During my time at Sage Insights, this time in Washington DC, I always have the pleasure of sitting down with Executives who are directly responsible for the ACT Database Software.
But this time, I’m taking you with me, well….sorta.
I have some questions for them about the product, future direction, and a bunch of things that affect not only my business, but the businesses of the many subscribers, customers, and clients I support.
As a subscriber through my ACT! Software Review site, or one who has retained me as your ACT! Certified Consultant, or simply a visitor to this blog, I would like to invite you to submit your questions below.
It doesn’t matter if you are a single user, or 5, 10, 15, 25, or 100+ user environment. Scroll down and submit your questions now so I can get you in the door. And perhaps I’ll get to ask one of your questions while I’m in DC.
Regards,
Travis











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.
Rob-
Greetings mate!
Exchange, excellent point, I know of a 3rd party that will do sync between ACT! user schedules and Exchange user accounts, but you want ACT! to do this natively, correct?
ACT! users have indeed been gun shy in the past, due to errors, dataloss, and user errors.
SQL license requirements. Your suggestion was already taken into account in ACT! 2008. If you own SQL 2005 Server, you don’t need to purchase the Premium ST edition (which comes with a redistributable SQL 2005 Standard license). Let me know if you need further clarification on that.
Hi Travis,
On Act!/Exchange -
Yes, an integrated solution that did not require third party products would be the go. Just doesn’t seem that hard
On Act without the SQL License
Please..! Yes, how do we buy it without SQL. What version do we purchase? How do we connect it to our existing SQL backend?
Thanks again
Rob
Rob-
I think I understand what you are looking for with ACT!/Exchange.
As for the SQL License, the blog isn’t the right place to dive into tech detail on this, there is a knowledge base article at act.com that explains this, check it out first to make sure you meet the requirements. All you’d need to purchase is Premium EX.
If you need more assistance, feel free to contact me through http://www.TravisHelpDesk.com
Jason said: “I have to change the record manager for several records at the same time.”
You said: “What version of ACT! are you currently running?
Was this something that worked to your liking in an older version?”
I don’t know if it was caused by linking. I’ve only worked here for about three months. They have been using ACT! for a while. We are using ACT! version 10.0.
Under the “System” tab I see “Record Creator”, “Last edited by”, and “Record Manager”
This is the field that contains a list of all our “record managers”
Each record manager is responsible for several accounts, the problem is those responsibilities change, often.
I would really appreciate a way to change all of the accounts under one record manager to another record manager at the same time.
That is my dream!
Jason-
What you want to do with the record manager change can be done in your *current* version.
Not the intent of this post, but I can answer this pretty quick:
1.) Lookup the contacts you want to change the record manger for.
2.) Edit-Replace
3.) Select record manager in the drop down, and designate the value you want it to be.
4.) Click OK, to apply the changes.
Of course, be sure you have a good back up before doing such sweeping operations
[...] per the video, the comments on last weeks blog post were numerous…and very educational. I’ve summarized them but want to make sure [...]
Travis,
Elaboration on Social Networking suggested features:
1. Yes you can already export contact data to .csv and import granted but smoother integration to say be able to add a contact from your Linkedin, Facebook or Myspace page would be nice. To say, add a single contact or select from all contacts in the myspace addressbook say and pick and choose which ones to create ACT! contacts out of.
2. Also, not to step on Jim Durkin’s toes as I like calendar list plus but some of those features need to be part of ACT! itself. Namely when scheduling an activity with multiple contacts, list their names on the calendar not that irritating “multiple contacts”. Also, to catch up with other apps the ability to create multiple calendars would be a hot feature. Let’s say you wanted to create an additional calendar for client birthdays. Create a custom activity type of client birthday and just schedule those on the alternate calendar. The calendar can relate back to the contact by unique ID and the activities to their respective contact. Also having that alternate calendar with color would be nice too. Being able to sync these alternate calendar and activities with your Google calendar gives an ACT! user an added mobility option in case they don’t have a smartphone or decent cellphone. They can view their calendar with a laptop or any other device with internet capability. More and more people are ditching Microsoft office for Google Apps and the mobility angle. No, functionally speaking the Google Apps word processor is NOT Microsoft Word but many folks take that tradeoff for the mobility angle and the fact that its free as a major bonus. Free and Mobile are the popular, powerful buzzwords.
Steve-
Thank you for the further clarification and suggestions. I’m encouraged to know that the people that can make a difference are actually listening. I’m in a session at the moment…and I see that ACT! is committed to taking action…they have to.
Hi Travis,
I’ve been on holiday the last couple of weeks so I couldn’t add to the list..
But… I was wondering if there was any way of storing e-mails from outlook (like replies etc) in the history of your contacts along with the original e-mails sent to your contact
Is there any way of doing this?
Thanks
Vicki
[...] many of you posted quite a few questions and comments for the Sage Executives, and I did meet with them while in Washington DC at the Sage Insights Conference. Part of the [...]
Vicki-
Yes, the latest versions of ACT! support that. Usually replied contain the original message in it, which is good if you want to see what you were replying to when pulling up the email in ACT!… Hope that helps.
Thanks for your site!
[...] and I couldn’t cutout certain sections since many of the questions were good (afterall they came from the subscribers of this blog), so I’ve made the first part available here. You can get the final segment of [...]