

Creating reports can be one of the most challenging aspects of using AIM. This is the first installment of our AIM Reporting Bootcamp webinar series designed to teach users how they can improve their report creation abilities. Contact support@app-x.com to find out about other installments in the series.

By Jason Viado, App-X Since a lot of fund managers see a bit of a lull in activity between Thanksgiving and the new year, now might be a good time to take advantage of that down time to make some improvements to your fund management CRM software. Here’s a holiday checklist that doesn’t involve going...

  News from the World of App-X The Power of the Platform Whether you want to mass email from AIM, access AIM from mobile devices, or integrate your email with AIM, there are a number of tools made available through Salesforce and its network of partners that can give AIM users even more functionality. Check...

By Jeff Vahrenwald, App-X When it comes to selecting the right mass email tool to complement your fund management software, the options can be a bit overwhelming. Certainly there is no shortage of options availalbe from simple mass-mail tools to full-blown marketing automation suites. For our clients, we recommend you start by asking yourself a...

PULSE expert Charlie Kuhn walks us through creating a new metric set.

By Charlie Schilderink, App-X This week Salesforce released version 2.02 of Salesforce for Outlook which is designed to integrate Salesforce with Microsoft Outlook and is capable of syncing contacts, tasks, and emails between the two systems. With this new update, users can now view contact details in the new Salesforce Side Panel in Outlook. This...

By Rick Wills, App-X Integrating Gmail with your private equity CRM–whether you are using Salesforce or a solution like AIM that is built on the Force.com platform–can be a tricky but vitally important part of keeping track of all the conversations you’re having with potential investors, deal sources, or even people within your own office....

Application Experts is proud to be sponsoring the upcoming National Summit for Middle Market Funds next week in Palm Beach, Florida.  The summit, put on by the Small Business Investor Alliance (SBIA), is the premier national event for lower middle market fund managers and is attended by over 400 private equity fund managers, limited partners,...

In connection with Denver Startup week, App-X is joining with over 100 Colorado-based businesses to launch “Colorado Entrepreneurial by Nature,” a grass-roots campaign whose goal is to get Colorado entrepreneurs and businesses to rally around their shared love of our state and our entrepreneurial culture. “Being in Colorado has a lot to do with our...

In this video, Colin covers the new and improved way to send users an email notification after you’ve entered meeting notes, call notes, or notes related to any interaction.Your email:  Enter your email to subscribe to the App-X Blog

In part of a series on impact investing and the role of metrics, App-X Product Manager Beth Busenhart was featured in The Standford Social Innovation Review discussing why impact investors must build consensus around standards and best practices. Other articles in the series were contributed by Margot Brandenburg of the Rockefeller Foundation and Sarah Gelfand...

For most of our clients, Mobile access to AIM fund management software through tablets and smart phones is a must. Since AIM is built on the Force.com platform, we are able to leverage a lot of the new functionality that Salesforce and its partners have introduced that allow users to interact with AIM in increasingly...

By Colin Dixon, App-X Moving to a CRM solution is a great first step for any Private Equity firm but the utility of having a place to aggregate data can be significantly diminished if the data isn’t reliable. Many managers assume that giving their employees a CRM tool will solve the old problems of storing...

Chicago-based Trilogy Real Estate Group has engaged with Application Experts to implement AIM fund management CRM. Trilogy will be using AIM to manage their fundraising and deal tracking operations. Trilogy Real Estate Group, LLC is a privately held real estate firm with a mandate to make opportunistic multifamily real estate investments. Over the past eight...

App-X CEO Kevin Kelly was featured on the Emerging Markets ESG site discussing Impact Investing and his thoughts on how Impact Investing can play a role in emerging markets.  ESG refers to environmental, social, and/or governance issues and Emerging Markets ESG is a consultancy dedicated to the analysis, benchmarking, development, and promotion of reporting on...

By Charlie Kuhn, App-X The Impact Investing team here at App-X is looking forward to heading to San Francisco for the SOCAP12 conference, and although I realize I’m by no means an experienced veteran in the field, I’ve gathered a few insights from my previous 2 trips to SOCAP and I thought I’d share some...

Its after 10 pm on a Friday night. Are you still working on reports for your Monday morning meeting? What if compiling reports for Monday morning meetings was as easy as the click of a button? If your Fridays are spent compiling spreadsheets, formatting reports, and emailing your team to get the latest deal information,...

Technology in the Impact Investing Sector: Top impact investors discuss how they use technology to manage relationships, measure effectiveness, and make decisions. Featuring representatives from: This free webinar will focus on how leading Impact Investing firms use fund management tools AIM and PULSE. Representatives from Microvest, Accion, and Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation will share how...

Boulder-based startup accelerator TechStars recently enlisted the help of AIM by Application Experts to track their fundraising process, to track the investments they have made and who has invested in those companies alongside them, as well as for tracking their collective network of contacts. Application Experts is itself a graduate of the TechStars Boulder class...

Colin shows how to use AIM on the iPad through the browser.

On September 6th, members of the App-X team will be hosting a free live webinar for clients to discuss some of the best Salesforce AppExchange add-ons for extending the functionality of AIM. Topics will include apps for mass emailing, data integration, iPad use, voice recognition, data de-duplication and more. “There are so many great apps...

By Ben Hendershot, App-X Because SaaS products are, by definition, hosted remotely and often supported remotely as well, the role of IT in researching and evaluating options is growing increasingly unclear.  Fund managers in the market for new fund management software–or any SaaS offering–will often send a member of their IT team out to evaluate...

Part 4 in a series of articles by App-X’s PULSE Product Manager Beth Busenhart featured on CSRwire. Beth is joined by App-X’s Charlie Kuhn and they cover some often-confusing terminology in the social responsibility space.    Beth and Charlie write: “We are experiencing a renaissance of sorts in business where leaders are recognizing the power...

App-X support team member Rick covers the sometimes tricky job of creating a new field and adding it to a page layout.

By Jason Viado, App-X When I came across this article recently (http://www.forbes.com/sites/dell/2012/05/08/enterprises-should-implement-change-not-applications-2/), I was tempted to share it, tweet it, thumbs-up it, and anything else I could do to say that I agree with the idea that an IT implementation–or in our case the implementation of fund management software–is less about implementing IT than it...

App-X Support team member Rick shows us how to manipulate the arrangement of fields on a page layout.  

The Salesforce platform can be an invaluable tool to private equity fund managers.  But if you’re seeking streamline fundraising, more effectively manage your portfolio, and gain a competitive advantage over competing funds, deciding exactly how to best leverage the platform can be a complicated process. Learn how to use the Salesforce.com platform to: Differentiate yourself...

This is part 3 in a series of articles by App-X’s PULSE Product Manager Beth Busenhart featured on CSRwire.  This time, Beth discusses the benefits of PULSE in making data easier to digest. Beth writes: “Now that we have established a basis for understanding the roles of IRIS and GIIRS in measuring and evaluating impact, let’s shift back to...

The University of Minnesota Office of Investments & Banking has enlisted the help of the AIM software system and joins Application Experts’ list of university endowment clients. The Office of Investments & Banking is using AIM to track the Fund Managers in their pipeline and the Funds in which they have invested. They are also...

By Kevin Kelly, App-X As the options for fund management software increase, so do the number of private equity and venture capital firms that are adopting new software to manage their fundraising and investing.  Also increasing is the number of firms changing their software or moving from one platform to another to make use of...

Colin takes time out of his busy schedule to show us how to create an interaction in AIM.  

Application Experts will be co-sponsoring NorthStar’s upcoming Private Equity “Fast Pitch” event in Denver on August 9th.  The event features over 15 Private Equity firms giving 15 minute presentations on their firm, their investment strategy, and recent successful deals. “The event will be a great opportunity for us to meet with the firms that can...

  News from the World of App-X The All-new App-X.com Here at App-X, we’re proud to announce the unveiling of our new website. In addition to making it easier for new clients to find information on our AIM and PULSE products, the new site also includes an enhanced support page with video tutorials, users manuals,...

FPG Partners implements AIM by Application Experts to provide flexible, customized reporting and worldwide access to team members while they are on the road. The AIM software helps FPG’s fundraising operations gain efficiency and FPG is now able to provide insightful, professional reports to their GPs. Read the case study here.

The Rockefeller University has engaged with Application Experts to implement App-X’s AIM solution. The University’s investment office will be using AIM to track manager due diligence as well as performance of existing managers, and record notes from all calls, meetings, and emails related to the investing of the university’s endowment. The Rockefeller University is a...

App-X recently revamped RCP Advisors’ AIM reporting capabilities to provide more insightful, timelier, and more accurate information. RCP Advisors, LLC is a private equity investment management firm that provides access to lower middle market private equity fund managers through funds-of-funds and through direct co-investments. Read the entire case study here.

As part 2 in a 3 part series, App-X’s PULSE Product Manager Beth Busenhart was featured on CSRwire with GIIRS‘ Flory Wilson discussing how organizations are achieving credibility through comparison of investment opportunities. Beth and Flory write: “As we continue to explore the co-mingled flavors in the alphabet soup of impact investing, anyone familiar with...

Portland-based Equilibrium Capital Group has engaged with Application Experts to use their AIM software. Equilibrium will be using AIM primarily to track fundraising for their asset management companies and the portfolios, products, and instruments they have built in their targeted sectors. Equilibrium Capital Group is a platform of asset managers and strategies focused in the...

Application Experts (App-X), the leading provider of web-based solutions for the investment community, today announced the company has launched a streamlined new web site. The new site is fully integrated with the company’s social media sites and makes it easier for fund managers, institutional investors, social entrepreneurs and others to find information about alternative asset...

Members of App-X’s PULSE team will provide impact measurement best practices during the June 12-13 “Metrics from the Ground Up” conference in Washington, D.C. Application Experts (App-X) today announced that Beth Busenhart and Charlie Kuhn, two of the company’s impact investing software experts, will present on the PULSE impact measurement software and give hands-on assistance...

By Charlie Kuhn, App-X From Social Finance www.socialfinance.ca. In my last post “Measuring The Impact of Social Investing”, I talked a lot about the history of PULSE, the software designed to help track the impact of social investments. Since Acumen Fund first introduced it in 2006, we have seen a constant and increasing need for...

By Jeff Williams, App-X Big Data is so hot right now. I remember the first time I heard the now ubiquitous term ‘big data’ – it was 2009 and Bryce Roberts (@bryce) of OATV was explaining to me why OATV had invested in what is still today one of my favorite companies – TripIt. In...

By Jill Montera, App-X It is difficult to understate the significance of executive sponsorship in the implementation of fund administration software.  Without the right people backing the decision and driving the implementation in the right direction, even the best-fitting software system can fall flat and wind up a useless tool in a year. Typically during...

This is part 1 in a series of articles by App-X’s PULSE Product Manager Beth Busenhart featured on CSRwire. Beth writes: “As the PULSE product manager, I frequently receive inquiries from impact investors, nonprofit organizations, foundations, and other entities that start with a tongue-twisting question: ‘We’d like to start using PULSE-GIIRS-IRIS to track our impact...

Colin goes over perhaps the first thing every AIM user needs to know: how to submit a support request.  

  By Beth Busenhart and Charlie Kuhn, App-X One of the questions we hear most often from impact investors, foundations, and non-profits that are searching for an impact tracking tool is “How are other organizations tracking metrics?”  It’s certainly understandable in a relatively new industry such as impact investing to be curious about how competing...

By Jill Montera, App-X Historically, being a board member for an impact investor or a non-profit has often been an honorary position or perhaps a chance to network with other board members.  Today, with an increasingly limited amount of capital available for investment and the development of technology tools, board members are asking more of...

App-X support staff Colin and Rick show you how to reset a password.  

By Jason Viado, App-X Is your support outsourced or handled in-house?  With outsourced support, you might expect a disconnect from the team that sold you the software or the team that implemented the software. What is included in support?  Is support included in your license agreement or is there an additional cost?  Even small support...

By Ben Hendershot, App-X With technology playing an increasingly larger part in fund management, quarterly reporting to LPs, advisory boards, and investment committees has grown more efficient and streamlined for those organizations who have embraced the change.  As a result, LP expectations around reporting have changed and savvy fund managers are spending less time compiling...

Application Experts (App-X), a Colorado-based Benefit Corporation providing web-based software solutions AIM and PULSE for the alternative asset industry, announces its renewed support of The Chanda Plan Foundation, a Denver nonprofit working to improve the quality of life for people with physical disabilities through education and programs to access integrative therapies. Since 2007, App-X has...

Rick Wills leads us through the basics of creating reports.  

By Jeff Williams, App-X With the current disparity in upper quartile and median private equity returns narrowing, fundraising is getting tougher and savvy fund managers are looking for new ways to differentiate themselves. Leveraging the power of technology can be one such differentiator.  Imagine being able to say the following 7 things to your existing...

Following up on App-X’s Beth Busenhart’s Impact Investing discussion, App-X CEO Kevin Kelly was featured in ColoradoBiz Magazine reviewing the benefits of cloud-based computing for alternative asset managers. In the article, Kevin discusses how alternative asset fund managers such as private equity firms, institutional investors, pension fund managers, family offices and other alternative asset managers...

  By Jason Viado and Kevin Kelly, App-X With spring upon us, we’re all busy trying to avoid doing any actual spring cleaning.  Instead, why not do some clean-up of your existing Fund Management Software?  Here 10 simple ways you can get more out of the system you already have. New dashboards and new reports....

Jeff goes over how to use hover links at the top of a record.  

News from the World of App-X App-X is Now a B-Corp We’re proud to have recently been awarded certified B Corporation status, joining B Corp companies around the world such as Patagonia and Dansko in a commitment to solve social and environmental problems through the power of business. B Corps differ from traditional businesses in...

By Charlie Kuhn, App-X Ask anyone involved with social finance and they’re likely to tell you that tracking the impact of their investments is one of their greatest challenges. In fact, a recent report from J.P. Morgan shows that the industry’s biggest risk is around investment illiquidity and uncertainty of financial returns. At the same...

By Jason Viado, App-X If you’re in the market for a new fund management system, you’ve most likely been presented with so many options and so many different pieces of functionality that learning a new system–and more importantly learning how to make a system improve your business–can seem like a daunting task.  One suggestion?  Simplify....

By Jason Viado, App-X For Private equity fund managers who need to talk to a lot of investors, who track a lot of deals, or monitor a lot of investments, organization is key. And without the right software in place, fund management can quickly become overwhelming.  Here are 10 signs that your organization needs fund...

Historically, businesses have mostly had a single measurement of success or failure; they were judged on whether or not they made money. In the emerging Impact Investing ecosystem, proponents of Impact Investing are seeking to establish the new world order—that other things count too. And while it is great for an organization to contribute to...

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has reengaged with Application Experts to extend the functionality of their PULSE system.  IDB’s Opportunities for the Majority office has been using PULSE for almost two years and was interested in adding pipeline tracking,  progress reporting, and their grant as well as investment portfolio  to their PULSE system. In tracking...

During the past six years, Broomfield-based App-X evolved from being a developer of software to help fund managers connect with investors and track and manage investments to becoming a certified B Corp–a company that essentially bleeds the lines of for-profit and not-for-profit. To see where App-X stands now, the Camera interviewed Kevin Kelly, a co-founder...

App-X’s PULSE Product Manager Beth Busenhart was featured in ColoradoBiz Magazine discussing Impact Investing and recent increased activity in the impact space. Highlighting what she calls an increased interest in “investments that both do well and do good,” Beth cites a recent report from the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) and J.P. Morgan that estimates...

By Ben Hendershot, App-X There are a number of software solutions on the market today that help Private Equity fund managers track their deal flow and manage fundraising.  It seems like each solution employs a different implementation strategy ranging from, on one end of the spectrum, an extensive and prolonged engagement with a consultant to,...

St. Louis-based Harbour Group recently enlisted the help of AIM and Application Experts (App-X) to help enhance their relationship management efforts and manage deals though their pipeline. App-X helped Harbour Group migrate historical data on thousands of contacts and companies from another CRM system into AIM.  AIM produces real-time reports for Harbour Group that show...

By Charlie Schilderink, App-X A common question we field from clients and prospects alike is about the safety of data that is stored in the cloud.  As our AIM fund management software is built on the force.com platform, all of our clients’ data is stored on Salesforce servers, and since our clients span the breadth...

Ashden, a UK-based non-profit, has recently partnered with Application Experts to adopt the PULSE metrics tracking software platform to track metrics related to Ashden Award winners.  Ashden makes Awards to organizations that have achieved significant success in the field of sustainable energy.  With the help of PULSE, Ashden will be capturing both quantitative and qualitative...

By Jason Viado, App-X Private equity fund managers need reliable software to track their fundraising efforts and manage their investments. Especially in an unpredictable economy, the right software can make the difference in managing a successful fund. However, before implementing a software management system, you need to be aware of potential problems and pitfalls and...

Application Experts’ PULSE project manager Beth Busenhart recently appeared on the “Socially Conscious Investing” radio show to discuss how technology is making a difference to social impact investing. Among App-X’s clients are three social enterprises recently listed by Forbes Magazine in the Top Social Entrepreneurs list, Acumen Fund, Grey Ghost Ventures and Root Capital.  In...

Application Experts’ PULSE project manager Beth Busenhart recently appeared on the “Socially Conscious Investing” radio show to discuss how technology is making a difference to social impact investing. Listen to the interview here: Read the full article and listen to the interview here.  

App-X’s Ben Hendershot discusses the fundamental differences between Salesforce’s traditional sidebar search and the newer global search.

We covered basic sidebar search, but here Ben leads us through the functionality of the advanced sidebar search.

What is unique about App-X support versus other support desks you’ve manned? A lot of people call support with technical questions and we can certainly help in solving those technical questions, but what I think is different about App-X support and what I really enjoy about this position is when support takes on more of...

By Jason Viado, App-X A lot of our clients come to us with questions about where they should store the data that lies within their Private Equity Software.  Because our software is built on the Salesforce platform, we might be a bit biased but we feel storing your data with Salesforce is the most secure...

Setting up the Salesforce Excel Connector can be a tricky process. App-X support wizard Charlie Schilderink leads us through the steps of installing the connector for Microsoft Office 2007. Link to the Excel Connector home page: code.google.com/p/excel-connector

Happy New Year from Application Experts.  For the first blog post of the new year, we’ll be rolling out (or rolling back) some of our best and most informative blog posts from the year that was.  If you missed them, this might help you get caught up.  If you didn’t, well, feel free to read...

Salesforce objects are designed for selling widgets.  Salesforce out-of-the-box comes with standard objects such as Accounts and Contacts but does not include objects specific to fund management. Terminology and naming conventions are not specific for fund management.  Fund management uses a unique vernacular to describe both the stages of fundraising and the stages of committing...

By Kevin Kelly, App-X CEO With the wide array of CRM systems available on the market these days, it can certainly be a challenge to understand not only which one is right for your organization, but also why there need to be so many different types.  In our industry, we customize CRM systems specifically for...

Forbes’ list of the Top 30 Social Entrepreneurs released last week includes PULSE users Acumen Fund, Root Capital, and Gray Ghost Ventures.  The list was compiled by a panel of experts tasked with selecting social entrepreneurs who are “tackling the world’s most intractable problems.” This is the first time in the publication’s history that they...

App-X Project Manager Ben Hendershot covers mass editing from a list view.

Among the many differences between AIM and the fund management software provided by a Salesforce consultant is the difference in implementation approach. At App-X, our implementation process is continually refined and based on best practices from dozens of AIM implementations. The first step in our process is to understand your business so we can customize...

Many Alternative Asset Managers come to us interested in AIM while also evaluating hiring an independent consultant to customize Salesforce for fund management. These fund managers want to know what AIM and App-X can do that Salesforce consultants can’t, how we add value where others cannot, and ultimately why they should choose AIM over an...

By Kevin Kelly, App-X CEO According to a recent study by SEI News, after several years of underwhelming performance and lack of liquidity, many private equity fund managers are trying to increase transparency to attract and retain skeptical investors.  One way we’ve seen clients increase transparency in both fundraising and investing is through the use...

Salesforce does not include native spell checking capability but Ben shows how to enable spell check in Salesforce through Firefox your browser.  

Of all the symptoms of organizations that need a new fund management CRM system, perhaps the most common is that they currently manage all of their fundraising and investing in Excel spreadsheets.  Excel is a great way to analyze data and it is fairly robust in creating reports, but for performing functions related to fund...

App-X Project Lead Ben Hendershot covers the simple but effective technique of inline editing.

By Kevin Kelly, App-X CEO 1. Have complete data from day one.  Data quality is key to getting users to adopt new fund management software.  Many fund managers we encounter just want to get the database set up with little or no data and then they wait and see what data gets in there.  Most...

IDB, through the Opportunities for the Majority Initiative, implemented PULSE and the IRIS taxonomy to track metrics around individual investments and across their entire portfolio. PULSE and IRIS provide them with detailed metrics tracking and benchmarking capabilities which make them a pioneer in their field. The Challenge Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) supports efforts by Latin...

The Salesforce platform can be an invaluable tool for private equity fund managers seeking to streamline fundraising, more effectively manage their portfolios, and gain a competitive advantage over competing funds. Many of the functionality and workflows that savvy private equity fund managers demand from their software systems are built in to the Salesforce platform and...

By Jason Viado, App-X The first thing to consider when migrating data into a database for fund management is the source of the existing data.  Many of our clients come to us with basic data such as names, companies, and contact information within a very flat database file such as outlook or a spreadsheet.  And...

App-X Project Manager Ben Hendershot explains how Salesforce users can schedule reports to be emailed to other users.

MicroVest employs AIM and PULSE to replace a complex and inefficient web of spreadsheets previously used for deal tracking and portfolio management. AIM by Application Experts centralizes institutional knowledge related to investment due diligence and portfolio management and provides detailed reporting to improve operational efficiencies for Private Equity Managers. PULSE is a cloud based metrics...

App-X’s Jason Viado demonstrates how to add connection types between objects within AIM.

Venture Capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has hired Application Experts (App-X) to implement App-X’s cloud-based alternative asset fund management solution, AIM.  NEA will be using AIM to manage their fundraising and investor relations and they will also be using AIM to track relationships that their LP’s maintain with advisory consultants.  Already users of the...

App-X’s Charlie Kuhn recently attended SOCAP ’11, the Social Capital Markets’ annual conference that challenges its attendees to contemplate the future of the impact investing space.  Here are Charlie’s thoughts after returning home. By Charlie Kuhn, App-X When I think back to my week at SOCAP I am slapped in the face by one emotion:...

Ben follows up his “Creating a List View” tutorial with the sequel “Editing a List View.”

FPG Partners will be using AIM to track fundraising prospects as well as the LPs that they have signed on behalf of their clients.  Additionally, FPG will be tracking all interactions including meetings and other communications with prospects and leveraging reports to communicate with their clients regarding these interactions. FPG Partners is a global fund...

Investors Management Corporation (IMC) implemented AIM to gain visibility into their universe of potential investments and to streamline their evaluation process. AIM by Application Experts centralizes institutional knowledge related to investment due diligence and portfolio management and provides detailed reporting to improve operational efficiencies for Private Equity fund managers. Read the full case study here....

The California Institute of Technology Investment Office has adopted AIM by Application Experts to track fund managers and each associated fund under those managers.  Caltech is using AIM across several different asset classes including real assets, private equity, and absolute returns and applying a multi-investing approach in each class. The Caltech Investment Office oversees the...

Updated version of Ben Hendershot walking us through the necessary steps to create a custom list view within AIM.

Ben Hendershot outlines the benefits of using AIM’s Global Search functionality.

Broomfield, Colorado-based Charter School Growth Fund (“CSGF”) recently enlisted the help of Application Experts’ AIM software solution to manage their prospective and current investors.  CSGF relies on grants from a variety of investors, including foundations and high net worth individuals. They will be using AIM to track their fundraising pipeline and, once a grant is...

Application Experts (App-X) announced this week that they have surpassed 500 total users on their cloud-based asset management tool AIM.  Users of AIM are made up of App-X’s over 60 clients who span the range of the Alternative Asset Management space including institutional investors like educational endowments and family offices, funds of funds, and fund...

We’ve had good luck with this workaround that gets the current “Connect for Office” (ver. 1.8.1.2) to work with Office 2010.  The current installation of “Connect for Office” installs with no error for Office 2010, but the corresponding ribbons are missing in both Excel and Word. If you have an Office 2007 installation with “Connect...

Charlie Schilderink brings us his first Tips & Tricks video on something every Salesforce user can use: granting login access to your administrator.

Answering one of our most often asked questions, Ben Hendershot shows how to merge accounts.

Another of our most often asked questions, how to merge contacts. Ben Hendershot shows how.

Denver-based hedge fund Proprietary Capital today became Application Experts’ newest client and the first in the hedge fund space.  Prop Cap will be using AIM to manage their fundraising efforts and they have enlisted the help of AIM’s PPM generation tool as well as the AIM Portal. Proprietary Capital is a leading alternative investment firm...

Charlie is back to show us how to move a contact to a new account.

By Tommy Gaidus This summer, I spent time with Application Experts testing what kinds of changes can be done to an org programmatically with certain tools like the Salesforce Metadata API and which kinds of changes must be done manually. Through my work, I spent enough time with the Metadata API to really be able...

Ben Hendershot talks about increasing your productivity with a simple right click.

By Jeff V. It looks like App-X will be sending a small contingent to Salesforce’s annual users’ conference Dreamforce in San Francisco this year.  As always, it looks like Dreamforce will be the place to be to get caught up on the latest news and to just hone one’s Salesforce skills. I’ll be attending my...

Application Experts (App-X) is proud to announce that we have recently been awarded certified B Corporation status, joining B Corp companies around the world in a commitment to solve social and environmental problems through the power of business.  B Corps differ from traditional businesses in that they meet comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance...

By Beth Busenhart As a Project Manager here at App-X I have the pleasure of working with clients in the Impact Investing Space to implement AIM and PULSE. On June 20 and 21st, I had the added bonus of attending the ANDE Metrics Conference in Washington, DC. For two action packed days I was exposed...

App-X’s Jason Viado leads you through sending notifications to individual users, group lists, and additional recipients after creating an interaction.

As part of our 500th user celebration, App-X is rolling out a new feature on our website.  Tips & Tricks is a library of videos put together by App-X consultants explaining how to get the most out of AIM, PULSE, and Salesforce. Adding a connection type, editing and creating a list view, merging accounts, and...

App-X is proud to announce the release of its newest product: AIM Portal. AIM portal  is a completely-integrated addition to AIM that allows clients to securely share marketing documents with the click of a button.  With AIM Portal, grant access to specic contacts and provide each with his or her own login and password. When...

As part of World Metrics Day 2011, Application Experts and the Acumen Fund hosted a webinar addressing how top foundations are using information technology to manage relationships, measure effectiveness, and make decisions. The webinar was moderated by App-X CTO and panelists included Margot Brandenburg from the Rockefeller Foundation, Tony Berkley from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation,...

Release Notes are a user guide for the latest release of AIM, AIM Portal, PULSE, and Salesforce. This includes: Software enhancements New software functionality Bug fixes Release Notes contain key changes that directly impact users. Many software changes are technical in nature and do not impact anything directly visible to users. Click here for the...

By Ben Hendershot and Jason Viado     Integration between Salesforce and Outlook is a common request from our clients.  Syncing emails, contacts, and other information between the two databases can be an important part of getting valuable information into and out of your Salesforce org.  Unfortunately, the Salesforce Outlook connector has some shortcomings, making integration...

Application Experts is proud to announce the addition one of the world’s largest foundations, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, to its list of clients using both AIM and PULSE.  The Kellogg Foundation has enlisted the help of AIM to manage the investing process behind their $100M social investing fund focused on mission-driven investments, a method of...

International microfinance and microlending organization Accion recently became App-X’s newest AIM client.  Accion is also using PULSE to track metrics around their social investing, but they approached App-X to help them manage deal flow,  deal management, and deal sourcing for their investment groups. Accion is a non-profit organization dedicated to giving people the financial tools...

Here are the basic instructions to move SF Attachments to SF Content in a Salesforce Org that has legacy documents stored as Attachments and wishes to move them to Content.  It assumes the user has comfort with using the Data Loader and data in general.  This document focuses on Attachments, but a similar process can...

Every Wednesday for the last few years, App-X employees gather around the crock pot to share in a group lunch.  The cook changes every week–each employee is asked to cook for the group every couple months–but the purpose is always the same: to enjoy the company of our friends and co-workers and reinforce the idea...

Investors Management Corporation (IMC) is a Raleigh-based Family Office and buyout fund that will be using AIM to evaluate franchising opportunities.  

Congratulations to our PULSE project partner Acumen Fund for 10 years of philanthropy and positive change. Some highlights: More than 3 million people have access to safe, affordable, and efficient energy 7,000 people have jobs and hundreds of millions of insecticide treated bednets have been produced by A to Z More than 330,000 farmers are...

American Industrial Partners (AIP) is a private equity firm in New York City who will be utilizing the AIM platform to perform deal tracking, monitor fundraising, and track due diligence regarding potential deals.  They will also be leveraging a mass email management system that is fully integrated into AIM and SalesForce.com.  

The Texas Permanent School Fund is a part of the Texas Education Agency and they manage a fund that is primarily provided for out of the oil and gas revenues from lands leased from the state by oil companies.  They will be leveraging AIM to provide fund manager tracking and metrics and to perform due...

The Kenyan Social Investment Exchange (kSIX) agreed today to become App-X’s second social exchange client and the first that will be adopting both the AIM and PULSE platforms.  AIM will be used to manage information on potential listing companies and on potential sources of capital.  PULSE will act as a due diligence tool for potential...

Both Mathers Associates and The California Healthcare Foundation (CHCF) joined the App-X client list today as AIM users.  Mathers Associates is a family office that invests in both private and public assets.  They have adopted AIM to track fundraising, investing, and investor management. CHCF is a foundation working to provide better healthcare for all Californians...

Next Street deploys capital and other resources to help inner city small businesses improve performance.  Using PULSE and AIM together as a centralized database, they will be able to track and manage all the financials and impact metrics for the organizations they support and to track all activities that support those organizations.  

MicroVest Capital Management and the Draper Richards Foundation will both be joining the ranks of App-X clients leveraging the combined power of the AIM and PULSE platforms.  MicroVest is a microfinance investment firm providing capital and management oversight to emerging market microfinance institutions in order to build capital markets that work for the world’s entrepreneurial...

App-X is proud to announce as the latest edition to their client lineup.  IADB works throughout Latin America and the Caribbean to reduce poverty and inequality through sustainable, climate-friendly development.  IADB is using PULSE to expedite the flow of information within their organization, dramatically improving efficiency related to reporting and information sharing and, in the...

App-X is pleased to announce two keys win in the Impact Management space. Tufts University – App-X worked with the investment endowment for a premier university in Boston. Tufts was using a 3rd-party CRM system that was disorganized, filled with duplicate data, and difficult to use. AIM allowed them to make a fresh start of...

App-X is proud to announce two new AIMclients. McNally Capital is a  Multi-Family Office and Fund Manager based in Chicago.  Previous to working with App-X, McNally Capital was unsatisfied with their investment management system, it simply did not fit their needs.  They came to App-X seeking out a customized solution which directly fit their business needs. Plexus Capital,...

A new asset class is evolving, bringing significant capital and attention to global investments with a double bottom line.  Jacqueline Novogratz of Acumen Fund calls this new asset class ‘patient capital’ - link to Inc. article.  PULSE is the tool to leverage the new IRIS (Impact Reporting and Investment Standards) Taxonomy and has the capability and flexibility to...

October 4-6, during the SOCAP Conference (Social Capitals Markets) App-X and REDF (Roberts Enterprise Development Fund)  took an opportunity to announce a joint effort to develop an integrated ‘Social Return on Investments’ (SROI) system.  REDF was the pioneer in the school of though to not only invest in an enterprise but a social enterprise to help people with barriers sustain jobs and...

Impact investment firm Imprint Capital Advisors builds and manages customized mission investment portfolios for institutional investors and App-X is proud to announce Imprint as their latest client addition.  Imprint came to App-X looking for a system that could track deals, perform due diligence, and capture information on the recommendations they make.  The system would need...

Acumen Fund is a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty.  In 2006, Acumen Fund recognized the need to move social impact investing into the world of reporting and accountability and sought to standardize set of data to globally benchmark and better understand the impact of social...

AppExchange Alternative Investment Management (AIM) by Application Experts, LLC is a flexible web-based solution that addresses emerging transparency and regulatory issues facing Alternative Asset Fund Managers, Funds of Funds, Pensions, Endowments and Family Offices. Denver, CO (PRWEB) May 15, 2009 — Application Experts, LLC, the leading provider of web-based solutions for Alternative Asset Fund Managers...

Centralized Investment Data and Enhanced Compliance Capabilities: App-X and AIM provide UTIMCO with improved operational efficiencies, simplified reporting, and greater transparency. The University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) implemented Alternative Investment Management (AIM) by Application Experts to address emerging transparency and regulatory challenges facing educational endowments and other institutional investors. Download the case study...

The App-X Implementation team just returned from Minnesota after training and finishing customizations for the University of Minnesota Foundation and Macalester College. Fortunately, Minnesota was warm, the sun was shining and both organizations are embracing Salesforce.com and AIM as it’s ready  to help them manage their endowment’s investments and relationships.

Find many of the Application Experts team members in booth #230 at Dreamforce in San Francisco this week. Come by the booth to get a demo of AIM, KIT, CANDI, and PULSE. Register to win a digital photo frame! Joe McVicker will be presenting on Friday November 20, 2009 at 9am PST in West Mezzanine...

Hello from Colorado, USA.  Here at App-X world headquarters, we’re proud to announce the inception of our new blog.  Over the next few months and years, we’ll be sharing some of what we’ve learned over the last few years providing cloud-based solutions for the alternative asset management space. We hope you enjoy reading what we...