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Product Tour : ACT!

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ACT! is the best selling contact manager on the market, and is now more powerful then ever with the new version that comes in the following three brands:

ACT! 2006
ACT! 2006 Premium
ACT! 2006 Premium for Web

ACT! has finally stepped up to the plate with new features, and a powerful new architecture. The ACT! 2005 Premium for Web product allows users to access an ACT! database via the Internet or Intranet.

When would you use ACT! Premium?

Up to 50 users sharing data.
Up to 100,000 contacts in their database.
Contact security issues that require limiting access to contact information by selected users or teams.
A fast-growing team.
Meeting invitations to send to team members.
To see when other users are available for meetings or calls.
Resources like conference rooms, A/V equipment, computers and more that need to be managed.
To become more productive to stay ahead of the competition.

When would you use ACT! Premium for Web?

When you want to use ACT! using nothing but a web browser via the Internet or Intranet. When you want remote users to have access to the ACT! database who have an internet connection, and do not want to use synchronization.

Contact Management
What's New

Contact Management

ACT! has now moved beyond the basic contact management with the addition of Company records. This makes ACT! much more accomodating to those companies operating in a Business to Business environment because company demographic information can now be stored once, and not spread out accross multiple contact records.

Account and Contact Management

Staying in touch has never been easier. You can look up names and numbers in seconds or ACT! can automatically remind you when to follow up with key contacts. Its contact-specific history log will even track calls made, meetings held, e-mails sent, and much more so you’re instantly informed.

Contact Detail View:

Contact List View:

Company Detail View:

Company List View:

Mail Merge

Mail merge letters, faxes, e-mails, envelopes, and mailing labels for quick and easy personalized correspondence.
Link all your correspondence to the associated contact for a complete record of everything that has been sent and received.
Save time using pre-formatted templates for e-mails, letters, memos, and faxes.
Customize the professional HTML graphical e-mail templates to start e-mail marketing to your customers and prospects today!
Add graphics and use any font to create your own great looking letters and e-mails.
Includes a built-in spell checker for letter-perfect documents.
Attach your contact information to each e-mail so your recipients can automatically add your information to their Outlook or ACT! database.
Integrates with Microsoft Word for easy template creation.

Microsoft Outlook Integration

Imports Contacts directly from Outlook so there's no need to re-enter your contact information if it's currently in Outlook.
Synchronizes your Outlook calendar with ACT! so you can view activities scheduled in Outlook from ACT! and optionally set reminders to sync your ACT! calendar with Outlook whenever you choose so Outlook users will have your current schedule information.
Integrates with Outlook e-mail so you can access your Outlook Inbox and other folders from within ACT! to keep track of e-mails sent and received for every ACT! contact.
Use your ACT! database as an address book to send e-mails from Outlook to ACT! contacts, create history for those messages, and attach received mail in Outlook to any ACT! contact.

Opportunity Forecasting

Manage Your Sales Processes with ACT!
Forecast and track sales opportunities to effectively manage your sales pipeline.
Generate custom sales reports with the graphical report generator.
Create instant graphs displaying your sales pipeline within a specified timeframe.
Customize your graphs to represent all forecasted or actual sales.
Save your graphs and use them in other documents or presentations.

Scheduling

Stay on Top of Your Schedule
Keep important details from slipping through the cracks. Schedule unlimited calls, meetings and tasks effortlessly! Then view or print your calendar by day, week, or month. You can even prioritize tasks and set on-screen reminders to keep you on track and on time.

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What's New

New company records

Create new Company and Division records to get a more complete picture of the entire relationship with any company, including all Notes, Histories and Opportunities. Link contacts to companies so that when core company information changes, the changes push to each contact for easier updating. Easily convert Groups into Companies. And create Companies from Contacts (or vice versa).

Track more opportunity information

See all opportunities in one place using this convenient new customizable working view. Access, update and filter opportunities by User, Estimated Close Date, Status, Sale Stage, Amount or Probability of Close. Quickly access the contact record or perform Lookups from any opportunity within the list.

Enhanced database synchronization

Perform secure background synchronization that's easy to set-up so all users always have the most up-to-date contact information. Even templates and attachments synchronize to other users. Synchronization is more reliable then ever with a synchronization scheduler that ensures everyone has the latest data. For the utmost consistency, security is enforced through a main to remote database relationship.

Updated calendar views

ACT! has updated the appearance of all Calendar Views to have a more modern look and feel. There are even new views including the Today View, a customizable Work Week View and a Multiple Month Mini-Calendar that can be expanded to the entire year. With new Quick Print, you can quickly print the Calendar displayed without specifying the template.

Customizable activities, priorities and new field types

Create your own activity types to help you better track activities that are specific to your business. For example, you can define "Billable Hours" as an activity type instead of just using "Meeting" "Call" or "To-Do". Add and customize up to five levels of Priorities according to your preferences. Add new field types to your database including Yes/No fields.

New contact notes and history tabs

Include unlimited date and time stamped Notes and Histories for each contact to keep track of important conversations, commitments and meeting notes. Separate Notes and History tabs help you better track your relationship details.

Improved e-mail performance

Create, send and track e-mails to and from your contacts with the ACT! E-mail Client. Attach e-mail messages to the Contact record and create a history item noting when the e-mail was sent and its contents. The new find feature allows you to quickly access e-mails that have been sent.

One-click export to Microsoft Excel

Export all List Views to Microsoft Excel with one click for further analysis and manipulation of data. All column customizations are maintained when exporting for easy viewing. For advanced analysis, pivot tables are automatically created.

Enhanced groups and subgroups

Organize your contacts into Groups and up to 15 levels of Subgroups based on location, interest, project or other. Group records let you view cumulative information from all contacts that belong to that group for a more complete picture of that group. You can also save any Lookup as a Group definition to create Groups instantly.

Tighter Microsoft Outlook integration

Keep your entire office up-to-date. Your ACT! Calendar can stay up to date with your company's Outlook calendar. Schedule and edit an activity in ACT! or Microsoft Outlook and both calendars will be updated.

Updated look and feel

The new, more intuitive ACT! interface is both as easy to use as ever and, at the same time, offers a new interface with a soft, friendly look and feel and many ease of use enhancements.

Integrated sales system

Integrate all sales opportunities and communications to contacts, groups and companies for an at-a-glance view of all your business relationships with intelligent workflow design that virtually anticipates and links key information.

Powerful, easier-to-use lookups

Providing you instant access to contact details is one of the most important benefits of ACT! Find anyone or any detail quickly by performing Lookups on all customer data using Lookups, Advanced Lookup and Keyword Search features. Perform numeric lookups by ranges, such as greater than or less than queries. This is ideal when searching in date and numeric fields. New Sticky Lookups remember your last five Lookup terms on any field.

Easily find and eliminate duplicate records

Consolidate duplicate records by easily moving contact fields and other data such as Notes, Histories, Activities and Opportunities from one contact record to another.

Unlimited secondary contacts

Add virtually unlimited Secondary Contacts to any contact allowing you to quickly locate alternate contacts, assistants, family members and other related contacts. Each Secondary Contact has their own fields that Lookups can be performed on, including e-mail address, business address, up to two phone numbers, ID/Status and more. And at anytime, promote Secondary Contacts to a full contact.

Robust forecasting tools

Meet your sales goals with confidence through built-in sales and opportunity tracking and forecasting tools. Histories are generated automatically as opportunities move through the sales cycle. There are eight fields that can be customized to capture specific information.

New activity series

The new Activity Series feature is a huge time-saver. It helps you to define a series of activities around an anchor date. Schedule the activities in the series for yourself or other users. These activities remain linked so when one activity moves, you are prompted to move the other ones. You'll never miss an upcoming task!

New opportunity list view

See all opportunities in one place using this convenient new customizable working view. Access, update and filter opportunities by User, Estimated Close Date, Status, Sale Stage, Amount or Probability of Close. And, quickly access the contact record or perform Lookups from any opportunity within the list.

Generate customized quotes

Generate an instant quote from any opportunity without re-keying contact and opportunity information - even customize the quote template with your logo and contact information.

New reports

There are 40 standard Reports for Phone Lists, Activity Report, Relationship Histories, Sales Summaries and more. You can customize the Reports to meet your specific needs. Most Reports can be exported to HTML, PDF, e-mail and more for easy manipulation of data.

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about sharp approach | crm solutions | .net development | web design | site map

Sharp Approach, Inc. is a St. Louis business solutions company specializing in the installation and service of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools. For more than 10 years, Sharp Approach has maintained its status as the market and technology leader for CRM in St. Louis, Kansas City, and Chicago. Through its award-winning family of CRM products, including Microsoft CRM, Sage CRM, and SalesLogix, Sharp Approach provides a comprehensive suite of CRM applications to help enterprises of every size and industry throughout the midwest meet the complex challenge of managing and sharing information. With partner companies Dynamic Approach and Sharp Connection, Sharp Approach can also offer an all-inclusive library of business solutions that include website design, web hosting and corporate cultural strategies that will stimulate growth and productivity. For more information, or to schedule a live demo of any of our CRM products, please call 314-469-3565 or visit our contact page.