by Susan Clark on May 20, 2013

Susan Clark with Bob Ogden and John Oechsle

Just got back from a couple of days in Scottsdale, sitting down and talking with almost all of the new Swiftpage management team at ACT! (Sage sold ACT! and SalesLogix to Swiftpage in March of this year).

Got a chance to meet with John Oechsle, the new President and CEO at Swiftpage (at the right in the photo). I’ve known Bob Ogdon (chairman of the board at Swiftpage) for almost 10 years. He was the primary reason that I was excited when Swiftpage announced that they were buying ACT! from Sage. The product could NOT be in better hands. Bob has always had a passion about developing software and services that transform end users’ businesses. He gets the concept of the sales cycle and building relationships.

Dan Ogdon is the new GM and product manager for ACT!. If you came to our Sage ACT! road show about 4 years ago, he was part of the Swiftpage team that came to town to support the show and spread the word about the new integration with ACT!. Now Dan is spending his days focusing on customer feedback and leading the team to integrate services that are in demand right now.

The whole management team that they are putting together has amazing backgrounds.

Of course they are well on the road to perfecting a SAAS version of ACT!, but they have also committed to keeping their desktop customers happy. I also got a look at the next desktop version that will be released sometime this fall.

So here is my first breaking news:

  • This next version (2014-v16) that will be released this fall has the most impressive set of features that I have seen in a long time. I mean real features that are usable, not ones that just sound good. More on that as I am allowed to talk about it.
  • After that release of 2014, Swiftpage will discontinue the focus on annual releases.They are focused on delivering a stabilized version with a code base that is updated via service packs This gives them the time to focus on putting more fully developed features into the product without the arbitrary threat of having to ship on an annual basis. Yea!
  • Swiftpage is committed to continuing the development of a web/SAAS model of ACT!
  • The mood is SOO different in the corporate offices. The product development team (they took most of the team from Sage) is excited about the new owners who definitely have more of a sales focus (as opposed to the accounting focus of the previous owners). They feel that management is much more open-minded and that they are encouraging creativity in the product direction. The sales teams are looking forward to having features that are valuable to talk about, as well as real options to online products like Salesforce.com.

Looking forward to the future of ACT! once again.

p.s. Back to regular tips starting next week.

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ACT! Has New Owners

by Susan Clark on February 15, 2013

I wanted to let you know that there was an announcement made this morning that Sage has entered into an agreement to sell ACT! and SalesLogix to Swiftpage. Swiftpage is the partner that has provided the e-marketing platform for ACT and SalesLogix for about 10 years and has been a huge user and supporter of ACT! during that time.

We are really excited about this announcement. While Sage has a minor equity stake (16.1%) in the new merger, Swiftpage will be the driving force in managing and continuing to develop the product lines. So, now ACT! will be managed by a sales and marketing-focused company and not an accounting software company.

I’ve personally known the Swiftpage owners and management team for about nine years and I am so impressed with their company. I’ve already seen the new interface that Swiftpage has developed for their e-marketing product… it is an amazing upgrade from their existing offering and I am looking forward to its release. I am also looking forward to the plans they have for the ACT! product line.

To see the official announcement, you can go here. I’ll keep you updated.

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Adding Holidays to Your 2013 ACT! Calendar

by Susan Clark on January 10, 2013

2013CalendarSeveral years ago I scheduled a webinar on Memorial Day (because I didn’t have the Federal Holidays marked in my calendar). Oops!

It’s a new year and I wanted to remind you how easy it is to add holidays as “Events” in your ACT! calendar. Only one person in the company needs to add them to the ACT! database, yet Events appear at the top of everyone’s calendar. It is also a great way to add employee birthdays, vacation schedules, or even trade shows.

Really, it’s important to at least add the Federal Holidays (I have them listed below).

Adding n Event to Your ACT! Database

  1. In ACT!*, click Schedule, Manage, Events
  2. Click Add… (Use the list of 2012 federal holidays below if you like).
  3. Enter the Event Name: and the Date:.
  4. Click OK.

* You must have Administrator or Manager role to create Events in your database.

2013 Federal Holidays
Monday, 1/21/2013 - Martin Luther King, Jr. Birthday
Monday, 2/18/2013 – Washington’s Birthday
Monday, 5/27/2013 – Memorial Day
Thursday, 7/4/2013 – Independence Day
Monday, 9/2/2013 - Labor Day
Monday, 10/14/2013 – Columbus Day
Monday, 11/11/2013 - Veterans Day
Thursday, 11/28/2013 – Thanksgiving Day
Wednesday, 12/25/2013 – Christmas Day
Wednesday, 1/1/2014 – New Years Day

Other days you could also add to the calendar
Sunday, 2/10/2013 – Chinese New Year
Thursday, 2/14/2013 – Valentines Day
Wednesday, 2/13/2013 – Ash Wednesday
Sunday, 3/10/2013 – Daylight Savings Time
Sunday, 3/17/2013 - St Patrick’s Day
Sunday, 3/24/2013 – Palm Sunday
Friday, 3/26/2013 – Passover Begins
Friday, 3/29/2013 – Good Friday
Sunday, 3/31/2013 – Easter
Sunday, 5/12/2013 – Mother’s Day
Sunday, 6/16/2013 – Father’s Day
Thursday, 9/5/2013 – Rosh Hashanah
Saturday, 9/14/2013 – Yom Kippur
Thursday, 10/31/2013 – Halloween
Sunday, 11/3/2013 – Daylight Savings Time Ends
Friday, 11/29/2013 - After Thanksgiving
Saturday, 11/28/2013 - Hanukkah Begins

p.s. If the events doesn’t display on your calendar, it may be that they have been turned off.
Click Tools, Preferences, click the Calendar & Scheduling tab
Click Calendar Preferences button.
Put a check in the Display events option.
OK, OK

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See an iPad in Your Future?

by Susan Clark on December 11, 2012

Do you see an iPad or other tablet in your future? Want to get a version of ACT! on your tablet or smart phone?

I now have an iPad, a Google Nexus tablet, and a Droid phone. Love them all and use each of them for different reasons at different times. BUT I am also an avid ACT! user and needed access to my ACT database on all my devices. I needed an app that would allow me to:

  • work with my ACT data when I don’t have an Internet connection (my iPad and Nexus are wireless only),
  • create ACT! activities with a specific contact (not with my record like Outlook or CompanionLink),
  • clear an activity, record the history with the contact, and schedule a follow-up,
  • create a history of calls I make with a contact,
  • have all of this sync back to my ACT! database at the office,
  • AND I need to be able to look up specific client information (not the Rolodex kind) on the device while I am out of the office.

Enter Handheld Contact. Handheld Contact (HHC) provides all of these benefits and more that are really important to me and definitely worth the extra expense from a productivity perspective.

HHC installs as a separate program on your Apple, Android, Blackberry or Windows devices and syncs your data so that everything is available offline (AND the footprint is one of the smallest on my iPad… can’t figure out how they made it so small with all of the data that I sync)

  • It allows me to see all, or only a portion, of my contacts (I only choose a portion, since our database is pretty large)
  • It syncs ALL fields in my database to my devices (or only selected ones if I like)
  • I can sync other user’s calendars to my device if I chose (but I have enough of my own stuff to track)
  • I can limit the activity types (I could choose not to send To-Dos)
  • It wirelessly syncs updates to me every hour.
  • It works with ACT! 2007 to current and works for ACT for Web users as well.

If you are interested in more information, give us a call (713-661-5095) or check it out here.

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Some Obscure, but Helpful ACT! Preferences

October 30, 2012

In my last tip, I told you about the preferences that I always set when setting up my client’s workstation. Here are a few other obscure, but very useful preferences  that you might not know about. For example, would you like it if the alarm feature in ACT! actually made a sound? Prompt for a Quote [...]

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5 ACT! Preferences I Always Set

October 1, 2012

Do you know what all those ACT! preference (Tools, Preferences) options really do? Here are the 5 preferences that I always change when I am setting up a client’s workstation to help make them more productive in their use of ACT! To modify your ACT! preferences Click Tools, Preferences… Set Grid Lines for list views. By [...]

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The Most Important Appointment to Set

July 18, 2012

Last year during my annual physical (though not sure why I call it annual, since it had probably been several years since the last one), my doctor asked my “How long have you had that lump on your throat?” What lump? Long story shortened, I had my thyroid removed. Fortunately, all is well now, but [...]

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You Can Give it to Someone Else

June 12, 2012

Really… you don’t have to do everything yourself. Quite a few years ago, our staff abandoned the concept of emailing each other with a request to do something. And then emailing or calling to follow up on whether the task had been done yet. Now we enter an activity in ACT! and schedule it for [...]

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Quotes from ACT!

May 22, 2012

Is quoting giving your company headaches? Does it seem like quotes take too much time to generate? Could you easily pull up a list of all outstanding quotes? Does your sales team remember to follow up on those quotes they spent so much time on? If someone is out of the office, could anyone on [...]

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Secrets of Using the Task List

May 8, 2012

Understanding how to better use list views can make a big difference in your productivity and using ACT!. Take the Task List view for example. Whenever I set up ACT! for a client, one of the things I might do is customize the column display. It is easy to do (and the process works for [...]

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