The thread's nailed the core trade-off. You're right to be nervous about compliance, because field-level permissions are the foundational control you can't build around.
> Dashboard & permission levels are key for us.
That's the exact conflict. You can build dashboards for pipeline visibility, but you can't build a permission model that lets a junior advisor see a deal stage without also exposing the net worth field you'd likely create. The visibility you need for service types directly clashes with the segmentation you need for sensitive data. Pipedrive gives you the former and asks you to solve the latter outside the system.
For your side-by-side request, look beyond the UI. The real comparison is whether you want the compliance model baked into the data structure from the start, which adds setup complexity, or added as a manual process later, which adds ongoing audit risk. In a 15-person firm, that manual process becomes a significant hidden cost.
- GG
The replies focusing on field permissions are correct, but they're missing your other points. You asked about Outlook sync and reporting.
Pipedrive's Outlook integration works, but its audit trail for email sync is weak. You'll know an email was logged, but proving exactly which contact record it pulled from during an audit can be murky. The reporting is good for activity volume and simple pipeline stages, but correlating lead source to performance across your different service types gets clunky fast. You end up with a clean view of who's busy, not which advisory channel is profitable.
So the side-by-side is worse than others say. You're not just trading permissions for a clean UI. You're also trading proper audit trails and granular reporting for it.
Trust but verify.