Deciding on a CRM or Contact Management system for your business is no easy task, if you take it seriously.  You might want to understand specific needs in a contact management system, such as email integration, contact tracking, sales opportunity tracking, mail merging, reporting, contact automation, importing new web leads, Outlook integration, web access, and whatever else might suit your situation.  This can be a very time consuming task.  I’m helping professionals like you by making my complete review of the Sage ACT! 2011 software available at no cost.

Contact Management Review-Sage ACT! 2011 Now LIVE!

Get instant access to this important contact management software review at http://www.WhatsNewWithACT.com

If you have already signed up there and are bold enough, please introduce yourself using the comments section below, feel free to offer any feedback, questions, you may have.

Ready to purchase?  Consider the great Sage ACT! discounts here.

Looking forward to hearing from you.
-Travis

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In the beginning users were just happy to have software to organize their contacts.  Next was the need to get data onto their smartphone, and needs have increased from there.  With the popularity of ACT! in larger environments (50 or even 100 users), the need for security controls on the database have grown as well.  Today’s post concludes a series of posts of new features introduced in Sage ACT! 2011.  We’ll look at the new Admin tab within preferences and how each of the options function within the database, as well as a video preview of the security features in action.

Improved New Security Options in Sage ACT! 2011

Note: NOW LIVE! complete video review of Sage ACT! 2011 here, it covers all that’s new, includes a demo of the webaccess function in Sage ACT! 2011, as well as a bonus video for those starting their search for a contact management system entitled, 7 Elements of a Good Contact Manager. It’s here

Security Preferences: New Database Preferences

For administrators there is a new tab within preferences called “Admin” option in preferences which allows for control of various data entry areas in the database.

Restrict Emails from Being Attached to User Records

One of the challenges for larger environments in previous versions, is there was no control in recording histories sent from one ACT! user to other ACT! users (inter-office email) in the same database.  This would create a potential security breach as one ACT! user could review correspondences between two other colleagues (VP and Manager discussing staff raises, benefit plans, etc.).  With this feature enabled, this becomes a problem of the past.

Restrict Emails Attachments in the Database

As nice as it is to “attach” emails to the database the disk space requirements can grow considerably, especially if systems have this feature enabled by default.  The idea here is this feature can be disabled on a database regardless of settings at an individual workstation.  More control for the administrator.

Restrict File Attachment in the Database

The last aspect of control is file attachments.  Example: When a user merges a template (like a Microsoft Word document), they have the option to save the document to the contact record.  Sage has introduced the ability to restrict this functionality from within the Admin tab of ACT! 2011.
Here’s a video preview of the new ACT! security options:

Will this feature mean anything to you?  Questions? Feedback? Chime in using the comment boxes below.

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Automation serves as a key competitive advantage for any business.  If software can automate something otherwise done by a human being, time has been leveraged, and businesses can do more.  I love automation and use it in my business all the time. Perhaps you ended up on this webpage, as a result of automated systems in my business, don’t take it personal, I’m just trying to serve more people than I could alone.  When we automate in our business we are actually caring for customers and prospects if we have a meaningful message to share.  With ACT! 2011, Sage now offers workflow/automation with their smart tasks feature.  Let me review it here.

Sage ACT! 2011 Finally Brings Workflow with Smart Tasks

Note: NOW LIVE! complete video review of Sage ACT! 2011 here, it covers all that’s new, includes a demo of the webaccess function in Sage ACT! 2011, as well as a bonus video for those starting their search for a contact management system entitled, 7 Elements of a Good Contact Manager. It’s here

Smart Task Templates

The smart task process it based on templates.  Similar to email or document templates, they provide the instructions for the software to follow when running a smart task on a contact, group of contacts, or an entire database.

10 Prefilled Templates for Common Tasks

Sage ACT! 2011 comes with 10 build-in templates for users to get started.  This is helpful if you want to get an idea how to integrate common smart tasks into your daily business practices.  These smart task templates can be edited or duplicated per users needs.

Two Categories of Included Smart Task Templates

1-General Productivity: Things like, birthday reminders, contacts that have had no recent activity, welcoming new contacts, or if a contact has incomplete information.

2-Sales Focused: An alert to the sale rep if an opportunity has a high value, a notice on an opportunity which is a week from closing, closed opportunity follow-up, and prospecting process.

*It is worth noting that some of these smart tasks integrate with ACT! E-marketing and do require an active account to function.

Easy Customization

There is a visual designer for the smart tasks editor, which requires no programming skills.  Essentially, if you’ve taken the time to think through your business processes, or even write them down, first congratulate yourself (most don’t do this basic thing in their business), then take a few minutes to implement a given business process as a smart task with a few drag and drops.

And it doesn’t have to be a business process; it can be as simple as creating a tasks, or sending an email when a specific event occurs to a contact.

Here’s a preview Video of Smart Tasks in action:

Smart Task User Visibility

Templates can be configured as viewable to users or not.  Giving managers and admins control so that sales reps and productivity users don’t get too happy with smart tasks and clog up your database.

Pause or Activate Smart Tasks

Don’t want a smart task to run? Pause it.  Want it to run? Un-pause or set to auto-run.

View Pending Smart Tasks

It templates aren’t set to apply tasks to a record immediately, it hangs out in a pending state, so users can review them and apply them on a case by case basis.  Just beware; this list has the potential to get long if you have multiple users using smart tasks.

Fully Extensible Engine-It’s Flexible

Sage told me smart tasks have a “Fully Extensible Engine”, and that it integrates with the “Windows Workflow Foundation”, sounds fancy, but I’m not sure what that means to my business.  It probably has to do with the fact that I’m not a programmer.   I think they have created something in smart tasks that makes developers and software types happy, but I can’t be sure about that.  Truth is, most users won’t have need of this functionality, but nice to know it is there.

Out-of-the Box Integration with ACT! E-Marketing

This is where the automation part of smart tasks gets really cool, integrating with ACT! E-Marketing.  If you are a user of ACT! E-Marketing perhaps your head is already reeling with delight.  You can do cool things like add new customers or prospects to specific autoresponse email sequence, ask for contact information for those where it’s missing, and more. Since it is fully customizable, the world is your oyster.

It’s Your Turn

What do you think of Smart Tasks so far? Can you imagine using it in your business?  Why or why not?  Chime in with comments and questions below. 

Are you sold? Convinced this is for you?  If it is before August 31st, be sure to snap up Sage ACT! 2011 at the early bird pricing, and claim access to our forthcoming bonus pack for our customers only (due to release shortly after the product ships in September).

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Outlook integration has been enhanced in Sage ACT! 2011.  The latest version of the software (shipping Sept 2010) allows users to synch activities and contacts with ACT! This has been a long-awaited feature to be integrated directly in the product. Having the proper contacts and activities flow to Outlook smoothly creates opportunities for users who are either in exchange environments (shared Outlook data), or are synchronizing a smartphone with Outlook.  This post covers this feature in detail, and shows a video preview of the feature in action.

Outlook Integration Features in Sage ACT! 2011

If you are a big Outlook user, but unsatisfied with the contact management functionality Outlook offers, you are not alone.  Until now, for the ACT! user, synchronization with Outlook was a chore which required manual operations of exporting and importing, or investing in 3rd party products to make it happen. Sage ACT! 2011 now permits users to flexibly sync ACT!  information with Outlook.

Note: NOW LIVE! complete video review of Sage ACT! 2011 here, it covers all that’s new, includes a demo of the webaccess function in Sage ACT! 2011, as well as a bonus video for those starting their search for a contact management system entitled, 7 Elements of a Good Contact Manager. It’s here

Contact Synching

Contacts that you a user specifies can be synchronized with Outlook.

Create New Outlook Contacts from ACT!

Using the new icon on the ACT! toolbar, an individual ACT! contact can be created in Outlook.

Create New ACT! Contacts from Outlook

After clicking the create ACT! contact button from the toolbar in Outlook, the user is prompted with contact information from the selected contact.  The information can be modified or added to before saving as a new ACT! contact.
Here’s a preview video of Sage ACT! Outlook Integration in action:

Control Which ACT! Contacts are Synched to Outlook

As you can see in the video above, users can specify which contacts sync with Outlook based on criteria in the sync set. If a user only wants contacts whose ID/Status is a “Family” or “Friend” to appear in Outlook they can now do that with Sage ACT! 2011.

Outlook Contacts are Up To Date Regardless of Where They Were Created or Changed

One of the challenges in synchronizing any data is to make sure data is current.  In my testing it worked pretty well (simple environment).  The idea being that as ACT! contacts that are designated to sync with Outlook are updated, they will push the changes into Outlook.  If another user in the ACT! database creates a contact that meets your sync set criteria, it will appear in your Outlook contacts.  Also, be aware if a colleague updates an existing ACT! contact record designated for sync in Outlook, it will push the changes to Outlook without warning.

Calendar Synching

This feature has been in the Sage ACT! product, but needed improvement.  As shown in the Sage ACT! 2011 Preview Video above, users have some flexibility in configuring this option.

Calendars are Up To Date Regardless of Events Were Created or Changed

Similar to contacts, if an activity meets the Outlook sync criteria, it will appear in a users Outlook calendar.  This is the case for existing activities that are modified to meet the criteria, or if  a new activity is created meeting the criteria(even if another ACT! user creates it).

Select Which ACT! Activity Types to Sync to Outlook

Users have the ability to decide which ACT! activity types sync with Outlook.  For example, if you only want appointments to appear in Outlook, and not calls or to-do’s, or even a custom activity type, it provides this level of control.

No Duplicate Entries

I didn’t get to test this in great detail, but the idea here is ACT! is constantly checking to prevent duplicate contacts or Activities in ACT! or Outlook.  Obviously Sage has to make this aspect of the program solid for users to have confidence to use it, and it appears they have.

Sync Runs Even With Outlook and/or ACT! Closed

A system tray icon appears which is responsible for the ACT! to Outlook sync activities, and it does not require either ACT! or Outlook to be open on the desktop.

Same Features Available for ACT! for Web Users

Sage ACT! 2011 Premium customers also get this functionality within the ACT! for Web product.  This means users accessing ACT! over the Web interface will have the option to configure synchronization with their local Outlook installation, without also having to install Sage ACT! 2011.

Users Choose Which System Alarms Displayed In

Lastly, as a small point of flexibility, users can decide where they want alarms (popup reminders) to appear for a given activity, ACT! or Outlook.  This is useful for those who know they have Outlook open more than ACT! and want to see those alarms in Outlook.

What say you? Questions? Ideas? Concerns?  Chime in with your feedback in the comment boxes below.
Image Credit: LA Wad

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If you are a business who spends time researching companies online, then you need to look at the time saving option of Sage Business Information Services that is available in Sage ACT! 2011.  This is an integrated subscription service, so it does cost extra, but the time you’ll save in research and importing may bring you targeted leads you are after.  If this sounds interesting to you, read on.

More Leads from Sage Business Information Services and ACT! 2011 Software

Sage software is now adding value to it’s ACT! customers by integrating Hoover’s data directly into Sage ACT! 2011.  The service is called Sage Business Information Services, and there are several subscription levels to choose from for this service.  For the right user, it could be worth it’s weight in gold.

Note: NOW LIVE! complete video review of Sage ACT! 2011 here, it covers all that’s new, includes a demo of the webaccess function in Sage ACT! 2011, as well as a bonus video for those starting their search for a contact management system entitled, 7 Elements of a Good Contact Manager. It’s here

Searching Based on Business Information

Search on virtually any criteria you need to narrow down prospects and decision makers in your market.  Search parameters include:

• Company name, location, size, Industry, type of company, people, financial data and more.
• Location search parameters by world region, country, state/province, metro area, city, area code, zip code, or results within a radius of zip code.
• If searching for a specific person, you can search for additional profile data including their title.

Contact Profile

From within ACT! you can review a contact profile found on the Hoover’s powered Sage Business Info Service, and then import them directly into the ACT! database.

Company Profile

Similar to the contact profile, the company profile allows you to review company demographics with an option to import directly into ACT!

Company Financials

The service provides data pertaining to company financials allowing users to understand quickly if a company meets their criteria as a prospect.

Company Contacts

Once viewing a company, you can review the contacts in the company, and have an option to either drill down for more information on each contact, or select the ones you wish and import them directly into ACT!
Here’s a video of Sage Business Information Services in action:

Other Functions Available with the Sage Business Info Service in Sage ACT! 2011

• Industry Information
• Company News
• Update Companies and Contacts
• Search for New Companies and Import New Leads
• Email Alerts

Questions?  Thoughts about these features, functions?  Likely someone else does too, chime in using the comments boxes below.

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