Traffic review

As a general rule, software that claims to do it all, rarely does it all well.

Traffic, though, is one of those exceptions that manages to combine tight integration with a good level of flexibility and well thought-out functionality. Targeted very specifically at creative design studios, it aims to provide a complete environment to handle all business tasks: everything from client contacts to work scheduling to invoicing. By concentrating so specifically on a particular area of business - one that its developers ought to know well having come from creative and design management backgrounds - it avoids problems that have defeated less focused attempts at integrated business software.

Traffic is built entirely within FileMaker (combined with a few plug-ins). Behind the scenes lie 44 separate related files. On the surface, users interact with these through seven domains - the Hub, for sales and marketing; Trackpad, for creatives; Traffic, for project management; and the less obliquely named Billings, Diary, Projects and Admin.

All of these areas inter-relate so that, for example, each designer's Trackpad will show their timetable, from which they can click through to details of every project they're working on, where they can raise orders or charge expenses against the job. Trackpad is also where they'll need to update their timesheet to record the hours on each job.

The Project domain is used for generating estimates and includes tools for tendering and estimating external costs. It then collates everything related to each project from all the Trackpads and provides progress monitoring through to final invoicing and reconciliation. For a broader overview of workflow, you'd use the Traffic domain, which assembles even more diverse data to produce Gantt charts of projects over a three-month period as well as all kinds of financial reports. The Hub, meanwhile, is used for marketing and general customer relations, so is geared more to contacts management or form letters.

Across these domains, anyone can create and send internal or external emails without having to leave Traffic, thanks to its built-in links to Outlook Express. A link to Adobe Acrobat also means documents such as estimates, invoices and so on can automatically be created as PDFs and either printed or sent by email. Each user has a password with defined access permissions and there are higher-level passwords for more sensitive areas and for administration. There's an impressively sensible use of default values and historical profiles, which allows estimates and schedules to be generated automatically. Yet it's easy to override those predicted values when necessary.

A lot of effort has clearly gone into the interface design (just as well, given its intended market) with a clear and uniform style across all domains. There's a lot of colour coding and use of icons, which does make it rather impenetrable at first sight, but they're applied consistently so the conventions rapidly become familiar. Gaining an understanding of how it all knits together will take longer, but again there's a consistency and logic to everything.

We found very few problems when using Traffic. There were a couple of minor display issues with overlapping fields, but nothing serious. Although there's no comprehensive Help system, useful messages often pop up if you try to do something inappropriate, so that eases the process of familiarisation.

Traffic requires FileMaker Server on a machine of its own, with a copy of FileMaker Pro on each user's machine. You'll also need a copy of Adobe Acrobat. All of this is an additional cost that needs to be factored in.