The OpenWater Blog

Blog
Leadership
application management software

5 Signs that It’s Time to Switch Application Management Software

Published December 12, 2019 in Leadership

The good news is that you’ve got application management software (also sometimes called a “submission management system”).  Many organizations still rely upon a haystack of email attachments in a flooded inbox for collecting submissions—a tendency that’s thankfully on the decline.

Nonetheless, problems with legacy systems or inadequate solutions could push you to switch to a new online application management software.  Here are the top 5 signs that it’s time to make the switch:

1. Support Has Recently Ended (It’s a Legacy System)

Outdated software poses huge, costly security risks when it is phased out of active support by the original vendor.  Gaps in data security will inevitably form as new viruses and cyber-threats emerge, but no one is working on a patch to protect your system.  Unless you’re spending a ton of time doing it yourself—which is another sign that it’s time to move on.

2. You’ve Got a Submission Scenario It Can’t Handle

Many of today’s application management software platforms are application-specific.  In other words, they won’t work for all application and submission management use cases.  

Perhaps you started with a need for a system that could run a scholarship.  And the one you selected worked great! Later, when you checked to see if your system could also handle grant applications or abstract collection, you were sadly disappointed that it wasn’t set up for these contexts.

A robust application management software is flexible, customizable, and widely applicable for all sorts of scenarios and use cases, such as:

  • Awards
  • Grants
  • Fellowships
  • Job Applications
  • Scholarships
  • Prizes
  • Ballots
  • Abstracts
  • Call for Papers
  • Competitions
  • Event Registration

There’s no sense in bringing in new software for every context.  Switch to a comprehensive application management software that’s optimized for all of them.  We put continuous effort into expanding the list of use cases for OpenWater so that it will be able to handle any program your organization might dream up.

3. There’s No Review/Judging Module

Collecting applications or submissions is really only half of the battle.  For many events or programs, these submissions will need to be reviewed, judged, graded, ranked, and possibly passed through several rounds before winners or acceptances are announced.

It shouldn’t take two separate products in your software stack to handle the collection and review process.  Switch to a platform that’s built to handle the whole program, end-to-end. Ideally, it would even have session creation and scheduling functions for managing a conference agenda after abstracts are reviewed.

4. You’re Missing Critical Integrations

In today’s day and age, software sinks or swims by its suite of integrations with both mainstream and custom solutions.  Integrations are a real balancing act. Organizations often need software for marketing, accounting, help desk tickets, member databasing, payment collection, and much more.  If those platforms can’t talk to one another, you’ve got a lot of manual data migration on your hands as you move through your workflow.  

Application management software can streamline that workflow by offering out-of-the-box integrations for all of the other software you could need. Bi-directional synchronization, single-sign-on (SSO), information pre-population, and other API functions will save you a ton of time.  OpenWater’s list of integrations is always growing, and even includes custom integrations for troublesome in-house legacy databases.

5. It’s On-Premise Software

In 2018, IDG forecasted that 95% of all organizations would rely on SaaS applications within 18 months. The reasons for this are obvious.  Cloud-based SaaS gets rid of problems like:

  • Time-consuming local installation and patching
  • Costly cyclical upgrades
  • In-house system maintenance
  • Downtime due to local system failures/outages

If you haven’t yet, it’s time to hop aboard the worldwide preference for cloud computing solutions.  There’s simply too much time, money, and stress to be saved by abandoning the obsolete on-premise model.

David Lincoln

How to Break Up With Customized Software Solutions

4 Benefits of Replacing an Outdated Application Management System