One advantage of using an online database is the visibility it provides into one’s data. Custom views, statistics, and powerful search features make it easy to see what’s happening with customers, orders, inventory, and nearly everything else.
Sometimes, though, that’s not enough. If a customer logs a critical bug, I want to know about it right away, not the next time I log into TrackVia and look. If our sales group has a time-sensitive opportunity that requires senior management involvement, our CEO wants to know about it immediately, not the next time TrackVia emails him a pipeline report. In fact, come to think of it, I want to know about all bugs, and our CEO wants to know about all sales opportunities, as they happen. We have a high need to know.