For those of you who were caught up in the recent Apple iPhone frenzy, good news. You can now sync information from ACT or your Contact Manager of choice to the iPhone. This is done with a little product by CompanionLink software.
If you order from CompanionLink, let them know I sent you by using the following promocode and save a few bucks in the process: BC6976
Here is the press release:
CompanionLink Releases Apple iPhone Synchronization for Mobile Professionals
Solution Will Synchronize Contacts and Calendar Between Leading Contact Management Solutions and Apple’s iPhone
PORTLAND, OR–(Marketwire – July 3, 2007) – CompanionLink Software, a leader in mobile synchronization solutions, has released CRM synchronization for the Apple iPhone. The solution will synchronize contacts and calendar from ACT! by Sage, GoldMine, Lotus Notes, Novell GroupWise, Time & Chaos, Google Apps, and Palm Desktop to the Apple iPhone. With this innovation, ahead of all other competitors, CompanionLink again proves its rapid development capability introducing synchronization solutions for new devices, platforms and technologies. CompanionLink specializes in serving mobile professionals that do not use Outlook as a primary customer relations tool. By extending iPhone synchronization to a dozen other platforms, CompanionLink provides a seamless solution for the business marketplace. CompanionLink’s solution delivers two-way synchronization of all contacts and calendar events. Users of industry standard CRM applications will have their alarms, phone look-ups, and travel directions fully available on the iPhone.
“The mapping, web browsing and calendar capabilities of the iPhone make it extremely compelling for today’s mobile professional,” says Wayland Bruns, CEO of CompanionLink Software. “The iPhone is a leap in value over every prior handheld, and shows that new technology can dramatically improve personal productivity while saving time and effort. To be able to easily use mobile Google Maps from one ACT! contact to another, or to quickly check your Lotus Notes meeting schedule, demonstrates the business value of the iPhone device.”CompanionLink is available in two versions: Express and Professional. Both versions support iPhone synchronization and start at $49.95. The current implementation requires Microsoft Outlook to be installed. A direct sync that works without Outlook is anticipated in the current quarter. A free 14-day evaluation version of the software is available at www.companionlink.com/downloads.
About CompanionLink Software, Inc.CompanionLink Software is a leading developer of data synchronization solutions for mobile phones, PDAs and other handheld devices. They are also a leading OEM synchronization and solutions provider for companies like NVIDIA, Google, Sage Software and Royal Consumer Electronic Products. For over 15 years, CompanionLink’s solutions have helped mobilize information across multiple devices, computers, and applications. For more information about the company and its solutions, please visit www.companionlink.com or contact Rushang Shah at (503) 243-3400.
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.
I’m told by Companion Link they do NOT support/enable syncing from Groupwise.
This may be true, I wouldn’t be surprised. It has been a declining product for some time.
SIDENOTE: I was a BIG GroupWise fan. I was actually certified by Novell as a GroupWise Engineer, think it was a superior product than anything at the time. Unfortunately, poor marketing and other sidesteps was it’s demise, though there is still a loyal following.
Update: CompanionLink Also supports Blackberry, Palm OS, and Windows Mobile Smartphone Windows Vista.
[...] is upgrading really worth it? > User Interface Items (Calendar, and Sync) > Handheld Sync (iPhone anyone?) > Email (Outlook and ACT! Email) > Web 2.0 and Social Networking > and much [...]
I used to have a treo which sync’d very well from ACT to Outlook to Treo.
I now have an iphone. CompanionLink still works well….BUT…is there any way to sync more than 8 of ACTs Contact’s notes ?
CompanionLink allows 24 note entries…but for some reason, the iphone only gets about 8 of them….maybe it’s Itunes…I asked Apple…they didn’t know.
Anybody know about this ?
Bob-
I would contact the folks at CompanionLink. They have pretty good support. Let them know that Travis of ACTblogger sent you.
I imagine they are continuing to improve the product and implement customer requests, so your call could be timely.
Are there alternatives to companionlink? Their support staff to try to resolve problems but unfortunately the software is so bodgy, it’s more or less useless.
Among other problems:
* it’s handling of country codes and leading zeroes is disastrous.
* you can’t backup ACT! with companionlink running.
Grant-
It depends on your device, if you have a blackberry, you might consider a wireless solution, otherwise, I would encourage you to work with CompanionLink, I’ve generally had good experience with them as have my clients.
If you call them, you might not start your call out with “your software is more or less useless”
They are there to help customers, and by every regard are professional. 
Hope that helps.
There are other solutions that work well between ACT! and all PDA’s, namely sync ACT! with Outlook and then sync the PDA with Outlook. That way you have one solution for them all. I use 123 Synchronizer Advanced Edition from http://www.act-to-outlook.com and it works with my Blackberry, my wife’s iPhone and my employees cell phones and whatnot. I use an exchange server where all have access to the contact/calendar folders and it works like a charm.
Warning though: the solution is not cheap, but it works.
We run ACT 6.0 on a Novell network with over 4000 contacts. Present phones are Palm Treo 650’s that can only hold up to 2000 contacts. These phones are manually sync’d. Interested in suggestions on which phone type would be the best upgrade – iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, etc. ACT, internet access and Outlook/email are main considerations. Ability to do voice dialing by stating contact name from ACT database would be a nice plus but do not need to run other office applications (Excel/Word/etc). Suggestions/comments appreciated.
Patrick-
Indeed, it is expensive, but a good fit for environments that have Microsoft Exchange and require this flexibility. Thanks for the tip!
Dan-
Indeed you need something with more memory. I would look at either the iPhone or Blackberry, both continue to grow in their performance and capacities with each new version.
Here are my recommended third party sync softwares for each (both have their limitations):
http://www.actasap.net/cl
http://www.actasap.net/hhc
Hope that helps.
[...] contact management systems out there, and I was thrilled when a third party offered a solution to sync ACT! with the iPhone a while back. Just recently CompanionLink Software released videos showing how to sync your [...]
Travis:
My son is a junior in college, attending a lot of mixers and amassing a lot of business cards for prospective future contacts, and hopefully potential employers. As a sales person, I have encouraged him to buy ACT 2010, and get a business card scanner, as it appears Apple offers no complete contact management software. My son uses an i-phone and has a MAC. Your thoughts before we make these purchases?
You are a wise man to advise him as such, and wiser still is he if he takes you up on it!
You'll need the iphone app discussed here to make it all work (and it does pretty good):
http://www.actasap.net/iphone
Keep us posted of his progress! Love hearing about up and comers.
-Travis
I just upgraded to ACT 2010 and got an iphone. I want to sync with ACT, but I have 4 different data bases: clients, contacts, prospects, and the like. Would these appear in their own folders on my iphone? I want to keep them separate.
Thanks,
Rod
Rod-
The only way I know of to accomplish this, would be to have the separated databases as one ACT! database. You can "segment" the database within that one database via groups. When you specify what syncs to the device, you can do so by group. Make sense? You may be able to sync multiple DBs, but I'd recommend calling CompanionLink first to see how their product handles this (which I'm pretty sure it does not).
Hope that helps.
Travis