The right case management system can make or break an investigative team’s ability to handle complex cases, track vital information, and collaborate seamlessly. As agencies grow and streamline a more robust solution is often required. When choosing a case management system, major concerns include configurability, ease-of-use, security, and price.
To better understand how CMTS compares to Salesforce, our team spoke to one of our clients who has utilized both Salesforce and CMTS for their agency’s case management system. We believe their experience could provide you with valuable insight and save your agency time and resources. To maintain their organization’s anonymity, we will refer to our client as “Agency X.”
From the outset, Agency X began their case management journey with Microsoft Access, the big brother to Excel. It was a reasonable solution for a small operation, but due to a new law change, they forecasted a drastic uptick in cases which meant they needed a scalable and efficient solution. Naturally, they went with the ubiquitous option – Salesforce.
In This Article
Configurability
Ease-OF-Use
Security
Price
The Winner
FAQs
Configurability
Agency X’s Experience With Salesforce
Salesforce has great configurability, which is why so many organizations turn to it. With the increased caseload drawing closer, Agency X needed a product set up for investigations and ready to go that would support improved processes. Rather than spending time sifting through the countless Salesforce resources, Agency X hired a consultant to do the configuration.
The Agency Director and investigative team didn’t have a background in investigations, which was manageable when the scale of operations was smaller. As the caseload scaled, they wanted to ensure that no cases slipped through the cracks, so they also brought in a Senior Advisor who had expertise and experience with investigations and IT. The advisor determined that the existing system was not adequate, and translating it into the new salesforce database, would not be sufficient to handle the increased caseload.
Agency X’s Experience With CMTS
Even with a consultant actively configuring the system, it was extremely difficult for management to keep tabs on investigations. They had some investigation data in Salesforce, some in the share drive, and some in the data warehouse. Data was all over the place which caused a number of issues. Cases in this industry should close out in 30-60 days, but some cases were taking over 4 times as long. Rather than start over and reconfigure Salesforce, they wanted a product set up for investigations and ready to go that would support improved processes which the Senior Advisor was establishing.
CMTS is not as configurable as Salesforce. If you want to manage the inventory at a warehouse, CMTS is not the solution for you. On the other hand, for investigations, CMTS is the ideal solution. As a Commercial Off-The-Shelf product, it is ready to go with minimal configuration. The workflow will be configured to your agency’s processes including:
– Create custom labels and entry fields to meet your specific needs
– Personalize homepage dashboards uniquely for each user
– Add roles and permissions to the system at any time to grant appropriate data access
– Use one of thirty predefined reports or create ad hoc reports as needed in multiple formats
– Schedule reports to be automatically emailed according to your workflow
– Create charts and graphs with case information to better analyze data
– Set time-based and event-based notifications according to your specific case timeline
Ease-Of-Use
Ease-of-use is unfortunately inversely related to configurability. The more configurable a system, the more difficult to use. Given that salesforce is more configurable than CMTS, setting up your case tracking system is a significantly bigger undertaking. This is why Agency X reasonably hired a consultant to configure the platform for their workflow. A big part of this is that “there was no salesforce support” according to Agency X’s Senior Advisor. Yes, if you reach out Salesforce support, your specific questions are often will have answers, but often they just point you to their seemingly-bottomless pool of resources.
Since CMTS comes ready to use with only simple syntax and workflow modifications needed, there isn’t a more streamlined product for investigative teams. CMTS is actively updated, often due to client feedback meaning as time passes, it is a progressively better solution for investigations. A few advantages of going with an industry-specific solution include:
– Increase efficiency with a workflow configured to your processes and an easy-to-use design.
– Reduce reporting time with ad-hoc and predefined reports exported in minutes.
– View comprehensive case metrics easily with personalized dashboards and smart searching.
– Manage team workflow using notifications triggered by case activities of your choice.
– End unnecessary delays with idle-case tracking and other time-based notifications.
– Boost complaint and tip submission with our online intake service.
– Meet specific team needs with configurable labels and entry fields.
– Rest easy knowing our system is successfully used by hundreds of investigators.
– Be confident that your data is secure using onsite or cloud hosting on AWS.
– Maintain internal firewalls using role-based permissions or sensitive case flags.
– Ramp up quickly – onboard training typically takes a day at most.
Security
Agency X initially chose Salesforce because it was already in their inventory of products. While security implications could be mitigated, by default there are 2 major concerns when choosing Salesforce. Salesforce would likely be managed by an agency’s IT team along with all the other software and hardware used within the agency. In this case, an internal IT team would have admin access to all technology which is a major confidentiality concern for investigative agencies. If someone on the IT team were the subject of an investigation, they would be able to access case data that is stored within Salesforce. This issue could be mitigated, but it would require additional resources to ensure investigation data is kept in an isolated environment.
By design, Salesforce is great at moving information around. It’s great for integrating with other software to share information with ease, which is great for many uses, but not what you need for an investigative team. In contrast, CMTS is purpose-built for security. Role-based permissions and sensitive case flags maintain necessary firewalls. Also, the CMTS team undergoes rigorous compliance audits annually to maintain FedRamp®, StateRamp, and SOC 2 accreditations.
Price
Salesforce’s flexible pricing model seems attractive initially, but has hidden costs that add up. Salesforce uses a pay-as-you-go model through various add-ons such as Government Cloud for FedRamp compliant data storage. While this allows you to pay only for what you need, costs can spiral out of control quickly which Agency X experienced. They also had to hire a Salesforce consultant to set up the complex system and consultants can easily cost over $80/hour. Salesforce pricing overall is oriented toward large enterprises with complex needs. Mid-size teams often end up overpaying.
In contrast, CMTS offers a simple and affordable pricing model tailored to investigative teams. No expensive consultants are needed for setup and customization. Pricing is transparent with no complex add-ons or hidden fees. Costs scale gradually based on number of users, not usage. In summary, Salesforce’s opaque pricing hides true costs, while CMTS pricing provides value optimized for investigative teams.
The Winner
While Salesforce offers great configurability, it comes at the cost of complexity and security concerns. For investigative teams, CMTS provides an out-of-the-box solution designed specifically for case management with easy onboarding and competitive transparent pricing. Teams looking for an effective case management system should strongly consider choosing CMTS over Salesforce. CMTS allows teams to ramp up quickly and focus on investigations rather than configuring and learning a complex system. For case management tailored to the needs of investigators, CMTS is the clear solution.
Your Questions Answered
How configurable is Salesforce for case management needs?
Salesforce is highly customizable but requires extensive configuration and customization to work smoothly for investigative case management workflows. This typically requires hiring expensive consultants.
How easy to use is Salesforce for investigative teams?
The complexity of configuring Salesforce leads to significant usability challenges for investigative teams. There is a steep learning curve even with expert configuration.
What are the hidden costs with Salesforce pricing?
Salesforce pricing has opaque add-on fees, consulting expenses, and costs oriented toward large enterprises that can be prohibitively expensive for mid-size investigative teams.
What kind of ongoing support comes with Salesforce?
Salesforce provides extensive self-service resources and documentation but lacks personalized support and training for individual teams’ needs.
How configurable is CMTS for case management?
CMTS provides out-of-the-box configuration specifically designed for investigative workflows including customizable fields, roles, notifications, reporting, and more.
How easy to use is CMTS for investigative teams?
CMTS is designed for ease of use in investigation case management, with streamlined workflows tailored to investigators. Users typically train on CMTS in just 1 day.
How does CMTS pricing compare to Salesforce?
CMTS pricing is transparent and optimized for mid-size investigative teams, with no hidden fees or add-ons. It is a cost-effective solution compared to Salesforce.
What kind of support comes with CMTS?
CMTS offers responsive customer support and continually evolves the product based on direct user feedback from investigative teams.
