Bloomfire - Review 2022 - Stewart Fortalwyneho

Heed mapping software solution Bloomfire (which begins at $ix per user per month, when paid annually) emphasizes capturing institutional knowledge and presenting it to an system's newest members. This is useful whether it's implemented for internal purposes or for a client support or sales system. Bloomfire's customers include Domino's, the Livestrong Foundation, Whole Foods Market, Metagenics, Elixiter, Dun & Bradstreet, and Genband. Bloomfire is sold per user. Costs are $ix and $17 for the Bones and Plus tiers, respectively. Special pricing is available for enterprise customers with 1,000 or more users and besides for on-premises installations. At that place is likewise a demonstration subscription. And, every bit you lot'll read, though it has many strengths, Bloomfire didn't come out on top as competitor Expert Software Applications Mindomo won our Editors' Choice award in this mind mapping software solution review roundup.

Setting Up

Bloomfire subscribers, as with the like Forepart & Master Honey service, tin complete their biographical information such as proper noun, department, expertise, interests, and fourth dimension zone—or only import your data from LinkedIn. (A similar choice to integrate with Google Apps led to an mistake message from Google but that's probably not Bloomfire's fault.) There is integration to post into Salesforce.com'due south Churr product plus a variety of Facebook/Twitter-like notification options. You can create multiple users simultaneously past entering a list of email addresses or copying/pasting from a spreadsheet.

A challenge with social mind mapping software may exist getting your employees to actually employ information technology. Bloomfire addresses this with a gamification approach. Users can get Aces (for content with many likes and shares), Bookworms (for users who often like or share others' content), or Producers (for those who are prolific posters of content, questions, and answers). It is a similar incentive to achieving mayorship of your favorite locations on Foursquare.

To guess users' production, at that place are pie charts that display rankings of top users in all categories and related data. Data tin can exist sorted in 7-, 30-, 60-, and ninety-day increments. A reporting feature visually clarifies which content most successfully enables collaboration and which is most-viewed. It's interesting to find that the most useful content and nearly viewed content is not always the same. Administrators can also run into a view showing who answered a question, how long it took, the degree of an answer's helpfulness, and whether the reply was officially accepted.

Interface and Usability

There are three chief elements to the Bloomfire user interface (UI). A main carte du jour with highlighted content stretches across the top. Filters such equally Content Type, Groups, Categories, Tags, and Contributors are all in a left-hand side navigation menu. The actual knowledge base is in the centre/right. It feels similar to browsing an e-commerce website—company officials said they had a mixture of Amazon.com and Facebook in mind. As such, each slice of content shows an image, affiche's proper name, appointment, headline, number of views, number of comments, and number of "high fives" which is Bloomfire-speak for likes. Content is sorted by default into a filigree, but there is also a list option. Users tin can also sort past what's bookmarked, popular, or contempo.

Bloomfire has some interesting options for posting new content. Users become a WordPress-like UI where you lot can change the formatting, save drafts, or produce content in direct HTML. You can record content straight from a web photographic camera, including for replies; schedule posts to announced later; review a post'south history; and publish in a series, which is a way to automatically group your posts based on content similarities. Using a serial would be helpful for posts representing a department or a project, rather than one person'due south contained content. Yet another option is to publish a formal question. Titles for questions are limited to 255 characters, but there doesn't appear to be any limit for the optional clarification field.

There is an option called publish quietly for posting without having everyone receive a notification. There'south no formal option to publish loudly—a user asked on the Bloomfire community website and was presented with a tolerable work-around. Boosted features that stand out in Bloomfire are a trouble ticket creation organisation and all-encompassing resources such equally tutorials and white papers. Other products offer similar resources but to lesser extents.

I tried the accompanying Android awarding and found it very well designed. It opens with a quick video tutorial showing, for example, how to take action on someone'due south mail: You merely long-press, agree your finger down, options popular up, slide your fingertip to the desired action, and permit go. Information technology is easy to exercise. There is access to all of the same features equally in the primary desktop web UI. Of course, at that place's also an iOS equivalent.

Bloomfire officials said they're developing further customization tools, integration with RSS and Twitter feeds, and features that let you send specific content to outsiders who might not be system users. These features are planned for release in the next few months.

Exterior of the service itself, the most unique characteristic is the Bloomfire community website. This is a public installation that serves in many means equally Bloomfire's public relations (PR), with posts about new customers and social learning. But generally it is mostly where experts mail service insider tips and tricks near making the most of the production. Scan or search hither past typing in your question and liking, commenting, or sharing the results. It is easy to imagine how this type of installation could exist useful for nearly whatever midsize or big arrangement, especially one with a distributed workforce.

Decision

Of the products in this mind mapping review roundup, Bloomfire, Inc.'s namesake production is well-nigh similar to the service by Front & Primary Dearest. However, Bloomfire has several more options than Front & Main Honey, nonetheless is still like shooting fish in a barrel to apply. Therefore, information technology would exist difficult to rationalize ownership the Front & Main Honey service unless depression price is the utmost concern. Bloomfire gives you lot a lot more bang for the buck.