Evite is just a feature of Cosential

All too often our customers come to us asking for features of all kinds. We have the tough decision to decide what to work on. The guys over at 37 Signals thesis is that the best applications are the ones without may features. I loved how they compared deciding which feature an application should have to a museum curator deciding what to put in a show. I call BS on that!

We are not putting on a show. We are LISTENING to our customers and then deciding how best to delight our customers. There is nothing wrong with adding a bunch of features to an application that customers ask for, just add the features that most customers will use in a way they did not think about. We are the experts, we have to think strategically, we have to sell the stuff. This discipline will help us decide.

OK with that off of my chest, I am announcing a new feature we are adding. In the Cosential event manager we are adding the ability for people to RSVP using an online form. WHY? Because it will make people’s life easier and it will integrate directly into our application. Now the criticism that I have heard before is “why don’t you just integrate with an existing system?” Because for this kind of functionality, and existing system does not integrate quite the way we need it to. This is the biggest issue we have with other applications API’s. Tight integration is KEY here.

So the flow of the application is create and event, create a list of people to invite, add them to the event in the event manager, send out invitations by snail mail or email, direct them to our web RSVP page and then you get a list of people who will attend. In addition, with the integration of Cardscan, you can capture and update people’s contact information on walkins as well. The tight integration with the Cosential Contact Manager, Reporting Engine, Cardscan and the Event manager is only possible because we built just enough functionality. It took us one additional day to ad the web RSVP form, but it completes a necessary part of the tool.