Tuesday, July 21, 2015

SEMYOU Cloud SaaS - The Office of the Future is Right Here

Summary

SEMYOUCloud SaaS - All-in-one enterprise apps for your business.
Customer SegmentFor business of any size - small, medium and large - Communicate, Collaborate & Manage your office in the cloud. 
UISlick, Responsive. Admin module is not responsive.
UXOverall intuitive. Needs a slight improvement at a few places.
Technology StackMicrosoft
Business ModelFreemium SaaS. [Free 30 days Trial].
USPAll-in-one enterprise grade apps.
SupportQuick and meaningful
No. of Apps30+
TaglineThe cloud office of the future
LimitationsSee Details Section.
ConclusionRecommended

What is SEMYOU 


Last week I came across a suite of cloud services from SEMYOU. It offers a wide range of apps that a business requires to function smoothly on a daily basis. Gone are the days when you were required to manage & maintain a few dozens of IT applications in-house under an IT department which often became white elephant. We are already into an era of off-the-shelf services which can be configured easily by the end users based on their requirement.

All the SEMYOU services are cloud based SaaS which apparently mean that you get all the inherent benefits of a cloud computing service.


What are the Benefits of SEMYOU?

A few of the many benefits:


  1. Reduced Cost - CapEx Free, Pay as You Go.
  2. Less worries - No long-term contract.
  3. Increased Focus on Your Core Business.
  4. You get more than a dozen of apps to choose from for your business and all-in-one central location. 
  5. Increased Availability and Mobility.
  6. Your location doesn't matter. It's always available on your desktop, mobile and tablet.
  7. Increased Performance and Reliability.
  8. It is green.

Are there any Prerequisites to Use SEMYOU?

Internet connectivity, a browser and a few configurations like adding your basic records - users, projects, holiday list etc. and you're ready to go. No extra infrastructure/hardware is required as there's no installation hassle!

Getting Started 

  1. Signup for SemYou Cloud Office. [Credit card NOT required]
  2. Verify your email Id.
  3. The email Id used for the signup acts as an Admin.
  4. Log on to Admin module from the link received in your mail.
  5. Add users.
  6. As per your requirement, choose the right set of apps for a FREE trial from APP-STORE.
  7. Assign users to apps along with their appropriate privileges.
  8. Are the apps right-fit for your business requirement?
  9. If the answer to the above question is YES - go for an upgrade.

How Secure is the SEMYOU Cloud Office?

SemYou applies best in class industry practices to secure your privacy and data in the cloud. Apart from applying advance encryption standards & access controls, SemYou has implemented built-in security practices in core of every app to secure data at rest and data in motion.

SemYou's data center currently resides in Europe and operates under European Union Law.

What I Liked Most?

As far as I know there are very few services where you get more than 30 apps at one place!

Also, overall the UI/UX is intuitive and the trial run went smoothly without reading any of the documentation! But I think, a user who has no prior experience of using these kind of apps may require a little hand holding for a couple of hours before she understands the nitty-gritty of the apps.


Disclaimer - I am a full-time software developer and have also reviewed many apps in the past. My intuition may differ from an average user.


Available Apps - App Store



Glimpses of My Trial Run 

I was satisfied with my trial run results for SEMYOU apps. I tested the following apps:

  • sem.Drive
  • sem.AutoReminder
  • sem.WorldClock
  • sem.IssueTracker
  • sem.Kanban
  • sem.Mindmap

Here's a few of the screen shot for your reference. [Click the respective image for a larger view]

sem.Drive 


sem.Drive


sem.AutoReminder


sem.AutoReminder


sem.WorldClock


sem.WorldClock

sem.IssueTracker

sem.IssueTracker


Limitations

There are a few limitations I noticed while I was trying the cloud office. A few of the Administration Module's forms were not compatible with the latest Chrome, Firefox & IE. 

In sem.AutoReminder it is practically expected that reminders are also delivered via SMS apart from the current eMail delivery.

Looks like a few of the apps are still under construction, example semDB.

A few places require explicit alerts, information as it might help a new user.

Bottom-line

Signup, pick your apps and go for a trial run. Recommended.

Writer's Note: "This post was sponsored but the views are unbiased and are correct to the best of my knowledge".