Walk a mile in your users' shoes

Rotunda Software has six shared values that not only lead us in why we do our work, but how we do it as well. One of these values, “our work is our art,” makes it that much more exciting to see our team using the products that we spend so much time creating and improving. Daily use of our programs means that everyone benefits; our products see development that is timely and use-based, which benefits our clients, and it helps keep our internal work on track and on time. Here are a few ways that we use our Rotunda Software products within our personal and professional lives!

Upping our communication game
One product that we use internally to enhance our group communication is Unison.io, which is a tool that helps groups do more through better communication and organization. At the company level, we use Unison.io to share regular updates between our teams, such as weekly company newsletters or workplace announcements, while on a team level, some groups use it to distribute their weekly meeting minutes, or use it as an onboarding platform to organize training exercises for new team members. This makes it easy to share information with everyone or groups of people quickly, collect information in a single, searchable place, and lets each group customize their usage according to their needs.

Uniting us on the road
Each year, Rotunda Software holds an annual retreat that brings our global team together, and Unison.io has become our go-to tool for organizing and communicating. During the planning stages, we use Unison.io’s poll feature to determine the teams availability for specific dates, Announcements for keeping everyone posted, and the shared calendar for planning events and sharing them all in one place. Team members are encouraged to make retreats a family affair, so this collection of information in all one place makes it easy to loop in significant others, even though they are outside of the team.

During each retreat, the communication feed is the go-to spot for everyone to get up-to-date information about the hotel or AirBnB, information about wifi availability, or work space arrangements. We also regularly use the RSVP, polls or sign up features to coordinate dinner plans, or see who’s up for a sunrise beach excursion! Unison.io also makes it incredibly easy to send the whole team a text announcement letting them know about a last minute afternoon activity.

Once the retreat has ended, we use Unison.io’s forms to send out a post-retreat survey or post photos or videos. It’s a great way to share our memories, and ensure that each year we can continue to iterate and make each retreat better than the last!

On the homefront
Many of our team members came to Rotunda Software through using our products, like Ministry Scheduler Pro and Volunteer Scheduler Pro. Patti Such and Emily Lutz, of the sales team, and Raina Hanson, our Director of Technical Support, were all schedulers for their respective churches and actively used Ministry Scheduler Pro. After coming on board with Rotunda Software, the insights they were able to share as previous schedulers provided valuable insight into opportunities for improving our products for our users. It also meant they were primed for working with our customers to help them put Ministry Scheduler Pro to work for their needs.

Through using our own products, such as Ministry Scheduler Pro, Volunteer Scheduler Pro, and Unison.io, we’re able to better understand our customers, their use cases, and ways we can continue to improve and iterate our products for their needs.