Giving Blist a chance

I have considered Blist as simple single/flat list oriented system. But skimming their web site once again I discovered that developers offer to use it as a solution for organization of CRM and Project Management.

So I decided to practically check out what one can do within the system and started with large volume handling.

It turned out through Blist one can create his list directly through import from Excel file, so let’s check how it works.


The system correctly recognized the data structure, but the column types were not detected correctly(all columns have the Text type by default):


I manually changed column types and continued to import the data.


The import process is conducted in a background mode, so meanwhile the user can go on operating within the system. Well, it’s already something.


This is the look of import results:


Unfortunately, while data import Blist had some failure, despite the fact there were no notifications about errors, no warnings that something goes wrong. As from Fax column the data were shifted and partly disappeared even though everything was reflected on the preview correctly.


In general I’d say working with of such volume as 20K I had no navigation or data reflection problems.

Conclusions:

It’s a great advantage Blist is capable of direct Excel file importing and asynchronous data download. There was no problem with handling of such data volume as well. I hope the developers can cast light upon the failure I experienced importing the file. Anyway, the service is on the beta stage right now, and I believe my tests can only be of a help in system enhancement.