netFORUM Pro Reviews & Product Details

Nothing at this time. There has been nothing but problems and broken promises. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Does not work well in most modern browsers, several features are incomplete, do not work as expected or are lacking functions you would expect from a class leader today. The product is being sunsetted and all users are to be removed from the platform by June 2024. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

When NetForum gets removed from a company I'm working with. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I've run into this train wreck of a software application at a number of different associations. I just wanted to briefly touch on the experience as a developer, and just warn non-technical people from using this garbage.

This tool was clearly authored somewhere in the middle 2000s. It uses XML-based SOAP API endpoints to facilitate authentication, which will double or triple your development costs because it is so old and non-conforming to the modern web. Given its age and lack of openness, I will guarantee there are security holes you could drive a truck through in this application.

The documentation a developer would need to do these integrations is not available freely - they charge for it and it's hidden. It's grossly outdated and incomplete when you actually see what's going on. Further, the examples they provide are broken and you have basically just have to try random things to get it to work.

Lastly, they've had significant downtime with the SSO gateway both clients I've worked with. I'm not sure who's fault it was but I can tell you in both situations it took OVER A DAY for systems to come back online. It effectively crippled the both organization's authentication infrastructure.

Not to mention, the parent company of this organization has changed hands countless times - who really knows who's in charge of this madhouse. Stay far away from this system.

If you need authentication, Okta and Auth0 are the gold standard - go with them. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I have used the software for over a year and a half now, and I like that the user interface is clean and items are easy to see. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What I don't like about it is that in the beginning it can be a bit cumbersome to locate all of the tools you need, for example you have to search for the individual, then if you want to see all of the contributions they've made, you have to click through 3 different screens to get there.. You will definitely have to be trained on this software. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

All our information is in one place and easy to access Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Upgrades and service paks are constant and staff support from Abila is lacking Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The only thing that is good about NetForum is that they offer APIs and the original developers can be contacted through Gravitate. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Everything. The modules are slow. It's difficult to query. When they release new features/patches, it breaks something else. You can't easily set-up automated emails. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It keeps all of our information in one place, as opposed to two or three different places in the past. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

A lot bugs. Once we figure out one, two more pop up. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We are a small association with roughly <300 members and use NetForum Pro for a few things: 1) as an association managment database, to house all of our member data; 2) as a CMS, for password protected pages on our website that are available only to our members; and 3) for integration with Higher Logic, where we house our online member community. NetForum Pro makes it easy to house a lot of information about members, such as committee assignments, and such, and you can, with some effort, generate a wide variety of reports. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I don't like NetForum Pro outside of its role as a database for managing member data. NetForum Pro could not be easily integrated into our existing CMS (Drupal 6), so we had to build our members web pages in NetForum Pro, with site styling to match our primary website. Building out pages in NetForum is very cumbersome and not always intuitive. Same for the e-commerce pages. We can't integrate a single sign-on for our members only pages and separately, as an integration with Higher Logic where we house our online member community. And, there have been several times where site style, or other coding has been disrupted by new product roll outs.

Finding a point of contact for technical support is confusing since Avectra became Abila. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The functionality of the different portals is key. We manage our volunteer committees, events, speakers, membership, and more with Abila netForum. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Their customer service is not the most responsive. It often takes days to weeks to get an issue resolved. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There is very little that I like about this software, but if I had to pick one feature I would say that it has very little "down time" and the CRM is a somewhat good database. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It is going to take far more than this small paragraph to enumerate all the things I do not like about netforumPRO. But I'll take a stab at it, and be succinct! Right now we are having an error that is 100% a perfect example of the way this company operates. We have some automated email set up so that when someone registers for a webinar, we send them their GoToWebinar link. Well the automated emails have not been going out consistently--about half of the people who register are not receiving the email. We reported it to Abila, and their default reply is 'It is the IT Dept/Webmaster/Email Server of the receiver that's at fault--we can not reproduce the error." This despite the user community being FULL of other users who are also experiencing the same problem. So, we went in and tested ourselves--and of 6 registrations, 1 received the email and the other 5 did not. We sent them our test information. Not only are the emails not being automatically sent, the registrants are not going onto the registration report, so our reporting is also messed up. Yet if you go individual by individual of those who email us and say 'I didn't receive a link" they do show that they registered and paid if necessary.

So the reporting is inaccurate, and the dataset default reports are useless. We are an association. We want to track our membership and see how our retention is going. There is no retention RATE report and you literally can not get it from any of the reports they have. We have to manually use the rate formula and pull one number at a time to try to figure it out ourselves.

In summary, email doesn't work, support just blames others, reports don't work, accounting doesn't work, you can not search in CRM...it is a MESS!! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There is nothing to like about NetForum Pro Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Inability to buy product as a guest; too much is hard wired; doesn't understand how our ultimate customers want to use it; not mobile responsive; clunky and complicated to do simple tasks; limits on number of images that can be stored; website editor won't allow for uploading pdfs. This is tip of iceberg Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.