Daylite for Mac Reviews

Pros

When I realized my peace, sanity, and time were worth protecting and was fed up with complaining to my wife about a piece of garbage software I was currently using, I did not have a solution to replace it with. I had no knowledge about Marketcircle's Daylite. It wasn't until I threw the gauntlet down that there had to be something for the Mac that was serious for running my small business did I discover my new-found love.

I have scars from using other programs. That’s how bloody it got, how costly. But for a precious fraction of the cost with Daylite, I have peace like a river flowing out of my personal and professional commitments. I am in control. Thank you, Marketcircle!

This year marks my 11th anniversary with my new love, Daylite. She has been so good to me. She is flexible, customizable, expandable, able to take on new tasks and projects without fuss. It's been a peaceful 11 years since our new relationship began, and God forbid that I would do anything intentionally to harm that relationship.

It wasn't long after being introduced to Daylite that her hidden capabilities came into view. The more time I spent with her, the more I became grateful for her creator. "You mean this company fosters feedback from the experience I am having with their prize creation? You mean I can have a hand in the engineering enhancements beyond what she is doing for me today? This is phenomenal!”

Cons

When I select an object and create "New Appointment" from that object, the title field for the Appointment should automatically be populated.

Phone support, when needed, would upgrade Marketcircle on par with companies of excellence like Apple, Bluehost, and Cannon. There's always room for improvement in service to the customer.

Pros

It is relatively intuitive and easy to use. Also good for people with a mobile office set-up as it interacts well between iPhone, iPad and MacBook. Customer support is good, albeit only via email and chat.

Cons

It has some limitations and inflexibilities that sometimes frustrate me, or force me to use "old-fashioned" work-arounds, but I must also say that a number of these have been corrected over the years.

Pros

It has two essential components to track new business Opportunities and management/logistics for Projects which is what attracted me initially.

Cons

It is riddled with bugs in the code and inconsistencies in it’s severely outdated UI. The User Experience overall has been designed by engineers, with little regard for implementation of modern OSX conventions. If I had to distill it down to one major issue: TOO MANY CLICKS to perform simple tasks. All the functionality I’d want is there...somewhere. But it takes MANY MANY screens and clicks to perform simple everyday tasks, and ends up taking me MUCH longer than it should to input data. Also, the companion iOS apps for iPhone and iPad are severely hobbled, and there is NO web interface whatsoever. If you run it on a desktop computer (ie: in an office, desk bound environment) you’re fine. If you have ANY need to be a mobile user, you’re mostly out of luck. As an example, the iOS version will not allow file attachments when composing new email. That’s one of a loooong list of shortcomings I’ve logged since using this since 2014. The truth is, as soon as something more modern and functional comes along I’ll gladly migrate my business over to speed up my workflow. The Report engine is an absolute horror-show. Just try an build a custom report without pulling your hair out and giving up.

Pros

Pretty intuitive with a short learning curve

Cons

Terminology is different to ours so we changed

Pros

I love that it works seamlessly with all my Apple technology. I don't have to log into anything special or remember to mark anything and yet all my important communications are logged automatically whether I'm communicating via mail or my iphone. I can add notes, add a picture of handwritten notes to contact records, easily schedule followup, and nurture series to contacts. People always remark how organized I am and that I never seem lose track of things, and that's due in part to how easy Daylite makes it easy to store info, schedule followup, and manage open projects.

Cons

It still needs some work to be robust in pipeline management, but that's balanced out by the fact that all my information is easily accessed.

Alternatives Considered

Pipedrive

Reasons for Switching to Daylite for Mac

The integration with my apple tech and not needing to log into a web based service.

Pros

Daylite is user friendly with many customizable functions which suit our business well.
The task system keeps us on track and nothing gets lost in the shuffle. We also are utilizing the activity sets to create systems and projects for workflow.
Daylite will enable a new untrained employee to enter into our business and take care of our clients easily Some much information is captured and stored in a sensible manner, it creates a continuum of customer service.

Cons

At times, there are too many reminder boxes popping up on screen.

It would be beneficial if we could like directly to the companies with who we do business, rather than logging on another screen.

Alternatives Considered

UKG Ready

Reasons for Switching to Daylite for Mac

Ease of use and familiarity. Time invested in learning the functionality.

Pros

The customer support really treats this like a software that is integral to your business.

Cons

I think they could really benefit from exploring a Facebook integration to keep track of people I interact with on Facebook without a lengthy contact creation process for each person.

Alternatives Considered

Zoho CRM

Reasons for Switching to Daylite for Mac

Because it seemed cleaner and more well thought out, especially on Mac.

Pros

Simplicity and clarity, We like this app

Cons

Insufficient synchronization between calendar and tasks Mac and calendars and tasks Daylite. When you drag a job and change the status of your Daylite calendar after synchronizing with your Mac calendar, the change made in Daylite reverts back.

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Reasons for Switching to Daylite for Mac

Regular updates, reliability, possibility to work off-line,

Pros

It lives on the Mac desktop, like a "real" business application; not on a browser where it is too easy to get distracted. Awesome. It works on Mac. Excellent.

It takes some forethought to get it set up, but once set up it is flexible enough to handle unique needs. I initially loved that. Activity Sets automatically create Meetings and Tasks based on date (but there are huge problems, noted below).

Daylite does an excellent job of tracking individual events for each Person.

Cons

While Activity Sets do a good job of creating a series of upcoming Meetings and Tasks, Daylite has no idea that these "events" must exist in series. A meeting is a meeting is a meeting and a Task is a Task is a Task. This makes reporting next to impossible... Daylite cannot generate a report of how many People made it to one Meeting, but not to the next Meeting. It cannot tell me how many Phone Calls (each entered as a separate Task), for example, were made to a Lead before they came in for that first meeting.

Daylite uses Categories to keep track of People. A Person might begin with a category of 'Lead', then change to a category of 'Client', then have category 'Completed'. (We actually had 5 primary categories, each with subcategories to help us understand each client) The problem is that there is no history. Reporting, again, is nearly impossible: Daylite can give raw counts: How many People were added in the last 7 days? How many Leads do we now have? Etc. But these reports are a snapshot of current data. Once a Person moves to the next Category, I can no longer get an accurate report of: How many new leads were added last week? What is our conversion ratio? How long did they exist as Leads?

The Report Module is very limited. Custom Reporting is available but requires a 3rd party programmer.

Piplelines proved too clunky.

Pros

I work with professional services firms, such as financial, law, and accounting firms, and also practice law. I use Daylite for everything! The email assistant makes it super easy to file emails. More than just emails, though, is the ability to see a history of all communications. I also keep track of clients using Projects and love the flexibility of the platform. I looked at a lot of CRMs and have been "sold" on Daylite since I started using it. Also, very good support help and excellent video tutorials.

Cons

Because it is very robust, it can at first appear intimidating. But the setup is so logical that it quickly becomes easy to use. And it is very customizable, especially useful when using Smart Lists. I'd like to see better reporting features, but beyond that, it's comprehensive.

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Reasons for Choosing Daylite for Mac

Ease of use and reliability. Outlook through Office 360 had so many password and access issues that I couldn't stand it.

Reasons for Switching to Daylite for Mac

Apple integration and ease of use

Pros

Almost infinitely customisable fields, keywords etc. for fast data search and smart lists.
A CRM database, with the added functions of project management and data forms.
Automatic copying of e-mails to companies and people​.
Ability to telephone from the app.
Ability to create templates and forms.
Linking of people, companies, tasks, correspondence​ and files such as receipts to a project, for example.
Not enough time to list all its amazing features!

Cons

Daylite is aimed at the corporate market. The switch to subscription service will sooner or later make it unaffordable for me as a retiree using Daylite for non-commercial personal and community projects. Marketcircle really should offer​ a lower cost version for personal use.
Because Daylite is so highly customisable, you need to have a very clear idea of what data you need and how you will use it before starting. However, once you have it set-up to your liking it is intuitive and simple with the aid of templates and forms etc.

Pros

I love that I can use project management, task management, contact management and scheduling all in one. I also love the linking capabilities and its interface with my emails. I can go through email and assign every email to a project, task and determine a date to accomplish the task. I use the pipelines and activity sets to get better and better at my workflows. The longer I use and develop daylite to fit my work, the better I get at my job and my ability to replicate successful projects.

Cons

The downsides occurred in the beginning when I had to learn the platform and spend time setting it up. It took a while and several tries before it caught on. Once I learned it and a lot of the nuances, I got to a point where I am afraid I could not live with out it. I am sure there are features I don't use or know about, so I appreciate that Daylite support is proactive about training with the informative videos and support outreach. There have been some glitches here and there, but the customer support team has always helped work through those and get things on track.

Pros

After a highly successful career in corporate IT, I completely switched gears and started a real estate business in 2007. Familiar with CRM for large corporate accounts, I wanted that same functionality in an affordable Mac-based small business solution. Thirteen years later, I am still a huge fan of Daylite. In addition to meeting those initial requirements, Daylite even included templates for real estate users. But better yet, I could, and still can, completely customize how I use the system. It has never failed me. The iOS additions are incredibly useful. And, as a sceptic of cloud-based solutions for security and client-confidentiality reasons, I was thrilled to see how Marketcircle handled their approach when moving to a subscription service. I have no concerns about data security issues and it makes syncing that much more seamless.

Oh, and the integration with Mail is brilliant and keeps getting better. Really, this may seem obvious to some, but when you're legally required to maintain an audit trail of real estate transaction histories, what could be more efficient than a tool that captures mail, stores documents, allows me to create my own workflows, and then creates a report at the end that simply gets added to the transaction record?

It's truly the best investment I've made in my business.

Cons

In the past there were some hiccups with adding attachments into the database, but this was quickly resolved.

Pros

I can capture client data and then track sales progress, email and other communications to ensure I provide the best service to my customers.

Cons

Taking the time to maximize my use of forms and other templates that could improve my productivity

Pros

Best fetaures:

- Apple Mail Integration
- Cloud Service / App syncing
- The possibility to link everything with everything

Daylite is a great program to collect documents, correspondence and all information about daily office stuff.

The timeline helps me a lot to organice my self and supports me a lot to find old documents and correspondence.
The biggest benefit is the App to access the informations from everywhere.

The worklist is a big feature for my daily task management and helps me to not forget important stuff.

Cons

The update mentality is a shame. No worries, but in my feeling Marketcirle is very slow in development.

The calendar is a mess. Without the integration in Apple calendar the Daylite calendar would not usable for me.

The task and project management is okay but had lots off oppertunitys to become better. Tools like Thinks or Omnifocus are much better than Daylite.

The document management could be either more functional and should more functions provide to organice.

The iPhone / iPad app stands still in development. You should integrate more functions from the desktop version for example like Groups.

The design from all Applications are very old school and need a refresh.

Pros

I work on a team, coordinating transactions for 4 brokers as well as assisting with various projects ranging from social media content creation to client events. Daylite offers one place to hold details and to track tasks. Transactions are Opportunities and everything else is a Project. Attaching emails is easy and super useful. Contacts we use over and over again only have to be entered once. No one on my team has to keep a million details in their head so it helps us all stay on the same page. Now that we have switched to the cloud its faster, more reliable, and I've been able to install it at home so working remotely is seamless.

Cons

Daylite mail assistant for iphone/ipad has been needed for years. Also really wish I could copy and paste multiple fields from people or company records.

Pros

This software is like an assistant to me. Once out of my head, I know the information will come back at the right time reminding me what I have to do.

Cons

The app has a lot if limitation. The mail assistant is great, but complicated for answers on the go via the Iphone.

Pros

It integrates seamlessly with Mac. It was the best software specifically designed for Mac users. Since our company runs 100% of Mac, it made sense to go with Daylite.

Cons

Software updates and functionality are lacking. I have requested numerous times for them to fix the bug with recurring calendar invites. They continue to say it is not a priority and will not be fixing. I can't think of any CRM/calendar, etc software that does not support recurring calendar invites. That is a huge issue with this product.

Alternatives Considered

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Reasons for Switching to Daylite for Mac

it works well with Macs

Pros

It syncs beautifully across all devices. Enables me to have all of the information and interaction with my clients and projects all in one place. The interface with Apple Mail delivers the emails into my projects and that combined with files, notes, appointments, and tasks all being attached to my clients means I am always clear on what is happening with my projects.

Cons

Hard to find anything I like least as Daylite is my go-to software. Its a small thing but it would be nice if the calendar view could be changed so that I could see more of the day on the screen at the same time i.e. it is currently in half-hour increments which can't be changed and I often work in evenings and have to remember to scroll down to see appointments in the evening. Would be good if it was customizable to change the viewing to hour increments.

Pros

Great Opportunity management. Ability to tag specific emails through the Mail Assistant to people, companies and opportunities is one of the greatest strengths
Easy to create sales processes
Find anything instantly with database wide searching.
Easy to integrate with supported 3rd party applications such as bulk mailers

Cons

Single platform support - Apple Only. (Including no Web Portal Interface)

Pros

It just works and is super reliable. Never lost any information in over 17 years of daily use.

Cons

It could be integrated into the OS better but a minor issue.

Pros

As my firm grew beyond just me, I needed a solution that let me leverage my team without adding layers of complexity. Daylite become the place to turn to create workflows, manage contacts, run a calendar - and, in short, make it possible to run my business from anywhere.

Cons

As is the case with any good piece of software, there is a learning curve to using it well. Even if you implement only 10% of what it's good at, you'll be ahead of the game. Over time, you'll learn to use more and use it better and then it will be what keeps you humming along.

Pros

Daylite leverages the power of the Mac OS to allow you to manage your data using Smart Lists and incredible searchability. It integrates with Mail to automatically import communications. It is easy and intuitive to use and works offline with sync for increased speed.

Cons

Daylite has limited functionality when it comes to quoting and invoicing as well as limited integrations.

Pros

The flexibility fo use, the fact that all the information I need can be linked and found from different angles within the application. I love being able to customize the forms and the reports amongst other things. I love that I can create tasks from other applications. The customer support is very, very good. There are tons of trainings videos, articles and now also a manual, the combination of all these suits me perfectly. I also love that all is not strictly Cloud based, I often find myself in areas where I do not have access to internet and enjoy having all my information on my laptop.

Cons

I can not dictate tasks through Siri ( and I tend to have my greatest ideas while driving or picking up horse manure). The application can do way more than I can so it is taking me some time to uncover many of Daylite's jewels.

Pros

A very good set of sales and workflow management features and a solid build. We love how it integrates our calendars (for people and resources), sales funnel (including quoting), project communications, and CRM. Mail integration allows all emails to be linked to the relevant contact, company, project or opportunity in the main database, so that all team member can see project communications. we are starting to use Zaps to feed directly into the database from other applications.

Cons

Template engine is not intuitive.
Could do with greater automation in contact information capture, and the ability to link multiple email messages in Mail to the same person/project/company by selecting multiple messages in Mail (currently only possible to do this one message at a time).