How My Small Business Works
“Everyone can be a technologist.” I read this quote in The Harvard Business Review recently and immediately ripped out the page, clipped the quote and pasted it into my notebook. It felt like someone had summed up my career in one short sentence, because as a writer and researcher turned philanthropy software administrator and advisor, I’ve spent almost two decades working in the grant-making world, over a decade of which I’ve spent learning the ins and outs of SmartSimple GMS software and watching it transform me and many of my colleagues into unsuspecting technologists.
I love philanthropy, especially the software side, but it didn’t start out that way for me. In 2014, I was in my early thirties, just a few years into full-time work after starting a family when I found that I sorely needed to shift into fully remote work for family and health reasons. In those days, remote work was uncommon in my part of the nonprofit world, but I had six years under my belt working for a foundation that had recently migrated into a SmartSimple grants management system and they agreed to let me work on the project remotely. So, I became the brand-new system administrator of a newly launched SmartSimple grants system with no software management experience and a long list of questions getting longer by the minute. I barely knew what the back end of the system meant, and I broke out in a cold sweat anytime I had to touch it. But I needed to make it work so I could keep working from home, so I was determined to learn.
Fast-forward to 2020. I’d spent six years stretching my brain learning all I could about philanthropy software. I’d returned to my alma mater to earn a master’s degree in public administration. I knew my way around our SmartSimple grants management system like the back of my hand, and my work with that foundation had shifted into full-time system administration. I was loving it, and I found myself with an opportunity to help a few other small system administrator teams in Atlanta. So, I started my own small consulting business and slowly but surely started building a cadre of clients who have now become long-time colleagues. Year after year since then, I’ve discovered how much I love working with foundation admin teams, and today as I write this, I’ve worked with more than 20 different teams to help organize, understand, and optimize their SmartSimple grants management systems.
Recently I was asked to share what I’ve learned over the years with the SmartSimple system administrator community. Below is the advice I shared.
1. Listen to the end user.
Listen for details when someone has a system request.
Ask questions to make sure you heard the need correctly.
Iterate, seek feedback, and listen again with regular check-ins.
Respond to remediation questions with openness.
Always seek to understand more from the end user.
Keep a pivot on the table when the need shifts.
2. Reach outside your organization for ideas.
Take SmartSimple Support’s recommendations.
Reach out to colleagues in the SmartSimple system admin community.
Ask other admins how they achieve their organization’s goals in the system.
Consult the SmartSimple Client Success Team.
Plug into Idea Lab conversations.
Build connections who can offer valuable thought partnership.
3. Whatever you do, don’t over-engineer.
Always start from the simplest solution.
Simplify workflows whenever possible.
Streamline statuses, types, etc.
Make sure you’re using terminology and processes that align with your organizational culture and the end user’s goals and objectives.
4. Show, Don’t Tell.
Reveal fields for tracking/monitoring as much as possible.
Create and refine portals regularly to guide users & tell stories (there are so many great new portal ideas out there right now helping fill all sorts of needs).
Provide list view options that make data more accessible.
Simplify dashboards for higher impact.
Use screenshots when communicating with users or troubleshooting.
Host live demos with user groups for process work.
Schedule screen-share meetings while troubleshooting.
5. Document. Document. Document. (This is your system’s easy button)
Add clarity through field names, instructions, and descriptions religiously.
Create and maintain workflow documentation for every process.
Add details to support ticket resolution notes to refer back to later.
Create a searchable private cheat sheet/wiki for yourself to avoid solving the same problems over and over again.
Think ahead to help you create resources that will support seamless system continuity for easier staff turnovers and transitions.
6. Commit to Knowledge-Sharing.
Refuse to allow one person to hold the keys to your system (even you).
Refuse to compete by creating a blue ocean mentality.
Maintain an open source of system knowledge within your organization.
Build in redundancy. (If you won the lottery today, would someone else in your organization be able to fill your seat and follow the information you left behind?)
7. Bring your real self to the work.
Build trust, authenticity, and empathy through transparency.
Display your continual growth by being honest about mistakes and pivots — being wrong sometimes shows you’re learning, but of course, use discretion.
Realize that your organization does not need you to be a cookie cutter copy of your last system administrator.
Know that your perspective is your superpower.
Be the only woodworker, chef, artist, writer, nurse, book nerd, etc. at the table, and let that perspective help you bring fresh ideas to the work.
Relax and know that we’re all stronger when the real you shows up.
A short version of these tips was recently published on the software company’s blog — Here’s the link to that post if you’re interested.
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Last fall, while presenting these ideas and tools at the SmartSimple Elevate Conference in San Diego, I received quite a few insightful questions from other system administrators about my experience with the intricacies of SmartSimple configuration. Below is a summary of those questions along with my answers.
1. What do you recommend for designing user training sessions?
Don’t set a rote agenda for system trainings.
Have users build their own training agendas.
Ask users to articulate what exactly they want to do that they can’t do already, what need they’re trying to fill, etc.
When appropriate, have them demonstrate on-screen to show you exactly how they’re navigating so you can help course correct.
Emulate the person you are training while demonstrating.
Consider the organization culture as it will also inform needs.
Keep it simple and use tools that end users can access and you can keep up-to-date.
Consider the appropriate rate of change that can be absorbed.
2. How do you mitigate and prevent performance issues, slow loading times, and user lockouts due to high volume periods?
Portals that are loading numerous long detailed list views when you open them can impact system performance because they’re often loading too often or in the background. Consider replacing these with modern, up-to-date aggregate or icon-based portals.
Having too many template formulas can clog system performance because they run on every save. Consider streamlining these when possible and replacing them with type-specific template formulas or workflows.
SmartSimple is currently changing the way data is being stored in the system, and this is optimizing performance as we speak, without us doing anything on the admin end.
SmartSimple Support should be your first call when something is happening regarding system performance. You should also let them know if there’s a specific date you are expecting extremely an high volume of users so they can help watch for any issues.
Old configuration or old reports in the Report Builder may slow things down. Use the audit reports in your Global Settings to identify and mitigate these issues. You can reach out to Support if you need assistance.
If you’re approaching high numbers of records you don’t need to access often, you may want to consider using the recently enhanced archiving feature.
3. What recommendations do you have for list view and filter hygiene?
Streamline your list view selector dropdown by using the Configuration Only toggle.
Streamline your search filter dropdown by using the Configuration Only toggle.
In general, I haven’t found that having too many search filters or list views is harmful for a system. In contrast, it may be more risky to delete filters and list views because they could be used in places you’re unaware of.
For security, make sure you’re setting the role-based visibility on each list view.
4. Do you have specific recommendations for larger foundations and funding organizations using SmartSimple?
No matter the size of the organization, I recommend that only a limited number of users should be global system administrators, usually between 2-5 users.
If needed, create and design additional roles with expanded permissions to keep from giving a large number of users the system administrator role.
Pay attention to the SmartSimple platform upgrade webinars and administrator notes as these often contain important recommendations and features.
When redesigning system functions with large teams, I often recommend using the RACI model to clearly articulate who can make decisions, who is accountable or responsible for what areas of administration, and who needs to be informed or give consent.
5. Which CRM tools do you typically see used well?
The built-in CRM in SmartSimple works well and has plenty of additional functionality through custom field design and implementation.
A Relationship Manager module with consumer-provider capabilities can be useful if staff members want to track CRM elements separate from profiles or grant records.
Additional tools of choice often depends on team size and licensing costs.
Consistency is key, no matter what tool is implemented.
If needed, you can use the SmartSimple API or OData connections when linking to another system.
6. How do you design portals to fit user needs best?
Build portals based on the user’s specific questions, pain points, and needs
Use terms that come directly from the user’s or organization’s vernacular
Implement good design elements that will draw the user’s eye. guide their behavior in the system, and tell the type of story
Differentiate between action items and information items with aggregates and icons
When launching a new portal, keep the old one as a header bar items for a few months
7. Do you recommend using list views or reports in portal shortcuts?
Using list views until you reach their limits is my general practice
Streamlining your list views may significantly help performance
Look for areas where you don’t need all of the data at once, and try to use different pages or portals to add clarity and avoid overwhelm
These are just some of the ideas, tools, and resources I’ve seen work well for many of my system administrator colleagues, but the tools and their uses are honestly changing and evolving day by day. So, by the time you read this, there may be new information to consider and there will be new information after that.
At the end of the day, I truly do believe that any SmartSimple system administrator can be a technologist.
I’ve seen it happen again and again, and I feel lucky to have been there with so many new and old technologists along the way. Most days, I spend my working hours on Zoom teaching system administrators how to feel confident and comfortable navigating and updating their own systems and optimizing their data integrity, and providing thought partnership when old processes need revamping or new processes need to be added.
It may not sound glamorous. It’s not exactly the career I thought I’d have as a book-loving writer. And most of my extended family members have no idea what I do exactly (they think I work undercover in some way because my job description sounds so foreign to them that they figure it has to be made up). But I love this work.
Recently someone told me, “I love watching you work in the back end of our system! It really helps me feel a lot more confident in knowing what’s going on.” These are the moments I work for. I love them. They feel like the best kind of work days to me. And while it may very well be true that AI bots could be preparing to take over our jobs and serve as automated system administrators in the coming years, hopefully we’ll all be on to other projects by then.
In the meantime, I like working with the humans in the SmartSimple system administrator community — I’ve made some of my best work relationships this way, and I believe this kind of human connection is only getting more and more valuable in our changing world. I hope to be here as we all navigate what’s next together.
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Celeste Orr has been working in philanthropy since 2008 and as a SmartSimple system administrator since 2014. She currently works as a philanthropy software advisor with the Philanthropy.io team (and writes books and blogs on nights and weekends at celesteorr.com). You can connect with her at celesteorr.com/consulting and philanthropy.io/team.
did AI write this? nope, this lady did ⤴ always💛