iMIS

IMis is powerful in terms of its overall capabilities, but to get there it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort. Each function beyond the most basic requires a new module to be purchased or custom created. We often have difficulty figuring out the functions that are availabile to us, and often the functions that should be available haven’t been “turned on.”  It takes a lot of investment in training for personnel to use even the basic functions. Having said all that, if you are willing to make considerable time and investment, there isn’t much IMIS can’t do. 

We rely heavily on our consultants when we thought we were upgrading to a tool that would allow us to be more self-sufficient.

CRM is Not Very User-Friendly

With iMIS 20, there is now a lot of web-based functionality, but iMIS still requires users to access a desktop (or remote desktop through RDP). This makes for a disjointed experience. Because much of it is online, though, it has some pretty good member portal tools for staff to use. For example, we can use the querying tool (IQA) and the Process Automation tool in creating dynamic web pages that have alerts. Overall, however, the CMS (RiSE) does not offer a great user experience as the parts of the pages are layered in a way that seems convoluted and just not intuitive. I often have difficulty finding what I need. When I can't find what I need, I have to involve my consultants.

Reporting Requires Additional Tools and Skills

Many of the dashboards and other reports require someone who can write SQL code and/or use SSRS. I don't know if it's a data problem on our end or a feature problem within iMIS, but I spend a lot of time requesting help from consultants to be able to report my data.

Knowledge Base is Improving But Not Great

I have a difficult time referencing the iMIS knowledge base to find answers to my questions, so I often have to go to my consultant for answers. They now have video tutorials and more helpful information - IF you can find what you're looking for. The search function within the knowledge base often does not find what I need from keywords. The iMIS Users Group has many lovely and helpful people in it, but I don't ever seem to get answers specific enough for me to use in my own system, so I have to use consultants. And I use a few third-party tools that integrate directly with iMIS that are helpful, but I needed to pay a consultant to set them up.  

Robust and Customizable

I will say that iMIS 20 has a lot of out-of-the-box functionality that you can configure without the need for a consultant. For example, it has: fully functioning websites, member directory, communities, simple dashboards, and standard queries that almost anyone can configure. You might need to update for brand consistency, but you don't have to fully build anything from scratch.

We have been on the iMIS hosted platform for about 18 months and it has been horrible.  The combination of having to use a remote desktop version and web version for different items is not what we were sold on.  The reporting is so complicated that only one really well trained in-office person can do them and he still has to get consultant help from coding experts.

The accounting portion is a nightmare for that department. They had to hire a dedicated person to just try and reconcile the batching.  The expense of the system combined with the expense of having to use consultants to make it work the way it is supposed to work is extreme.  And we still have to use work arounds upon work arounds to get the results that we desire.

The events module is not very robust. The shopping cart is like it was written in the early 2000s.  Even the website management is so complex that we have to have people with html expertise to do most of the building.  In the day of wordpress / WYSIWYG, why is it so primitive.

I would not recommend this program to any group looking for a new AMS.  There are so many better options available that were written from the ground up to be used via the web.

 

 

Our organization has struggled with iMIS for a long while. I'm on the events team, so I'm most familiar with the membership and events functions, with a side of accounting. 

First, we've had many, many customer service issues related to our ecommerce shop – too many clicks to check out and too many errors in creating accounts and recovering passwords. Both ASI and the two consulting groups we've worked with have been unable to assist, and slow to respond, which has been frustrating. And when a user (read: member) can't sign in to register for an event or purchase a product, how many are just giving up? 

Second, the upgrade process is laborious and sporadic, taking months of testing from multiple staff members. Someone recently brought to my attention that if "What AMS are you using?" is followed by "Which version?", something is wrong. Everyone should be on the same version at all times, and upgrades shouldn't take forever to implement. 

Third, iMIS currently has both a desktop and browser-based platform. While they've 'encouraged' us to use the web-based version only, there are still some things it does not yet do (at least in our version, 20.2.49), such as a few accoutning functions that are critical. Two versions of the same database for our staff to use is clunky and frustrating. 

All that said, I've heard that fall of 2018 will bring all kinds of upgrades and changes that may fix some (or all?) of this. While that would be lovely, I am not holding my breath.

My Association has been using the desktop version of iMIS since the 90's.  The desktop has always worked the way that we needed it to work and was linked to Crystal Reports so it was easy to grab all of our data.  2 years ago, we moved our website and database to the shared hosting enviornment in hopes to have continuity between our database/membership information and the front end experience a user would have when they logged onto our website.  The shared server significantly limits our ability to grab data and customize anything on our site.  In order to complete any project that is not 'out of the box' we end up spending thousands of dollars with our AISP in order to make it happen.  iMIS is already a VERY spendy software to have and we are spending a smiliar amount per year to have a 3rd party make it work the way in which we need it to.  Once it functions correctly, it is great but costly.  It would be nice if the project development was included in the annual subscription.  That would make the product worth the money.  

If you are OK with the product as is, out of the box - it is great.  If you need customizations, don't go the hosted shared server route and make sure you have a significant amount of money budgeted.

We've been using imis for 13 years and have experienced many ups and downs. Customization is needed to get all the functionality and reports we require but customization for iMIS and the sql database is very expensive. Licensing for iMIS is also very expensive and it doesn't include the many hours of support you will need. After all this cost, our staff is still not satisfied with the limitations. We will not be upgrading to iMIS 20 and will be moving away from the software soon.

We started the implementation process with iMIS around April 2017, launched in late July and have been using for about eight months. This has been a great move for our organization to get out of the "silo" situation with all of our different platforms and get them integrated. Prior to iMIS we did not have a true AMS - we were using a system to track membership and some events, another unrelated system to take registration for smaller events, a separate system for email marketing, separate system for website management...you get the picture.

When we started looking at Association Management Systems, I was initially thinking we'd spend less and get something that was all-encompassing. Those AMSs exist and I think there are good ones, including several we were looking at. Where those types of systems started to falter was when we got really deep into what we wanted to do -- could we integrate with different vendors? Yes - but sometimes information could be shared one way and not the other, or there were other "no" answers to things we had envisioned happening. The key for us became the integrations with our on-site registration vendor, email marketing automation, existing LMS, and another LMS that we were working on with a partner organization. This is where it was obvious that iMIS would be a great solution for us. 

With iMIS you have to work with a separate consulting company to do your implementation and work with you on a regular basis to maintain your system and help you do new things, set up complex reports, etc. iMIS has website design templates, but you will either have to do quite a bit to set these up yourself, have your consultant do it, or pay another designer (we paid another designer to create graphics/code and our consultant implemented it to iMIS). Pretty much every little piece of functionality has to be set up by your consultant. This is good because it is set up exactly how you want it to work, but can be bad because all of the different functions don't just "work" when you initially get going or if you haven't used them before. And if your arrangement with the consultant is hourly, it could be mentally challenging to get a lot of invoices (we do ours on a yearly/retainer basis, which I think is better because our staff is not afraid to reach out and get help any time they want).

That sounds like a lot to think about, do, and pay for, however the end result is really good. You pretty much never get "no" for an answer with iMIS, it's just a matter if what you're looking to do will be quick/easy, more challenging, or your consultant might suggest a different way than you envisioned which also accomplishes your goal (we did this many times).

I recommend iMIS for any organization that has a lot going on and/or has a lot of members/attendees, particularly if you would like to integrate with other systems such as your LMS, on-site registration, you want single-sign-on, etc. This was definitely worth the investment for us. 

The reason I gave it a 4 for customer service is, with all of the customization there are times you have to wait for an answer (it has always been resolved for us, just not instantly). And I gave it a 3 for ease of use because I don't think it's reasonable that a regular association professional will be able to figure it out on their own -- you have to work with a consultant.

If your organization doesn't have much currently in place, or if you have a small organization, or if you hold smaller events, you can probably get away with one of the less expensive AMSs. However if you want integrations and have a high expectation that things will work exactly how you want them to, iMIS is a great solution. 

This is a good mid-level AMS product that has all the features you would expect from such a system.  Customization or extensibility is available with good 3rd party support and services. It is also a good choice if you want all of your products and services centrally located and work within the confides of IMIS. Implementation is generally done through a VAR and should not be attempted without professional service. Furthermore, expect to have dedicated staffing resources to support your implementation.  The VARs can do it but tends to be costly and customization and/or modification is inevitable.

What is perplexing is the lack of a fully featured web-based interface.  There is still a good portion of the product that can only be run on a unintuitive "fat client" and not all features can be managed from a web browser. This can be frustrating for users who have remote support or distributed customer service.

 

 

iMIS gets us by, fulfilling our basic needs. However as a small staff association we need an AMS that is easier to work with and does more work for us. Adding information and exporting SOME data can be simple but the ease stops here. The needs of our organization are changing as we grow and iMIS requires a lot of resources to make it as powerful as it has the potential to be. I might recommend iMIS to another organization who has a larger staff dedicated to maintaining the AMS but unsure if this is the best AMS for us at this time.

iMIS is complex system. It is nice that it is completely customizable with many capabilities however I would say the majority of customizations have to be done by the reseller. This is costly and usually takes a long time. For the parts that can be customized without the reseller there is huge learning curve for most of the staff. The upgrades have come with many great new features but it’s difficult for us to implement these on our own. Overall I give our AMS a 3 out of 5.

 

We are currently using iMIS 20. While I understand and appreciate the power behind the application and all the available functionality, we as an organization find the application to be difficult to use and maintain. In part is the cost. While the application already had a hefty price tag, when ASI modified their structure this year, it really pushed our association out the door. The other issue with the system is having to hire a database administrator to do the work that we would prefer to do in house. If we were a larger association with growth potential and could afford the development of the system, it would be a great application to have. We cannot justify the cost.

iMIS back of the house was pretty accessible and reporting dependable. With each new version there is more steep learning curve, reporting is not out of the box, IQA, RISE, communities and modules all require some dedicated time. For staff who just want to run a report it is a challenge. However, I am not sure that there is an AMS providing easy demographic reports, letters to the members, email broadcast to specified constituencies. If there is I am going to use this review system to find it.

Our organization has been using iMIS 10 since the late 1990's and have not taken advantage of any upgrades since. We are currently looking to either upgrade to iMIS 20 or switch to a totally different AMS. We are also planning to replace our current website and very much looking forward to learning more about AMS systems with a built in CMS.

Our Association uses iMIS 20 for membership record keeping, billing, product orders and reports. Although we have been using iMIS for several years, I would not rate this program as user friendly or customizable. Unfortunately, we are stuck with the system. A data transfer to a new AMS is too cost prohibitive. The reports are limited to the “design”/ “layout” and if you want something specific, you may have to create the report in “Chrystal” or “IQA” which is now called the “Continuum”. Just when you think you are starting to understand the program, iMIS is ready for the new upgrades, and changes are made. ASI/iMIS Consultants are sure to contact you when renewals are due or for upgrade sales but are virtually non-existent with customer follow up and are only available for consulting or support but it will cost you big, for sure! iMIS is very sensitive to symbols or EXACT coding as are other relational tables in SQL and if there is no one in your office that has “mastered” the coding or has a very good understanding of the report/query process in the system, then a third party (iMIS consultant) is usually needed for help. iMIS would be great if the program was designed for “every day office users” (iMIS for Dummies!) and not computer programmers/coding specialists. Again, very expensive to implement, big learning curve and any support will cost you. Better have a big budget for this one. “Sell the Dream, Service the Nightmare”. Good Luck!

We are currently using iMIS 20.2.1.235 and it has some issues and boundary controls that are out of our hands. In order to fully explore reports and obtain the data in the best fashion - I feel as if I need to know SQL or a in depth knowledge of business objects before I can find the specific table and field. We're limited to what we can do in this current version and anything we would ideally want to do unfortunately we can't do easily in our current version. Upgrading costs too much and therefore we seem to be in a perpetual rut - unable of moving forward like we need to.  

iMIS does provide a great deal of what we are looking for in our organization and we have several membership types and complexities that iMIS can handle.

Our association has been running iMIS for over a decade. I was not here for the implementation phase, but I have used the system for three years now. Bottom line: if you feel drawn to iMIS, go with iMIS 20; leave the iMIS 15 dinosaur be.

Besides the fact that it is desktop-run and not cloud-based, the interface is clunky with a distinct Windows 98 aesthetic. Customization is possible through a la carte choices of modules, but these modules--to fit our purposes--are held together with the technological equivalents of paperclips and chewing gum. Tech support has been spotty, and while our vendor has been quick to help when we're paying them for consulting services, when I ask for training videos, communication channels fall eerily silent.

Our association is considering an upgrade to iMIS 20, as upgrades are no longer supported for iMIS 15. But we're definitely considering other solutions, as well.

Looks like ASI is making strides in their newest release. However, there are still some incredibly terrible performance issues with larger data sets.

We are using Imis 15 and have been trying to determine whether or not to upgrade to 20 or jump ship and try a new product. I have worked with Imis 15 for a year and half and learned it is not a very intuitive product. It can take hours to figure out one little piece and then to pull historical data out of the system - well you are out of luck with our version and set up. We did a business process review and learned that most of the items we would need are customizations. Our website is basically the beta product for Rise and is horrible. Our members won't even visit the website. We have been a loyal user since the early 90's, but I am thinking it is time to go elsewhere. We are basically using this as an electronic rolodex and nothing more. Our event history is lost once the event is closed, so unless we dig into our files we don't have a way of pulling data regarding our events.

The complexity of the table structure and that the company (ASI) is in the middle of a transition from a Windows server based application to a web based application makes for some frustrating functionality. It is a very complex software that requires a vast amount of knowledge that many associations simply don't have in house. The entire design forces an extreme degree of reliance on the iMIS "resellers" to do a lot of back end work and heavy lifting.

iMIS is a great system, but the structure of how to keep it operational not so much. We are a small association and in order to use the AMS we have to go through a reseller who charges us for phone calls/emails and support. We have a few additional add-ons to accomplish what we need and they are two other resellers of our AMS so they don't always place nice together.

Our users have been very happy with the functionality of the RiSE platform in version 20.2. They find the web version easier to adapt to over the desktop version. We upgraded to 20.2 in March 2017. Since this was an upgrade, implementation went very well. We are still in the process of transitioning users to the web version. Our concern is not being able to be in full high-availability mode. We have manual process in place to switch servers (application & SQL) if needed. We understand true high-availability will be available soon.