[tweetmeme] A while ago I mentioned that we’re doing reviews of business oriented Mac applications. I took a look at Grosshandel, an ERP store management application out of a one person company in Germania. This time round it’s a professional project-client management application, that’s built to keep your complete professional workflow in one window.

An application designed for the self-employed professional, Studiometry allows you to track clients, projects, generate invoices, manage Todos, all within a single window UI. If this is a kind of workflow you face in your everyday professional life, follow along as I take you through the app, and get the opinion of a professional who has been using Studiometry in their daily life.

Understanding the design philosophy

Studiometry is not an easy app to digest. The user interface goes deeper than your average Mac app. When you first start the app, you’re presented with a blank library, and tasteful placeholder text to guide you as to how to proceed. There’s even an intro video it points to. In the right is a Sample Client, and a Sample Project, to get you started on organising your clients. Which is how we’ll understand the organisational structure of Studiometry—what it does.

At the top level of Studiometry’s organisational structure, are Clients. There’s also Vendors, but we’ll get to that later. You can add detailed info for each client, including contact info, additional contacts, todo lists, notes, balance sheets, payments, and lastly, Projects. This is a standard ‘self-employed professional’ or ‘small business workshop’ workflow, ideally suited for design houses, consultancies, ad agencies, or some other industry which offers services.

So we’ve set up a bunch of clients, and are ready to bill them. Let’s say Client “Microsoft” wants us to design a logo for their “Zune” product, that’ll suck out all of the lust for the iPod Touch. We know that’s not really possible, but we jump to the opportunity nonetheless. Create a new project “Zune”, and so starts the organising. I can start the timers for when I’m working on the Zune project, add files so I don’t lose track of anything, notes, todos, etc. I can also do some serious planning right from within the app, including manage brainstorming sessions, artwork, review, etc.

All through this, Studiometry gives detailed reports on what’s happening with the project, how much the current costs to the client have come up to, stuff like that. And lastly, the app also automatically generates an invoice—and a pretty good looking one at that—for all the work you’ve done, ready to be sent to the client.

There’s more, but let’s leave it at that.

I could go over each feature, and argue for or against it. Bottom line is Studiometry is immensely powerful, and its complexity allows you to bend it just the way you want it. It’s not a UI you can fool around with, or admire pixels (although it’s a pretty good looking app). Moreover, at $200 for a license, I’m sure you’re not going to fool around with it for fun sakes.

Getting a second opinion

But let’s not take my word for it. After all, besides creating sample projects here and there, I didn’t really need the power Studiometry offers. I found a seasoned Studiometry user, who swears by it for his professional workflow. I found him lurking on the Oranged Software forums, and he agreed to answer a few questions for me. Mark [name changed] has been using Studiometry for the last year and a half, and has settled on using Studiometry for his work. He’s a lawyer.

Hey Mark, thanks for taking the time out of suing folks and talking to me instead. What can you tell me about your workflow involving Studiometry?

I think I’ll start even prior to where your question begins. I was a PC user, used it mainly for playing music and checking email (and cleaning viruses). I did all my filing and billing offline, rounding it off on an excel spreadsheet. Then I got a Mac, and a friend of mine (a Mac nerd like yourself) suggested I use “the power of OS X” to transform my analog workflow into digital goodness. I’m fairly capable at using a computer, so naturally I agreed.

At first we tried some invoicing applications, but none of them offered me the completeness I wanted. I was always shuttling between digital and analog, and it didn’t quite work out. Then we found Studiometry, and at first I thought it was a scientific application especially given the name and complexity of UI. Nevertheless, I stuck through the trial, and the more I used it, the more it made sense. I could move everything from my client files, contact info, time billing, and invoicing right from within the app. I tell you, if it wasn’t for taking calls, I’d have fired my assistant by now.

I’m of course more techie than the rest of my colleagues, so I fit into the whole concept pretty quick, but I’d imagine it wouldn’t take long for a regular computer user to find his way around. For the professional who’s looking for more than just timed billing, Studiometry definitely provides that all-round application that has just the right mix of power, complexity, and simplicity in design.

Okay you kind of stole the flow of this semi-interview, but thanks a lot for that. Any complaints?

Compared to the rest of the apps on my system, Studiometry is the most sluggish app on my system. Nothing my MacBook Pro can’t handle, but sluggish. I suppose there may be features missing in the package that I might find useful; I just don’t know what those features are. The invoicing system could use some polish, in terms of designing them and the output.

Thanks Mark, for taking the time off.

A word from the developer, Tom Iwaniec

Obviously you must have a rough idea as to the userbase of Studiometry. What are the primary uses of Studiometry that you’ve seen so far?

The majority of Studiometry users are professionals that work on or around their computers often (such as photographers, designers, attorneys, programmers, etc). Businesses have anywhere from 1 to 50+ employees use Studiometry, as it works great for freelancers as well as for small to medium businesses.

Everyone’s making iPhone apps these days to go along with their desktop counterparts. Have you given thought to creating an iPhone app for Studiometry? I understand it would be a very difficult app to conceive, considering the complexity that Studiometry on the desktop holds. Any thoughts on what’s being done on that front?

Regarding the iPhone app: We’re actually well into development and we plan on submitting it to Apple before the end of 2009. We’ve seen what other people have done with their iPhone programs, and while they are nice and get the job done, we want to make it much easier to use and more powerful than what’s out there right now. We plan on having basically a mini version of Studiometry for the iPhone, while still maintaining an iPhone-esque interface.

About Oranged Software, How many people does Oranged involve? What’s your programming experience? Who are you?

About Oranged Software: We’re a small software company based out of Chicago, IL that focuses on small to medium business software applications. I’ve been programming on the Mac, on Windows, and on the web for over 10 years now using various languages. I personally started Oranged Software in 2003 when I first wrote Studiometry to fill a need on the Mac for powerful project-management software that wasn’t based on Filemaker. The program, as well has the company, have grown a lot since they were started. We have another product, Accounted, that syncs with Studiometry and manages more detailed accounting features. We have 6 employees handling programming, tech support, design, and all the typical stuff needed to run a small software company.

Last words

[tweetmeme] Before publishing a review, I always gauge the user reviews on sites like MacUpdate and iUseThis. There was this one review thread that kind of brought out a lot of negative about this app, mainly about the template system, and about the support. About templates, the system involves adding tags about the place (you can even have your own CSS style sheet embedded), and get it to print out a fairly good looking template. About support, I got a response within a day of submitting a request, which I think is fairly conversational.

You may of course download the trial, and if you have already, do leave your opinion in the comments.