Category Archives: ACT!

General Insights

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I’ve got back from the the Sage Insights conference on the Sunshine Coast, Australia. There were a couple of things that I’ve found of key interest:

  • We saw a demo of the Sage ACT! Premium for Web HTML5 interface. Really liked the look of this, quite excited about this as I’m sure a number of our clients are going to love this.
  • Got to speak with some Sage NA staff re the 2012 ‘feature that isn’t a feature’ Sage Analytics. I see this as being of benefit to a number of our clients as it allows them to quickly rearrange a view of their data to show their key metrics.
  • Hearing the continuing focus on allowing the clients to choose if they want on-premise deployment or cloud/private cloud deployments. Good to know the plan is not to force clients into a SaaS only model like Salesforce.
  • Hearing Chris Gordon at SwiftPage (providers of Sage ACT! E-Marketing) talk about what they’ve seen work for e-marketing users and give examples of those. Great info.

Of course it was great to catch up in person with those that came from the Sage USA, Sydney and Melbourne and especially the other ACC’s that attended from around Australia and New Zealand. The next 12 months promise some change. I’m looking forward to it.

Success Lesson from ACT!

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In his article over at the Software Advice blog titled “The Birth of a Category Known as Contact Management“, Mike Muhney (co-founder of ACT! Software) brings out some history surrounding where ACT! came from.

What struck me was the fact that it was born of a need, a need both he and Pat Sullivan had. It was not born of a thought “what can we make that will make money”, but rather, “we need to do x, let’s make something that will do x. Hey, other’s need it too…”.

The first reason why ACT! was successful is because it did the core things that sales people needed.

Mike and Pat sold the sales people of host of laptop makers on the benefit of using ACT!. They then sold it to others. Remember, that once you sell a salesperson on an idea, it’s incredibly hard to un-sell them on it.

The second reason that ACT! was successful is because the targeted the right niche.

There’s a lesson in there for all of us, we need to deliver the core thing that our clients are paying for, and make sure that we are marketing to the right people.

Sage ACT! 2011 SP1 Hot Fix 5 now available

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What a joy to see hot fix 5 for Sage ACT! 2011 out!

And yes, it does fix the company name/contact name issue.

When you enter a company name or contact name that exceeds the length of the field, the name is truncated.

You can go get it here KB 27440 – How to Download and Apply Sage ACT! 2011 SP1 Hot Fix 5.

Details of what’s NEW in Hot Fix 5

Function Description What the Hot Fix Does
Companies After entering\editing data in the company list view, users are unable to save due to a recurring error “Unable to continue in ACT! without saving the company name.” Prevents the Company Name file data from being deleted.
Database Import When importing information into another database using the default mapping and merge options, data loss occurs because first, middle, and last names are not mapping correctly. Enable the name data to be imported into the correct fields.
Attachments After attaching a document in the Documents tab and then changing the layout, the Documents tab does not refresh (continues to show the attachment for the previous record). Alters tabs (in the primary entity view) that contain list views to reflect changes.
Remote Synchronization When a file on the Documents tab is synched to a remote database, edited, and then synchronized again, the original document is not updated. Changes the name of the synched document.
Company List View After entering or editing data in the Company List view, users are unable to save due to a recurring error “Unable to continue in ACT! without saving the company name.” Prevents the Company Name file data from being deleted.
Contacts When you enter a company name that exceeds the length of the company name field, the company name is truncated. Positions the cursor at the beginning of text; text appears properly.
Contacts When you enter a contact name that exceeds the length of the contact name field, the contact name is truncated. Positions the cursor at the beginning of text; text appears properly.
Email After setting up an email system to use Sage ACT! 2011 email, the option to attach existing email to contacts, companies, or groups is unavailable. Enables the Attach option.
Outlook Integration In the French, Polish, and German product, the Change ACT! Database dialog box includes unlocalized text. Properly translates the Change ACT! Database dialog box.


 

What Version of Microsoft Installer?

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Sage ACT! 2011 and 2012 require Microsoft Installer 4.5 or better to be installed. I like to know prior to running the Sage ACT! installer just which version is installed as the Sage ACT! installer will install it if it’s required and then do a reboot. And we all know that reboots are often not welcome.

Thus for one an all’s installation enjoyment, here is the code for determining just which version of the Microsoft Installer is present.

@Echo off
:: Created by Ben Hamilton ACT! CRM Certified Consultant
:: to display which version of the Microsoft Installer is installed.
:: http://ben.hamilton.id.au
Echo set args = WScript.Arguments >fvi.vbs
Echo Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") >>fvi.vbs
Echo WScript.Echo fso.GetFileVersion(args(0)) >>fvi.vbs
Echo Wscript.Quit >>fvi.vbs
for /f "skip=2 " %%G IN ('cscript fvi.vbs %systemroot%\system32\msi.dll') DO (Set MSIVersion=%%G)
Echo Microsoft Installer %MSIVersion:~0,3% is installed.
del fvi.vbs /q
pause

Hope you find it as useful as I do.