Several times a month I receive a call from an organization that has lost their ACT! password. Sometimes this happens when the ACT! Administrator leaves the company – and takes his password with him. Fortunately we are able to recover those passwords and send the new administrator on their way with the advice to have…
This week Act Premium v25 was released; here is a rundown of my favorite features: New Act v25 Premium Desktop Features Act! Insight Advanced Dashboard Builder: create advanced, custom Act Dashboards Advanced querying allows for multiple sets of criteria Create new dashboards based on contact, group, company, and opportunity data Pull in associated field data Configure…
So, you’ve purchased ACT and you’re ready to install it. Sounds easy, right? Sure it is – if you’ve got your ACT together! Here’s a few hints that will help speed you on your way: Make sure that Windows is up to date by rebooting your machine. If you are going to be integrating Act…
Act Ides of March Seminar Register Now for the Act Tech Support Webinar You probably love a good mystery – but not when it comes to your Act database! If you’re like most Act users you rely on Act to run your business and when your Act starts “acting up” panic sets in. I receive…
When I purchased my new all in one tablet last year I thought I was going to purchase the Microsoft Surface Pro. However, I decided on the Lenovo Yoga 900 because the comparable Surface Pro model was much more expensive and there was a wait time of nearly 6 weeks. Turns out I made a…
I have had numerous calls and emails from Act! users over the course of the last month asking me if Act! will work with Windows 10. I’ve also had a number of calls from users who have updated to Windows 10 with various outcomes. My advice? If you are using Act! v16 or older I…
As one of the top Act! resellers, I wanted you to be aware of this news: Starting on May 15, 2015 Act! Premium moved to a Subscription platform. Starting then, you will have two options for purchasing Act! Premium software: Pay an Annual Subscription that you will need to renew annually. If you don’t renew…
I had someone call me last week who was enraged that Act! Support was not able to help them convert their Act! 5 database (circa 1999) to the latest version, Act! v17. Another customer couldn’t understand why Swiftpage wasn’t willing to convert their 1997 Maximizer database to Act. The customers felt that this service…
You’ve seen my posts about the benefits of bringing Act! CRM into the workplace, the help it can provide in customer management and organizing the office, and how it can not only save you money but increase it by making your business more efficient. You decided your business couldn’t do without it, so you bought…
Back in 2008 I wrote a blog article recommending that you switch to an Act! E-Marketing account if you were sending out marketing blasts of over 50 emails/send. Here it is 2014 (gasp!) and I’m still passing out that same exact advice. However, as the world of the internet – and e-mail – gets more…
Many Act! users routinely head to the Export Wizard to send their information not realizing that there is a much easier method for exporting Act! data. You’ll find the Export Current List to Excel icon at the top of the Contact, Group, Company, Opportunity, History and Task List views. If the button is “greyed out”…
As most of you know the “C” in CRM stands for Contacts and that’s the focus of these clean-up tips. I see a lot of databases in a variety of formats (Act!, SugarCRM, Salesforce, Zoho) and I’ve made one assumption: the typical database consists of 25% “dead wood.” I define dead wood as: Contacts that…
Last week I shared a story about an ACT! user who thought he had a major problem which turned out to have a rather easy, if not silly, answer. My second story involves an ACT! user who could not open his ACT! database; he kept receiving an error asking him to verify his user name…
Any Administrator or Manager user can create an automatic schedule for creating backups using the ACT! Scheduler. Combine this power with your free Drop Box account to save your database “in the clouds.” Download and install Drop Box. In ACT, click the Tools menu, and then click ACT! Scheduler. The ACT! Scheduler – Create, Edit…
Every year many of my clients ask me if there is a way to get holidays loaded into their ACT! database. Unfortunately, holidays do not come pre-loaded in the ACT! calendar. Obviously, some holidays such as the Fourth of July and Christmas are easy to add manually. However, other holidays such as Easter and Chanukah…
Several years ago a marketing company offered to do a mailing for me to all businesses within a 50 mile radius of my office. This sounded like a great idea until I realized that areas to the east and south of me contained nothing but the deep blue sea, and a large portion of the…
There are lots of cool shortcuts in ACT! that users take advantage of every day to make ACT! even more powerful than it already is.
There is indeed a black hole area in the minds of many ACT users when it comes to synching their ACT database to their cell phone. I’ve been synching ACT database to my phone for years and have a few tidbits that I thought I’d share with you.
Software companies are in the same boat as your local hardware or office supplies store. Hard as it may be for the average consumer to believe, software companies are in business to make money – or at least to remain solvent.