CFP WINMAN

First review of a product I have been dealing with for many years in my own workplace.

Name: CFP WINMAN

Publisher/Designer: GMG –http://www.gmgpsg.com/

Website: http://www.cfp-software.co.uk/

Function: To manage the day to day of lettings and property management companies. (this is a very brief description)

Functionality: This software runs on a local server and the data can be accessed via network drives to local workgroup computers.

Out of office functionality is provided via terminal services, remote desktop, to the server at an additional cost.

Cost: Varies and is dependent on the solution you choose

Our setup

CFP SERVER = £1500

Software = £4000 approx ( this is a guesstimate of the actual cost based on costs of previous installs.

Support = £2000 yearly (This is a requirement for receiving updates and bug fixes)

Its not a cheap bit of kit to say the least !

My Review

This product is intensely overpriced considering the product is run entirely on your own systems in comparison with other “live”, cloud based, solutions.

The software does the job but not without its own eccentricities. For instance, there are several functions where you can produce a report with another entries title if you do not manually call on the data.

(This is actually an issue i pointed to them and they responded by simply saying it had to be done manually. No word or comprehension of the idea that it could/should be fixed.)

Over our time using the software we have experienced many outages where the system has simply stopped working and the only option is to call on support to fix the issue. The catch in this is if you do not have the “support package” they will not deal with your request at all even if the problem is, and they would admit it, to do with the software itself.

Moving on to the design of the user end… Its not. The product loads up with nice colours and images at first upon installation all you will be seeing is the same dreary grey non ergonomic user interface.

The remote interface… whats there to say ? Its a remote desktop to your own server!

Simplest solution you can think of but if you think about it you dont want another desktop in order to just access your management software when your out and about. You want to be able to quickly and easily access it with a click from a website or program on your device!

Using Terminal Services seems like such a long winded solution when many competitors offer online server support doing away entirely with the need for a server to maintain and support. Your a property agent not a Computer administrator!

At this point I have to admit I fibbed slightly when i said its your own server. You may pay for the box, you may pay for the licences, it may be in your office but its very much not yours as CFP have kindly taken away any administrative access to your piece of equipment. So thats a £1500 piece of kit which is there for only one purpose and without paying CFP more you cannot install or do anything with it.

Now … if you think to yourself why dont I take my server back and request full access you should think twice. Before you get your system they kindly wipe out all the user accounts previously on the system and without warning shut down access to winman remotely and locally.

This leads me to their technical support as all of this whether, apparently, self inflicted above or just basic maintenance happens during your standard working time 9-5 monday to friday.

THATS RIGHT they work the same times as you do so if anything needs to be done expect to be kicked out of your shiny … ummm grey piece of software because they have stuff to do!

In summary I must point out that this software does its job, when its working. Which is alot of the time in fairness. However in comparison to far cheaper and less intrusive software available it just cant compete in its current format.

For more commentary on Lettings management software there has been a good exchange already on linkedin here – http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Im-keen-buy-very-best-4065381.S.112281791