Throughout my career, I have been fortunate enough to tweak ACT! in a variety of ways for a variety of people including a yoga temple that trains disciples to a private capital investment firm.
Since ACT! cannot possibly “all things to all people” right out of the box, here are some my favorite addons.
10. TableMaker Pro
In a matter of one hour, I solved a problem for an air cleaner manufacturer that’s plagued them for 2 years. TableMaker Pro allowed me to create a custom table (grid) that can track whether a customer has purchased one or more air cleaners. For 17 years, ACT! users either had to make a difficult grid or track it in yet another system. Now, my client can quickly extract important marketing data that allows their marketing to become more targeted.
Management wants reports. Sales people, generally, don’t like the entering in minutia. So, why not make a macro that works across multiple sections of ACT! ? With one button, I can create a “service call” custom activity and schedule a follow up for 10+ days with an alarm.
Data Entry. Done.
Reporting. Done.
8. Oak! Merge
ACT! import tools are efficient for new leads, but what happens if you want to update only one or two fields with external accounting data ? Within ACT!, it’s a gamble. With OAK! Merge, I have confidence it will match as expected. I can run different previews, save my import maps and even create an automation script. With OAK!Merge I can merge a ticketing system’s “home address” fields;then, update a check-box to see if they have attended a certain type of show.
Some of my clients use the “print calendar” feature when they leave the office. ACT!’s calendar printer does not offer flexible options. With Calendar List Plus, I was able to solve an administrative assistant’s repetitive tasks in about 10 minutes with Calendar List Plus.
ACT!’s built in report writer cannot effectively tell me how many calls each sales rep made, sorted by date. In 20 minutes, I install Crystal Clear Essentials. Problem solved. They offer several more reports, but I use this one right away.
5. TopLine Dash
When I want to empower my clients to get easy-to-build custom reports, I turn to TopLine Dash. In about 30 minutes, I was able to generate a report that displays both the number of history records and future activities on one screen. What plagued the president of the company for 1 year was solved in an afternoon. Now, they can dig in to the program any time and acquire hundreds of custom combinations.
One of my clients went from a ‘contact-centric’ view of ACT! to a ‘company-centric’ view of ACT! rather quickly. After we taught them how to duplicate contacts at each company, how was I going to tell them to manually match up thousands of contacts to dozens of companies ? Another client imports data from InfoUSA then she needs to create company records and link to them.
Rather than telling a client more manual labor needs to be done, I install CompanyWizard. In about 45 minutes, I can save them days of data cleaning.
3. CompanionLink & HandheldContact
My clients run out and buy the latest PDA; then, ask me if works with ACT!. Companionlink allows me to have greater flexibility on how the data arrives on the handheld and supports more devices than the links that come out-of-the-box. I have been able to hookup iPhones and Blackberry’s to ACT! Another great application is I can send the contact data to Outlook; then sync it to an unusual PDA like a Motorola Q or Psion.
Handheld Contact allows me to constantly update my ACT! database while I am on the road, and it’s always “on” and I don’t have to wait for ACT! to load up on my PC if I need a phone number. As companies rely more on the sales rep to enter data, the Blackberry allows me to update meeting notes immediately after the meeting. I know after a long day of travel, the last thing I want to do is data entry as a whole separate process.
I can finally rename the contacts, companies, opportunities and group tables of ACT!. I can build custom tables and I have to unwrap its potential. For the non-programmer like me, I see this tool as the “deepest” tool to redesign the ACT! interface. For instance, I can finally customize the “Edit Opportunity” screen and re-arrange the fields as I see fit.
Many of my clients want to do e-mail marketing. ACT!”s built in merging program works with 200 records at the most. It’s tedious and difficult to deliver large campaigns via ACT! alone. SwiftPage allows me track my success rates by creating call lists, creating a score cards, managing surveys and managing opt-outs. The program has more capabilities than I list here; however, the most underlooked feature is I can manage one list. Rather than managing lists from multiple databases, my clients can effectively e-mail market their clients.
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Most useful list, as a use rof ACT for 20+ years the addons can be brilliant.