Sage ACT! 2011 was released last week and like each version, it is loaded with dozens of new features. In ACT! 2010 and continuing into Sage ACT! 2011, ACT! has made a concerted effort to incorporate productivity enhancements in this program.  In this post and the one that follows we will highlight our top ten list of functions to look forward to – to help you grow your business.

1.  Smart Tasks. The addition of Smart Tasks, the ability to have ACT! automatically do something based ... [Read more: Sage ACT! 2011 Top Ten – Part 1]]]>

Sage ACT! 2011 was released last week and like each version, it is loaded with dozens of new features. In ACT! 2010 and continuing into Sage ACT! 2011, ACT! has made a concerted effort to incorporate productivity enhancements in this program.  In this post and the one that follows we will highlight our top ten list of functions to look forward to – to help you grow your business.

1.  Smart Tasks. The addition of Smart Tasks, the ability to have ACT! automatically do something based upon criteria you create, is one of the most powerful features added to ACT! in years. It’s time to get creative and leverage this built in ACT! assistant!

2. Back Button. Yes, the Back button is back and better than ever with a Forward button as well. It works just like a browser back button. The Back and Forward buttons will step you through prior views and lookups that you have been to in your current session of ACT!.  

3.  Outlook Contact and Calendar Synchronization. True synchronization of your calendar and/or contacts between ACT! and Outlook. One way or two way, on a schedule or manual. The choice is yours. No more reliance on tools like CompanionLink to “copy” your ACT! contacts and calendar to Outlook. Choose which ACT! activities go to Outlook; Outlook Appointments come into ACT!. Another big productivity booster.

4. Direct import from Excel.  Yes, it is now possible to import contacts, groups or companies directly from Excel without converting the file to a .csv or .txt.  ACT! has improved this even more by providing a custom import option which lets you create fields on the fly as you import from Excel. But wait, in the late great TV pitchman Billy Mays tradition, it gets better! ACT! will use synonyms to match the columns in your Excel file with the field names in your ACT! database to make sure the data gets mapped correctly. Can you feel the productivity rising?

5. Support for MS Office 2011. OK, you expect that, but it is still worth noting. Sage ACT! 2010 fully supports 32 bit version of Office 2011 (along with Office 2003 and 2007.) Windows versions XP, Vista and 7 are supported as well just as they were in ACT! 2010.

Our next post will focus on five more Sage ACT! 2011 Top Ten hits.  Tell us which items you like the most or the functionality you would like to learn more about.  We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Previously on this blog we discussed that ACT! 2010 is  not compatible with Office 2010.  While still not fully supported with ACT! 2010, Office 2010 users do have some options (see next paragraph).  This is good news for ACT! 2010 users but even better news is that Sage ACT! 2011 fully supports MS Office 2010 32-bit edition.  For more information on Sage ACT! 2011, check out http://www.aspen-tech.com/SageACT2011.html. 

This new ACT! Knowledge Base Article (ACT! by Sage ... [Read more: Office 2010 & ACT!]]]>

Previously on this blog we discussed that ACT! 2010 is  not compatible with Office 2010.  While still not fully supported with ACT! 2010, Office 2010 users do have some options (see next paragraph).  This is good news for ACT! 2010 users but even better news is that Sage ACT! 2011 fully supports MS Office 2010 32-bit edition.  For more information on Sage ACT! 2011, check out http://www.aspen-tech.com/SageACT2011.html. 

This new ACT! Knowledge Base Article (ACT! by Sage Compatibility With MS Office 2010) details the options available to ACT! 2010 users and how to set it up.  Basically, here’s what you can and can’t do when you have ACT! 2010 and Office 2010:

Can…

• Send email from ACT! using Outlook 2010
• Record email history to ACT!
• “Quick Attach” messages to ACT!
• “Attach to ACT! Contacts”

Can’t…

• Integrate the ACT! Calendar with Outlook 2010
• Export to Excel 2010
• Use Word 2010 as your Word Processor

Knowledgeable users of ACT! know that, when used correctly, you can get much more done with ACT! than without.  The introduction of Smart Tasks in Sage ACT! 2011, gives us a break out tool that will unlevel the playing field.

For years our clients have been asking for a tool that would use logic to automate tasks.  An example might be to automatically send a renewal email 45 days before the expiration of a service warranty contact.  Or have ACT! automatically schedule a call when you haven’t touched a top client’s record in 60 days.  Smart Tasks in ... [Read more: Sage ACT! 2011 – Smart Tasks Automate Processes]]]>

Knowledgeable users of ACT! know that, when used correctly, you can get much more done with ACT! than without.  The introduction of Smart Tasks in Sage ACT! 2011, gives us a break out tool that will unlevel the playing field.

For years our clients have been asking for a tool that would use logic to automate tasks.  An example might be to automatically send a renewal email 45 days before the expiration of a service warranty contact.  Or have ACT! automatically schedule a call when you haven’t touched a top client’s record in 60 days.  Smart Tasks in Sage ACT! 2011 now does that and much more. 

The ideas are just starting to flow on how to use Smart Tasks.  Check out these blogs on Sage’s site.  Liz Hendon, a respected colleague has also written an interesting blog on some creative uses of Smart Tasks. 

The technology behind Smart Tasks is Microsoft® Windows® Workflow Foundation.  With this strong foundation, the potential for Smart Tasks is all on the up side.

Look for more posts on the potential for Smart Tasks.  Let us hear from you on your ideas for what you would like to automate.

Sage ACT! 2011 has been announced and we are very happy to offer Sneak Previews for our clients and prospects so you can see what’s in store when you upgrade. Included in Sage ACT! 2011:

- Support for Microsoft Office 2010

- Smart Tasks (basically your own personal ACT! assistant)

- Sage Business Info (download leads from Hoover’s)

- Outlook Contact Sync

- Outlook Calendar Sync

To learn more or to sign-up for a Sneak Preview, check out AspenTech’s Sage ACT! ... [Read more: Sage ACT! 2011]]]>

Sage ACT! 2011 has been announced and we are very happy to offer Sneak Previews for our clients and prospects so you can see what’s in store when you upgrade. Included in Sage ACT! 2011:

- Support for Microsoft Office 2010

- Smart Tasks (basically your own personal ACT! assistant)

- Sage Business Info (download leads from Hoover’s)

- Outlook Contact Sync

- Outlook Calendar Sync

To learn more or to sign-up for a Sneak Preview, check out AspenTech’s Sage ACT! 2011 Page.

Hotfix 2 was recently released for ACT! 2010 SP1.  This applies to ACT! by Sage 2010 SP1, ACT! Premium 2010 SP1, and ACT! Premium for Web 2010 SP1.  There are a few key items fixed with this update:

New in Hot Fix 2

Last week I attended a two hour marketing workshop put on by one on my most enjoyable clients. Dorothy Twinney founded her new company Pandora Outside The Box Marketing to help organizations implement creative and effective marketing ideas that don’t cost an arm and a leg. Something that may ring true to many of you.

I took the time to work on my business and took away some great ideas. Dorothy opened the workshop by talking about using yourself as a marketing tool. Duh, how often do we truly think of ourselves as being our best marketing tool? OK, how many of you ... [Read more: Marketing – We Have To Do It, So Enjoy!]]]>

Last week I attended a two hour marketing workshop put on by one on my most enjoyable clients. Dorothy Twinney founded her new company Pandora Outside The Box Marketing to help organizations implement creative and effective marketing ideas that don’t cost an arm and a leg. Something that may ring true to many of you.

I took the time to work on my business and took away some great ideas. Dorothy opened the workshop by talking about using yourself as a marketing tool. Duh, how often do we truly think of ourselves as being our best marketing tool? OK, how many of you have reviewed your 30 second elevator speech recently? We delved into analyzing our audience and our key messages. We covered reaching out to our existing customers. 

Web site analysis and social media topics were blended with traditional marketing concepts. How about planning your blog posts in your marketing plan? Get the picture. Dorothy had an action packed workshop that allowed everyone to take away ideas they could immediately implement in their business. I know my ACT! database will be getting a work out with the ideas I took from the session.

The good news is Dorothy has three more workshops scheduled:
- Detroit Monday, November 9 2:00 – 4:00 $85.00/attendee
- Plymouth Tuesday, November 10 2:00 – 4:00 $85.00/attendee
- Plymouth Tuesday, November 18 2:00 – 4:00 $85.00/attendee
More information is available on Dot’s Blog and by calling 313-259-3458 x124. Mention AspenTech and Dorothy will give you 20% off!  You can beat that.

Whether you’re gearing up to send a special turkey day greeting, a holiday card, or an email to ring in the New Year, it’s important to use your ACT! database as a great resource to make this much easier and save you time. 

First, do you have a way of identifying which contacts in your database should receive your greeting?  If not, that’s the first step.  A good way of doing this is with a “Greetings” field in your ACT! database that has a multi-select dropdown.  Here’s a step-by-step on how to set that up:

1)      Make sure ... [Read more: Getting Your ACT! Database “Holiday Ready”]]]>

Whether you’re gearing up to send a special turkey day greeting, a holiday card, or an email to ring in the New Year, it’s important to use your ACT! database as a great resource to make this much easier and save you time. 

First, do you have a way of identifying which contacts in your database should receive your greeting?  If not, that’s the first step.  A good way of doing this is with a “Greetings” field in your ACT! database that has a multi-select dropdown.  Here’s a step-by-step on how to set that up:

1)      Make sure you are logged into your main ACT! database with an administrator’s user account. 

2)      Also ensure that there are no other users logged into your main ACT! database as this procedure does require the database to be “locked”.

3)      Click the Tools menu and go to Define Fields (at this point if anyone is logged into your database it will prompt you to lock them out).

4)      On the left side of the Define Fields window under List Tasks, click Manage Drop-Down Lists.

5)      On the left side of the Manage Drop-Down Lists window under Drop-Down List Tasks, click Create Drop-Down List.

6)      Enter “Greetings” as the name of the list and if you only want administrators and managers to be able to control the list values, uncheck the box at the bottom for “Allow users to edit items in this list”.  NOTE: Never leave “Automatically add new items user enter to the list” checked.  This will cause you to have misspellings and different variations of the same value.

7)      Click Next.

8)      Add your list values and when you are done click Finish.

9)      Click the Home button to get back to the main Define Fields window.

10)   On the left side of the Define Fields window under Field Tasks, click Create New Field.

11)   Enter “Greetings” as the name of the field, check the box to “Use Drop-Down List”, select your “Greetings” list and click Next.

12)   Check the box for “Limit to List”, check the box for “Allow Multi-Select”, click Finish and then click Close.

13)   Now that the field is created in the database, you need to add it to your layout so users can begin to choose who should receive which greetings.  To do that, use the following ACT! Knowledge Base article about Designing Layouts in ACT!

Now that you have your Greetings field added to your database and layout, your users can begin to populate that field on each of their contacts’ records so you know who should get which mailings.  Once that field is populated, an easy way to see who should get each greeting is to use a group in ACT!.  For this example we’ll use Thanksgiving:

1)      Click the View menu in ACT! and choose Groups.

2)      Once in the Groups view, click the Groups menu and choose New Group.

3)      Give the new group a name such as “Greetings – Thanksgiving”.

4)      On the Contacts tab of the group, click Add/Remove Contacts.

5)      From the Add/Remove Contacts window, click Edit Criteria.

6)      Here you’ll want to add a line for the Contact field Greetings where it Contains Thanksgiving:

7)      After adding that line, click OK on the Group Criteria window and click OK on the Add/Remove Contacts window.

Now you have a group built in your ACT! database for everyone who should receive your Thanksgiving greeting and it’s easy for your users to manage who should be in that group. Since this group uses criteria, as your users change the Greetings field in the ACT! database, contacts will be added and removed from this group appropriately.  Just repeat this process for your other greetings.

CONGRATULATIONS!  Now you have your selection of contacts to print labels for post cards or envelopes, to send to your local print shop, or to do an email blast using SwiftPage Email.  If you’d like further assistance with any of those items, let AspenTech know how we can help.