Over the last few years, at this time of year, Sage software has come up with a new version of the popular contact management software, ACT!. This year appears to be no different, as marketing materials of the worlds most popular contact manager land in email and snail mail inboxes.
There was a key difference between ACT! version 6 and ACT! 2005 which released in August of 2004. It was rebuilt from the ground up a new architecture, Microsoft dot net and SQL. I likened this upgrade experience to going from a Jeep to a Hummer. A Hummer is roomier and even luxurious but is slow off the starting line compared to the Jeep. The Hummer can haul more, and once it gets going one could argue it is superior. For customers upgrading from ACT! 6, gone were the days of putting in the software CD, and hitting next a few times (installation wizard), and completing the upgrade in a few minutes. What was once and upgrade had become a “migration”.
So, what I’d like to know is your own experience when it comes to upgrading/migrating your ACT! software, the good, the bad, the ugly. Now I realize I’m opening a can of worms here, but I want your honest feedback. Allow me to encourage you to be polite, yet descriptive…professional. Keep in mind your post might be read by anyone, perhaps even the makers of the software.
There are many choices when it comes to contact management software for small businesses, realtors, and entrepreneurs of various disciplines, although fewer than just 3-4 years ago. Goldmine, Maximizer, MSCRM, and other contact manager users have their own tales to tell when it comes to upgrading. Another challenge is going to a different product entirely.
So go ahead and share what your experiences have been, and I just may respond with a few of my own.
Hi, my name is Travis Campbell, I operate this site. A key to success in any business is to effectively manage your relationships. ACT! is a software product helping millions when it comes to doing just that. This Website is designed to assist both those considering ACT! software for their business, as well as to provide insight to ACT! users who want to effectively use it in their day to day operations. So login, post, browse and enjoy.
Travis,
Thank you for replying I have just today solved the conundrum. In parallel to the ACT problem my new system developed snag on shutdown (WMS IDLE )which when I googled laid the onus fo this fairly and squarely on Nero Scout. Once that was disabled the error message disappeared! I then thought what the h… I will try 2000 again and in it went sweet as a nut. Thanks for all your time
Regards
Bob
Bob-
Glad to hear you got it fixed! Thanks for reporting back.
Regards,
Travis
ACT 2009 (beta) performance is killing me.
I have a 4 year old Dell Inspiron 8600 with 2GB of Memory and an Intel® 1700mhz Pentium® M processor and ACT is dragging my system down.
Anything I do in ACT – opening templates, adding notes, oking a future Activitity or Clearing an Activity drive my processor to 100% load with 90% of that as pure Kernel Time. Since I listen to the radio on the internet it ends up sounding like reverb gone wild
I have no control over management to switch to a Web based version of ACT and I’m not looking to change (buy) a new notebook.
Does anyone know of anything I can do to get better performance out of ACT with out dragging my system down?
Is there a way to force ACT to operate with more memory (fewer I/O’s)?
Thanks for your help.
Please disregard my last comment / request.
It seems that in this newest version of ACT, ACT is automatically started in start-up, but not as an application you can use – you can only see it in the Windows Task Manager – Processes list.
I had been terminating it there and then firing it off manually.
So after posting my previous post, I rebooted and did not terminate it in the WTM.
Now while I might have high processing loads, it doesn’t kill my system.
Mark-
You are not alone, many forget to do a reboot every once in a while. Apart from that, you can determine if security software is the culprit by disabling Firewall and Anti-virus entirely and testing performance. More often than not, it will be tied to overzealous security software.
For those with more questions on ACT! 2009, check out the ACT! 2009 FAQ.
Hope that helps.
-Travis
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