Take Root blossoms with Alpha Software Take Root

“I opened the package to take a peek at what it does, and the next thing I knew, a couple of hours had passed, and I was done building the system I needed.”

Liss Hart-Haviv, Executive Director,
Take Root

Customer Situation

Take Root was struggling to manage hundreds of contacts and cases annually. Everything was documented on paper, in handwritten files, or in disjointed electronic files. Searching data, cases, and contacts was tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone, and it took quite a bit of time to keep case files organized. Sharing information between consultants was painful, as most telecommuted. Documents often had to be scanned and e-mailed, faxed, or copied and snail mailed. Take Root needed a way to computerize all its information about its membership of former abducted children; case data on families in the process of recovery; and contacts from law enforcement, lawyers, judges, mental health professionals, and media. Whatever system they built or bought had to be easy to use, operate over the Web, and centralize and correlate the data. It also had to securely search and share the data among consultants. Lastly, the system had to fit Take Root’s modest budget.

Partner Solution

Take Root executive director Liss Hart-Haviv found Alpha Five through TechSoup, a program for non-profits that provides commercial software at cut rates. In just one eight-hour work day, using Alpha Five, Hart-Haviv built a fully functional relational database that could store, organize, and sort membership, contact, and case data. Her new application could operate on a local network or over the Web, and provided facilities for secure login and access. She set about populating the database with demographic data, membership profiles, case records, and contact information.

Benefits

Alpha Five transformed Take Root’s information management and, in the process, made the organization much more agile and effective. Hart-Haviv was shocked at how easy it was for her to design and build a complex Web database application that, in the end, met every requirement the organization established for it. Take Root saved the time and cost of hiring a programmer or buying a canned solution. The organization did not have to invest in employee training and IT staffing, because the resulting database solution is easy enough for novices to use. Alpha Five’s genies helped Hart-Haviv express complex application logic to automate all of Take Root’s business processes, eliminating the need to use paper forms and centralizing the agency’s data into one database. Consultants who telecommute can access the application and data over the Web, giving them more time to focus on helping formerly abducted children, instead of filling out forms and pushing paper around. And because the database is Web-based, the organization’s services are now available around the clock, around the globe.

For More Information

Alpha Software, Inc.
781-229-4500
www.AlphaSoftware.com

Take Root
1-800-ROOT-ORG
www.TakeRoot.org