Sage Insights Conference, ACT Software User Questions for Sage Executives
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
Filed under: ACT Related, Business, Videos
Thanks for doing this Travis. When will there be a Quickbooks Link available that works with ACT! 2007 and QB 2008. We have QB 2006 with the link, but QuickBooks ends support for QB 2006 on May 31, 2008!
Thanks again!
I’d like to see user defined fields in the activities and the ability to modify those screens like we can in the contact screen.
Travis,
I’ve been disappointed in Sage Software for dropping custom lookup control from ACT! software. ContactList Plus doen’t cut it. I’ve repeatedly ask for programming changes without results or even feedback from the guys at Durkin Computing. Please ask these guys from Sage if there’s any interest on their part to program this back into ACT!.
Thanks,
Steve
Steve-
Thanks for the note, so I understand, can you please give an example of what “custom lookup control” means for you? Scenario of how you used it in passed versions, etc? This will help me formulate your question… Thanks.
Mark-
I’ve noted your question…. Thanks.
Dear Travis:
For the small one person business - why can’t there be a version whose footprint is smaller consuming LESS resources?
Why can’t the program be made such that we have email capacity, database capacity and some of the other basics without all the whistles and bells.
Probably there are a goodly number of small independent contractors whose business could be improved with an ACT such as ACT 6 or something of this nature. I know ACT has ramped up to service the much larger corporations, but give the large number of small contractors it is my guess there would be a huge number of people who would like to have something akin to the older version of ACT, that did not take such gargantuan amounts of hard drive and cpu usage.
Just my two pennies worth. I’m still using ACT 6 because I don’t need all that is incorporated in the new SAGE version. But would be willing to upgrade if the new basic version were available.
Respectfully
Reeder Lyons
IMH Remodeling & Repair
Hey Reeder!
Good to see you here. Point well taken, and seems to come up from time to time. I have it down.
Speak soon.
Travis - I’m concerned about the terrible reviews I continue to read about versions of ACT released after version 6.0 - which is why I have never upgraded. I sync ACT to my Palm and just don’t want to gamble given the poor commentary. - - Not a question, but a comment you can share. - - And of course if you have any feedback to convince me all is OK now, I’d be interested in hearing it.
Thanks,
Jim
Very good point Jim, I think you speak for many. I will make sure that this topic is included in my discussions with them.
Apparently the engineers in the ACT development group don’t listen to anyone. Comments submitted directly to them before the last release were almost completely ignored. It seems they are only interested in adding some bells & whistles to sell a new release of ACT as opposed to adding real functional improvements.
I submitted the following requests prior to the last release of ACT — which I returned after receiving it. I am still using ACT 2007.
OPPORTUNITIES
1. You still can’t sort some columns (Example: Product Name)
2. You still can’t click on an entry in the Product Name column and pull up an entry in the database. Businesses whose products are people or other businesses need this because all data is in the same ACT database.
CONTACT LIST
1. We use to be able to edit field entries directly in the Contact List and now that capibility is gone.
2. When sorting on Contact we need the choice of sorting on first name first or last name first.
VISTA OPERATING SYSTEM
ACT has become so slow under the Vista Operating System that I am sure businesses are losing billions of dollars in additional man-hours equired to use ACT.
GENERAL COMMENT
If the ACT development engineers can’t do a better job of improving the product then I think it is time that they be replaced with new software development people.
Is that enough?
H. Leon Raper
Why did they drop the ability to use WinFax Pro?
Travis,
Just me again; No insult intended AT ALL.
Probably, if the 1000’s of small contractor’s thought their interest were being taken seriously you’d have a GREAT deal more input. Many of the contractors whose wont it was to continue using the ACT product felt shut out because of the large foot print and all the associated problems that were a part of trying to use the corporate size program.
I know there is a need for the present software; however am also certain were we as small “one horse businesses” given a voice, it seems to me that your company would have a deluge of interest.
Perhaps the old saying “I’d rather have 1% of 100 people rather then 100% of 1 person” holds some wisdom. Seems Andrew Carnegie made this statement???
Again, just my two penny’s worth.
That old carpenter
Reeder
Travis,
I agree with Jim 1 gazillion %.
That is one of the major reasons I continue using ACT 6 as well.
That old carpenter
Reeder
H. Leon Raper-
Ok, I sense some hostility in your comment. That’s cool, I’m all about keeping it real, but let’s continue to keep it professional. I say this so that this post keeps on the up and up. If you want to rant, do so in such a way your mother or priest/pastor would be proud of you. If we are constructive about this, you never know what might come out of it, deal?
Ok, in keeping it real, I need to share a few things with you Leon.
1.) ACT! 2007 wasn’t designed to run under Vista (or Office 2007), there was a patch of sorts, but it didn’t cover all the features.
2.) ACT! 2008 is supported under Vista, and Office 2007. It is the fastest performance combination I’ve seen since they came out with the SQL edition of ACT!. HOWEVER, it does not yet support 64 bit Operating System which is offered in XP Pro, Vista, and Server OSes.
Back to the top of your list… With ACT! 2008 (yes, I’m running Vista) I can…
Opportunities
1.) Sort opportunity list view, product names, and all default colums.
2.) Not sure what you exactly mean here, but this might be available to you with the support of custom tables in 10.02 which released last month.
Contact List
1.) Inline editing was brought back in ACT! 2008.
2.) I can sort on Firstname or Lastname.
I have noted your concerns, I know you are not alone in your concerns, thanks for your feedback.
Gary-
Faxing. Do people still have fax machines?
Comment noted. Thanks.
Reeder-
Yes I agree, there are perception concerns in the market regarding ACT!
Perhaps I can solicit some feedback from them on that.
Thanks again.
Travis,
I’ve used ACT! for years, and primarily I use the Contact Listing screen to print weekly call sheets for myself. I organize the look of the screen and then print each week of sales calls. My primary beef with ACT! is that they dropped any real means of custom control of the contact list screen when they rewrote the code a few years back. ContactList Plus does allow customization, but when it comes to printing, it doesn’t allow for saving of print setups. That means that every week when I make changes to my database, and then re-print contact list screens, I have to start over making print changes from default values. Also, when using ContactList Plus, I’ll choose a lookup to use, and half the columns go blank. I uncheck the lookup box and the fields re-populate. It’s frustrating because I never receive a response back from Jim Durkin concerning problems. I hope this will help you understand my initial question better. Your welcome to call me.
Thanks,
Steve
I bought ACT 2008 (single) when Goldmine stopped supporting their single user version. At this point I’m going back. ACT takes forever to advance from one screen to the next after you make a change and it slows everything else down. I didn’t by a high end laptop to have to pare it down.
To boot, the only response I got out of my 30 day free support regarding the issue was to upgrade to Premium - for another $200. Add that to the $200/yr for tech support and I’ll return to GM or use Outlooks BCM. It’s not worth the money or hassle at this point. needless to say, after months or research I’m disappointed. I;ve used GM for over 10 years and I’m still looking a replacement…
Steve-
Ah, I think I have a better idea what you are facing. ACT! has had issues
with preferences sticking in the SQL version, and customized colums in the contact list view are tied to preferences. In the most recent release they changed the way they are storing preferences, and they are now sticking much better than before.
I don’t know if this fully answers your question, I will be talking to Jim Durkin as well, and will see what he says.
FYI: You might consider exporting to Excel, and then running a macro against your spreadsheet which alters it to your liking and then print….just a thought.
Travis;
Can’t speak for any of the others on the forum, but for me personally, it seems your being sent into the “Lion’s Den”.
On that personal note I appreciate all you do and try to do in helping those who have problems, even more your civility.
I am empathetic of Mr. Raper’s pain; understand the deep frustration software sometimes causes. Regardless of “fault” most of us just want to plug and play, software engineers we aren’t.
LOL
It looks as though you’ve touched a button whose nerve is close to the surface. !!!
Have a blessed day and a blessed trip. It would bring great pleasure to hear that there was some interest in soliciting the small contractor whose needs are not on the mega scale.
Blessing upon you.
That old carpenter
Reeder
Richard-
You might try stopping all security software on your system (including Windows firewall), and observing performance. If there is an improvement, then you have an idea your security software is slowing things down. I have seen top of the line workstations runnin ACT! very slowly… once I dialed in the security (and a few other) settings, it was flying.
Hope that helps.
Reeder-
Thanks for the kind words. I am going into the Lions den, you are correct, but I can handle it :-). Truth is, I don’t make the software, so I need to ‘take it to my partner’ Sage, and see what they say. They have the power to engineer the software differently. I cannot convince them. But you can, you ALL can. Keep the comments coming (if I can keep up with them!).
I know Leon, he is a customer of mine (a while back), and a good man. He is rightly frustrated, and I intend to incorporate his comments in whatever interview I have with the Sage Execs. I’m hopeful that there is an awareness that they must fight being insulated from customers (yes, even at the highest levels), so that the market doesn’t pass them by.
It should be interesting what report I come back with…
Thanks for the blessings on my trip. At least I have a cool van to travel in eh?
Travis, have fun in D.C….We are a small business and do not use some of the features. However, the feature we have need of the most is to sync Ellie’s Palm to ACT and ACT to Palm. We have a program now but we cannot get it to work both ways.
We have about 2198 clients in our ACT and it is crucial that Ellie have the same information in her Palm that I have in the Master ACT.
Help!
Betty
Travis: I just left DC after 4 days!! The weather is very nice.
I would like an improved search “window”. The ability to search multiple fields or to add additional info like a character from the first name or company, so i don’t have to look at my list of 15 Smiths to find and double click Bob. I currently use eGrabber Suite, but it would be nice if this were built into the bar above the contact screen.
I think you need to highlight those cool guys at VoIP AddOn for ACT. they are cool.
Hey Bob-
Hopefully the nice weather will continue.
You make an interesting request! I’ve made note of it. Thanks Bob.
What about the rest of you out there? Isn’t there something you’d like to see the application do, or do better? What about the DIRECTION Sage is taking the product. Did you know there is an ACT! for Real Estate, and an ACT! for Financial Professionals?? Just a few thoughts.
Ira-
Perhaps you can smile for the camera and tell us what the heck a VOIP Addon for ACT is?
See you there.
Travis:
I’m new to ACT. Using ACT! email not Outlook
1. I’d like to able to right click on an email in the list and have a “go to contact” option.
2. Also would like it if after replying to an email that the original email and my reply email are automatically filed in the contact record in history, and remove it from the main email screen.
3. Also, in the folders list I’d like it if in the “sent” folder they were organized into monthly subfolders.
4. Also, the addition of a “filed” folder with monthly subfolders.
BTW, all of these requests are features of Goldmine…oops…the competition.
Thanks brother…
TH
Tim-
Thanks for the note. What version of ACT! are you using? I’ve made a note of your requests.
Hi Travis,
I have to change the record manager for several records at the same time. This means individually opening each effected account. I have over 8000 accounts. This is very time consuming and takes several days to do. Each time my remote sales team is moved to another area I have to do this.
Can you please ask when I will be able to globally make those changes to everyone at the same time. As far as I know I cannot make global changes to the record manager. Thanks!
Jason
In previous versions of act you use to be able to open a calender and drag activities to a new day. This feature has been removed and when rescheduling multiple activities you cannot do it efficiently. Having to open each activity to reschedule is not good unless there is another way that I am unaware of. I use Premium workgroups 2008.
I want to add colors to my Act in all the fields!
I want more addresss, bill to , ship to, warehouse ship to , not enough room now
Stop adding updates that are only for large companies. The latest ones opportunities, and dash board I find worthless for a small business. I am not going to keep upgrading unless there are good reasons for small businesses.
I would like to be able to link from Documents to write orders and keep track of invoices and other management info.
Need to be able in Notes, History to add more than one attachment at a time
I work with groups a lot, and it is awkward, can’t write emails and letters easily from selecting a whole group. Make this easier
Design layouts and define fields is the most confusing to fix, so I never do, make this more user friendly
Synchronizing to 2 computers is very confusing and scary to do, make this simplier,
Write directions in you help files for people that may not be versed with act, make it more user friendly. The instructions are always written for someone the is on the inside and has worked with act daily as a programer.
Link Act back to Stamps.com, you can’t use the most current act with stamps.com’s address book
why did you do away with WINFAX PRO, it is on of the most useful tools ever for ACT
I agree with Reeder. We are still using ACT 6 for the same reasons. At this point, I cannot wait for ACT improvements that many competitors already have.
We are converting our data to a web browser hosted solution. I would have preferred a stable SQL local network install for a small company, too, with excel export of all data, better marketing automation, tracking multiple product and service proposals by Company and contact within company, better reporting on any fields of the data including sales opportunty. Creating an activity series is not available in ACT 2008 on the sales opportunity fields.
There just are not enough marketing and productivity improvements to a trusted old database approach. ACT development has been very unresponsive for years to requests for functionality which is why more companies do not upgrade with each new version.
Hi Travis:
Thanks for seeking our input.
What I would like to see in a new version of ACT are the following:
1. The ability to save a sort order (3-5 fields) in Advanced Query.
2. Opening view to Monthly or Weekly Calender.
3. Priority View of Activity Items in Calender View - Appts. in order followed by Activities in High to Low Priority. Like ACT 6.
4. Faster view of Contact Layout - initially at startup quite slow
5. Continue to improve speed and stability.
Overall, Sage has made noticeable improvements since ACT 2005. It has been a rough ride. They need to review just how functionable ACT 6 is and duplicate those basics. North American support is preferred.
On the positive side, lookups are more comprehensive and faster, new field implementation is much better, Outlook integration is terrific, document management is great, and the application is more modern looking. ACT for Palm Version 3 is very useful and an improvement over Version1. They are definately going in the right direction.
Thanks,
Ron
ACT! by Sage 2008 (10.0) Version 10.0.0.237, Hotfix 1
Travis,
Nice Shades.
Long time Act user (single) and, after buying and returning a previous Act! upgrade (2007 ?) and much consternation, I made the upgrade to 2008 - due to your support and prodding.
Comment: I miss the quickness of my old Act! 6. The new version is so clunky - a word I’ve heard you use to explain some aspects of 2008. It seems to take days to open and struggles to merge with Word when I want to write a letter. It is painful to watch and wait for this version to lumber through tasks that Act! 6 would just bolt through.
Question: Why isn’t “Calendar” an option for Startup View under Log On settings of the Startup tab of Preferences on the Tools menu?
By the way, unclicking the box “Open each view in its own window” seems to make the program run faster.
Appreciate all your support and insight.
Jason-
What version of ACT! are you currently running?
Was this something that worked to your liking in an older version?
I can speak to them about this however, what you are up against is a common challenge. Depending on your requirements there are a couple ways to tackle it….allowing you to spend minutes instead of days…
Steve-
That’s a good one, and one that I haven’t heard for a while. I’ve got it down…
You might want to try this program that I have had good success with, it brings back the feature you describe, and a whole lot more. You might want to do the trial first to make sure though. Here is the link to enhance the ACT! calendar.
Hope that helps, report back and let us know.
Lisa-
Wow, that is a great list! It seems like there is a common theme here pertaining to the needs of small business, or more specifically soloprenuers…
Some of your requests are new, and some are duplicates (which helps me prioritize…).
One observation here, if you want to attach emails to a group or company, I know of a product that does it (along with other things). Now you have to *select* which company or group you want to attach it to, so we know for sure it doesn’t read minds, LOL. I posted on it a few months back, and quite a few subscribers have given positive feedback on it… It makes ACT! and Outlook much easier, there is a video of the product there as well.
Hope that helps. Stay tuned…
Suzanne-
Thanks for your comments, honesty, and for the professional way of doing it. You are keeping it real.
Ok, so you are right on, not a ton of integrated marketing in ACT! Heck, for me, I have NO integration in ACT! for these blog comments by all of you (maybe that’s a product idea… :-)… In any case there are a couple products that bolt onto ACT! that automate marketing, but they require a total commitment for the first few weeks of using them, are expensive to implement, but can dramatically change a business for good. But I digress….
For purposes of my interview, can you expand on your comment “Creating an activity series is not available in ACT 2008 on the sales opportunity fields.” What would be a use scenario, and what would it do for you? This will help me understand and better convey this to the folks at Sage.
Looks like this mini project is turning into a part-time job! Great to see the interest.
BTW, love the domain name pro-ductivity.com
Ron-
Thanks for your nod of appreciation on soliciting feedback.
Nice job clearly communicating what you’d like to see. I think it is a good idea to point out some of the positive steps they have made with the product since converting to SQL version (ACT! 2005), which by all accounts was a headache for most… (especially certified consultants…).
As with others, I have taken note of your comments.
Tim-
Thanks, your #1 item is doable in ACT! email, right click on the email in the inbox-go to contact. (I’m not in the office to confirm this, and prefer Outlook integration).
Let me know if I’m missing something here…
Greg-
Shades. Yes, it is true the sun shines in Cleveland from time to time…
Prodding? You make it sound like I was pushy… Ok, perhaps I was, maybe I should loose the shades afterall (no, I’ve never sold cars)…
…back to your comments…
I have wondered that very thing, why a calendar (or even the *opportunity list*) isn’t an available startup view preference).
As for speed. It compare it to going from a Jeep to a Hummer, the Jeep is faster off the line, but can only carry half the load, and isn’t nearly as posh as the H2.
Test the performance after turning off the Firewall, and all security software. I’ve seen various “Security Suites” bring powerful systems to a crawl (with or without ACT!). Also, make sure you defrag the hard drive.
I have a feeling I’ll need to sum up this input, so I might be speaking to you again soon.
Travis,
I see two areas that clients have expressed interest with: free alternatives and mobility. I would like to see IMAP support officially added. Yes many have gotten it to work without problem but official support status would be nice. Many small business folks leverage those free AOL accounts for their business that use IMAP so having official support would help. Also having compatibility with Open Office and the open document formats would also provide the end user a choice of multiple applications that edit that same file. The Beta vesion of Open Office 3 looks like it will support the Microsoft Office 2007 formats. People are looking for alternatives to reduce their dependence on office suites that are based on proprietary licensing models. Adding to that I would like to see full support for Lotus Notes 8.x. It not only provides a viable alternative to Outlook but it scales nicely from small shops to very large ones, is much more secure than Outlook and it integrates open document formats with Symphony support. So, the combination of Lotus Notes and Open Office are quite compelling in terms of reduced cost and increased features in comparison to another leading office suite. In terms of direction it would be my preference to suggest that the ACT!link products and the ACT! for PalmOS products get dropped in favor of working out say a deal with Companionlink to bundle their software with ACT! It’s better, works with most handhelds on the market and costs less. Have the developers working on those projects work on some other things like Suzanne’s marketing suggestion or possibly finding a way to integrate ACT! more tightly with the social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace and so forth. In the news coverage of the national election campaigns it was suggested that the demographics of the large cohort that includes the folks in their twenties and thirties they are savvy with and regularly use these mobile technologies and social networking options so providing options to meet those needs will help contribute to continued viability. Best wishes and safe travels. I had planned previously on attending myself but had to change plans but do plan to attend one in the near future.
Thanks for your efforts.
An Activity Series could be initiated when a prospect advances between stages within a status. As an Open prospect at various stages, I would like an Activity Series of todos & calls created to remind sales people to do certain proven steps to advance a prospect toward Closed - Won or Closed - Open. I also need and activity series intitated to prompt A/R steps to occur once we receive an order. That means, we have to confirm the product shipped, the product is received on a particular date and then that payment is received x days after confirmed product receipt. Email messages could trigger at certain dates or stages, etc. I would be happy if reminders (to dos) would be created for the sales person (owner) of the contact as opposed to expecting canned emails to automatically be sent. I’m also sending invoices as PDF attachments to an email rather than using Quickbooks integration.
I consider a closed-won prospect to be a lifetime customer. Not many CRM packages allow for the process to start all over with a new product (multiple products and sales opps per company). Apparently ACT2008 does. Unfortunately without marketing automation, a small firm is not going to survive in this competitive world. These features are no longer luxuries but necessities.
I can’t believe they dropped Winfax and still don’t have Quickbooks integration. I know there are addons from 3d parties, but I’d rather see Sage get an alliance marketing agreement with them and offer them directly and support them directly.
Thanks for considering more input,
Suzanne
Steve-
All good points, and noted… Talk to me more about social networking. What does social networking integration mean to you? What would it do? What would a use case be? What value would it add?
Thanks again.
Suzanne-
Thanks for the extended clarification….
I wish they would make navigation the same throughout the program. If the slider button works in one window it should work in them all and it doesn’t.
I concur with the resource hog issues, I bit the bullet and bought a new notebook just to run it. It still takes a long time to boot up, but once it’s running it goes fast.
Hi Travis,
Ok. What I really need is reliable interoperability with Exchange Server, both from an email and scheduling point of view.
Not all our staff use Act or need it on a day to day basis.
We need to alloow these users to schedule an appointment in Outlook, and have it appear in Act and vice versa,
Nearly everything I read on this says it can be done, but every forum is filled with horror stories of users who’ve attempted it.
This is not rocket science. Surely there’s a simple integrated solution from SAGE.
My only other alternative is CRM, which I think is a poor cousin.
Oh, and while I’m putting points across, We already have SQL server licenses. Why should I need to buy another for ACT. Why can’t I just run it in with the rest of our DB’s. Surely they can get a client based licensing model that sorts this out.
I’ve got a few more, but hell, you’ll be busy enough with everything else everyone wants you to raise.
Good luck and good work
From the land downunder!
Rob
Dave-
Thanks for providing input. What would really be helpful is to provide a specific use case example. Like, “when I’m in the contact list view, and I click… it does ‘X’, but when I’m in the opportunity list view, and I click… it does ‘Y’ why can’t these be the same?”
Make sense?
This specificity is what I’ve found to work best in getting answers (and *action*) in the past.
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 www.TravisHelpDesk.com