Over the last few months, we’ve seen an increasing number of customer calls and problems stemming from trying to save ACT! templates on the network. The error message indicates that the template is in use. This error occurs whether you are trying to create a new template, save changes to an existing template or saving an existing template with a new name. Unfortunately, the error message is misleading in the fact that rarely, if ever, is the document in use by someone else.
In doing research, we found this issue is actually a common problem with saving Microsoft Word documents to a network. The error occurs when trying to save a file to a server using uniform naming convention (UNC) as opposed to using a mapped network drive. In layman’s terms, when saving the file with a format similar to \\actserver\act -database files\templates\template.doc, the UNC format is being used. When saving a file using a mapped network drive, the location may look something like this M:\act-database files\templates\template.doc where the M drive replaces the \\actserver. The frustrating part of the error is that it does not occur all the time and can result in the document throwing the error not to be saved.
The best way to prevent the error from is to launch the ACT! template folder through a mapped drive as opposed to using ACT!’s default opening method which is UNC. One simply way to do this is to create a shortcut on the computer desktop to where the ACT! templates folder exists out on the network. The key is to make sure that the shortcut is using a mapped network drive as opposed to using the UNC location. Whenever opening or savings these templates, always browse out to the desktop shortcut as opposed to using the default location ACT! provides. This will ensure that the mapped drive is used and avoid the untimely “template is in use” error message.
Want some help doing this? If so, please email me at tmm@stewarttechnologies.com and I’d be happy to provide you with screen shots to follow the steps listed above.
