Shift vs Glances In-Depth Review

How many clicks does it take your support team to find customer data? How long is your customer waiting so an account manager can re-send an invoice? How many apps do your employees use every day to get their work done? If these questions keep you up at night, you have likely been searching online for solutions that make finding data and completing tasks much simpler.

With your team’s unique workplace needs in mind, your research has likely brought you to various software product websites, such as Shift, Glances, and Command E. Finding a true side-by-side comparison of similar features and benefits can be tough, so we’ve done the work for you. Check out our comprehensive product review of Shift and how it compares with Glances so you can narrow down the best-fit solution for your business.

What factors to consider

When considering software, team leaders may want to take into account the following categories for a well-rounded approach at choosing the best product for their team’s daily needs:

1. Accessibility: Will my team have access to the data no matter what app they’re working on? Do we have the technology to support this solution?

2. Privacy: Will my customer data be safe? Does the solution use secure technology to ensure our data stays secure?

3. Cost: Can we afford this solution? Will implementation take additional time from our development or engineering teams?

4. Proactive Data: Does this solution proactively supply our team with customer data? Does it save time and effort to reduce the burden teams feel?

5. Workflow Supports: How does this solution fit into our workflow? Can we multitask across apps and enhance our current workflows?

In an effort to simplify our customer’s search for the perfect solution, we’ve put together a thorough Shift product review and how it compares to Glances based on the five considerations mentioned above. Let’s start with a quick overview of what each product does and how it looks.

Shift is marketed as a workstation for productive people – and that’s evident in their product display and function! Their main focus is creating a working environment that enables you to more effectively move across apps, despite multiple logins, identities, and profiles. Below is a quick product shot to show how Shift’s customizable workstation appears for users and how they can keep their different applications (like Slack) front and center.

Glances is a no-code integration platform that simplifies your work, acting as your go-to hub for customer insights and personal tasks. Using the Glances browser extension, you get a single view of relevant customer data directly in the app or webpage you are viewing. In the product shot below, the user is working in SugarCRM and has used Glances to search by customer name. In seconds, they can view real-time data (and perform actions) related to this unique customer, across their many connected apps.

Shift vs Glances: Accessibility

Shift is downloaded to your desktop and is an app for Windows and Mac. Instead of working within a browser with multiple tabs, you’ll work from the Shift app and toggle between apps and profiles directly from there.

Glances works as a browser extension available across multiple platforms and apps, plus offers online, mobile, and in-app functionality with platforms like monday.com. Glances supports popular web browsers on both Mac and Windows, such as Chrome, Firefox, and Edge.

Shift vs Glances: Privacy

Shift indicates that nearly all data that the Shift app uses is kept local on your computer. When authenticating apps, they use the standard OAuth authorization protocol.

Glances values your data and uses the latest security methods to keep you safe. When a search is completed within Glances, the data is encrypted and directly sent to the browser extension. We do not store customer information or app data other than the minimally required data to authenticate apps.

Shift vs Glances: Cost

Shift has a basic version that is free with limited features. To take advantage of all the features available (and will likely need) you’ll need to pay $99 per user/per year. Team members who are invited to Shift will set up their own workstations and enter their own app credentials to view data.

Glances is low-cost and starts at $14 per user, per month. Because only one admin needs to connect apps within Glances for your team to view data, you can also help your company save on license/seat costs of your other existing apps. Setting up Glances is straightforward and intuitive, which requires no team downtime or valuable developer time.

Shift vs Glances: Proactive Data

Shift allows for teams to quickly switch to their connected apps and includes notifications for incoming emails and upcoming calendar events. Shift doesn’t offer proactive data nudges or one-click data access. In order to see a specific customer’s QuickBooks estimate from Zendesk, for example, you would need to click on the QuickBooks icon along the left of their app, search for the customer, and click on the customer’s name. You would then click on the Zendesk icon along the left of the page to navigate back to Zendesk.

Glances is proactive at pushing customer data directly to you and provides flexible search options. This includes a highlight and search feature, where you highlight text on the page (such as customer or file names) and click the Glances icon for immediate search results from all your connected apps as well as proactively stamping email addresses on the page for one-click data access. For a Zendesk agent to view a customer’s QuickBooks estimate, they would click Glancey’s stamp next to the customer’s email address (or highlight her name and click). The Glances widget would display estimates along with other relevant customer data right from within Zendesk – no extra clicks, no navigating back and forth to compare data, and no wasted time.

Shift vs Glances: Workflow Supports

Shift is focused on app accessibility and doesn’t offer workflow supports at this time.

Glances encourages teams to work in their preferred app by having Actions to manage tasks in their workflow. Actions allows teams to complete actions in other apps with just a few clicks without navigating away. Working in Mailchimp but need to send a FreshBooks estimate or re-send a QuickBooks invoice? Perhaps you need to send an application from Clustdoc. All are possible using Glances.

What is best for my business?

If you’re looking for a workplace that separates different profiles and allows easy navigation between them, Shift may be the right solution for you. For example, if you work as a consultant or contractor and you have various Slack accounts, emails, and app credentials for each one, Shift will allow you to easily manage and navigate to various profiles for your connected apps.

Glances is a good selection for teams that need quicker access to customer data and the ability to work across their workplace apps without needing to switch directly to the app. For teams who are looking to do away with the monotony of certain tasks and the time-consuming nature of searching and navigating, Glances allows them to remain in their preferred workspace without added clicks or keystrokes to complete the tasks they need.

Are you also considering a product like Command E? Check out our Command E vs. Glances review.

Ready to simplify your work? Try Glances free for 14 days!

Start your free trial to connect your favorite business apps and access your data in one easy click, from any app or webpage.

More helpful steps

Schedule a demo to see the time-saving benefits of Glances in action or ask our team questions.

If you need to connect a specific app or platform with Glances that is not currently available on glances.com, please send your requests to hello@glances.com.

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