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ACT! 2010 – 3-Tips-in-20 Series

Here’s a quick sprint through three ACT! 2010 features and shortcuts to simpilfy your day:ACT! 2010 Tips in Twenty Seconds.

Mini-Calendar:  No matter which screen you are in ACT! 2010 press F4 to view the mini calendar and see three months in one view.
Lookup in a field: Cut down on mouse clicks by right-clicking in a field. Then perform the Lookup as usual.
Start up view: OK, there aren’t a wealth of choices, … [Continue reading "ACT! 2010 – 3-Tips-in-20 Series"]

ACT! Users Group for the New Economy

Some friends and I recently joked about the overuse of the phrase, “Now, more than ever . . .” applied to, well, almost everything. But we are challenged, in fact, to think about what we can do differently now to dig out, get ahead, and stay ahead. One easy solution is to use the systems we have in place more effectively. For others, it’s developing new systems to streamline and automate.

Far Out, Man

Social Media is Groovy man

Peace, Love, and Social Media

You’re hep, you’re groovy, you’re now. You’re down with your peeps but not quite up on technology. You think, “This blog and Twitter jive might be what’s happenin’ but I’m not down with it”. Bummer, man.

Back in the day, as the internet and email evolved into business tools, some people thought they could wait it out and it … [Continue reading "Far Out, Man"]

Avoid Excel Overkill!

Excel OverkillI once observed a VP of a very large corporation build from scratch, in Excel, a “sophisticated”  tool that would allow remote users to enter data in a centrally located Excel file.  It was full of gizmo’s like macros and sophisticated formulas.  In total effort, over several  months, he spent about 6 weeks Continue reading Avoid Excel Overkill!

Tags: 3rd-party product, ACT!, Business, CRM, CRM, estimate, estimating, Excel, Integrated Quoting, Productivity, Productivity, Quote, QuoteWerks, Quoting, Reporting

The Gap'll Getcha'

How do you know what you don’t know? It’s with great confidence that I say: What I don’t know would fill – should they still exist – several sets of encyclopedias. This is the natural state for most human beings, and it’s a condition that’s accelerating with the pace of technological change.

Mind The Gap

Continue reading The Gap’ll Getcha’

Tags: ACT!, Business, contact management, CRM, CRM, Customer Relationship Management, Productivity, Project planning, ROI

Smart Notes for ACT!

One brilliant little app. Countless process improvements.

Smart Notes for ACT! enables “Hey! Pay attention to this!!” notifications that can accelerate sales, improve productivity, and impact customer retention.

This little ACT! integration is a simple, effective way to inform a user of important information when viewing a contact record.  A field or a note update in ACT! may not be noticed by a busy sales rep or harried admin; Smart Notes for ACT! delivers the message right to the screen so it can’t  be missed.

Check out the video to … [Continue reading "Smart Notes for ACT!"]

CRM: investment or expense? It's your call.

. . .challenging us to look beyond immediate needs to understand how ACT! could be a strategic tool was truly a value. … [Continue reading "CRM: investment or expense? It’s your call."]

I didn’t know I could do that with ACT! Part 2 – Reports

There are a lot of features in ACT! that are fun to use; report design isn’t one of them. ACT! installs with about 40 reports with which users can generate notes, history, activity, sales opportunities, company, group, and contact reports. Default reports can be customized to a greater or lesser degree (or new reports created) and then the report can be filtered at run-time by date ranges, record manager, etc. While simple reports in ACT! are fine for many users, ACT! reports don’t do a good job of … [Continue reading "I didn’t know I could do that with ACT! Part 2 – Reports"]

I didn’t know I could do that with ACT! Part 1- Quoting

QuoteWerks integrates seamlessly not only with ACT!, but also with Microsoft Business Contact Manager, Goldmine, salesforce.com, Maximizer, SalesLogix, and otther CRM/contact manager applications. … [Continue reading "I didn’t know I could do that with ACT! Part 1- Quoting"]

I didn’t know I could do that with ACT!

ACT! contact management software was introduced over 20 years ago.  Although originally designed as the simplest of tools, ACT! has evolved considerably over the last few years. The changes in ACT! have been so significant, in fact, that it’s often lumped into the CRM category (erroneously, but we’ll get to that).  Unlike enterprise-level applications, ACT! is contact-centric, with a focus  on managing and maintaining interactions with individuals.

The current version of ACT! (2009, v 11.1) supports pipeline management, account-level management, manages relationships between contact records, and even has modest workflow capabilties.  While … [Continue reading "I didn’t know I could do that with ACT!"]