If you don’t already have a Twitter Account you need to signup. You can’t search for people on Twitter without a Twitter account. The “Twitter UserName” link will be useful once you know a contact’s “Twitter Username”. I called my Web Info Tab link the “Twitter UserName”. I also named the new Act Contact Field “Twitter UserName” field (no quotes), to be consistent with why I created the field. This link will automatically focus on the Tweets of your currently displayed Act Contact, by automatically inserting the “Twitter Username” into the Twitter URL link from the Act WebInfo Tab.
Adding Twitter UserName URL to the Web Info Tab in ACT! 2010 will take several steps. First, defining a new Act Contact Field, then editing your Contact Layout so you can view and use the new Act field. A very useful tutorial is provided in Act 2010, demonstrating creating a drop down list, creating a new Act field, and editing a contact layout. Please note, you will not need a drop down list for the TwitterUserName Field. If you have not customized your Act database or an Act Layout, now would be a good time to view the Customization Tour. From the Act menu click Help, then Features Tour, and then Customization. The Customization Tour takes about 10 minutes to view.
Create a new Contact field called “Twitter UserName”.
Define a new Act Contact field called “Twitter UserName” (no quotes necessary), and then add the field to an Act Contact Layout so you can see the field. By the way you don’t have to name your Act Contact Field the same as mine, just trying to be consistent. After you create the new field, close the define fields window, a popup will ask if you want to add the new field to your Contact Layout, say yes. The Contact Layout is how the Act fields are displayed on your monitor. After you have added the new Act field and customized the Act layout, go to you’re contact record(My Record), and insert your Twitter User Name in the new field. Stay on your contact record, and now proceed to creating the Web Info Tab Link below.
Create the “Twitter UserName” link on the Web Info Tab.
Start Act and click the Web Info tab. The Web Info Tab in Act 2010 has several default links that were automatically created when Act was installed. Some of the Act WebInfo Tab default links are for use with Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Maps, and Yahoo People, etc. Click the “Edit Links” button, your now viewing the “Edit Links Window”. Now click the “Add Button”. In the “Site Name” box name the link “Twitter UserName”. Twitter URL is http://twitter.com . Click on the “Advanced Edit” button. Now your viewing the “Advanced Edit” window, which shows a list of the Act Contact Fields in your Act database. Scroll the list until you find the “Twitter UserName” field, or what ever you named your Twitter Field, left click to highlight. Click the Add button. Please observe the complete url will look like this http://twitter.com/{Contact.Twitter UserName} there will be an example value displaying the current Act contact’s TwitterUserName in your database. Please note the result URL field be automatically filled in also.PS – Don’t forget to populate your contact’s “Twitter UserName” field with data. No data nothing to pass to the “Twitter UserName” link. Click the link and you will be viewing Tweets from your current contact.
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Art – great article, Twitter definitely feels left out of the ACT! 2010 product, especially since Sage is fairly active there. This is a great thing to add to your ACT! as Twitter gains momentum with businesses.
For those who are more visual, there’s a fellow from the UK who posted a video on YouTube that covers the Web Info tab but also walks through how to do this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjlsAWudMPo
Another useful Twitter link to add is to do a search to see if your contact is on Twitter, which looks like:
http://twitter.com/search/users?q={Contact.First Name}+{Contact.Last Name}&category=people&source=find_on_twitter