ACT! 2008 Boxes

What's New In ACT! 2008 (10.0)

The ACT! 2008 release is focused on new features, usability improvements, and important in-market issues. This list is provided to improve your installation and overall use experience of ACT!2008 (10.0). The new features in the 2008 Product Family are focused in the areas of User Productivity, Administration and Data Security.



USER PRODUCTIVITY

Reporting

ACT! Dashboard

The ACT! Dashboard provides you with a comprehensive, visual overview of key activities and opportunities in a single view. It provides an at-a-glance, graphical representation of this information in a highly interactive format, so you have the information you need to best tackle your day and be more productive. Set the ACT! Dashboard as your default startup view and begin your work day with a snapshot of important activity and opportunity information that requires your attention. From this view, you can also easily identify how you’re tracking toward your goals using benchmarks and summary information.


General

List Edit Mode (for ACT! and ACT! Premium only)

Quickly edit Contact, Group, and Company records directly from within list views. The List Edit Mode allows you to easily edit fields within a particular list view without having to take the time to open each record individually. Now, you can quickly and easily maintain important Contact, Group, or Company information within ACT! without leaving the list view. 
Add Document Shortcuts to Activity and History Items

Add document shortcuts to Activity and History items without having to attach the full document to control database size. Allow other non-ACT! users to edit the same document, ensuring you have the most updated version in the database.

Opportunities Multiple Contacts per Opportunity

Associate multiple contacts to a single opportunity to ensure you are aware of every contact within an organization that could impact the closing of a deal, whether they are an influencer, decision maker, or play another role. Multiple Contacts per Opportunity allows you to track more than one contact associated with an Opportunity without having to create separate opportunities for each Contact, and allows for a more comprehensive view of all the contacts that are involved with an opportunity.

Opportunity List Details

View all contacts or products associated with an Opportunity from the Opportunity List view without having to click and open the Opportunity. Save time by simply mousing over the Opportunity in the List view to quickly identify additional information for that Opportunity.

Opportunity Date Fields (for ACT! Premium only)

Opportunity Date fields enable consistency and flexibility in tracking time-sensitive customer information. Any Opportunity User field can be turned into a date field for tracking information like quote date or shipping date. Now, you can track important dates specific to a particular Opportunity to ensure you stay on top of key deadlines associated with each Opportunity.

Groups and Companies Consistent Labels within Groups and Companies

Enter duplicate Subgroup and Division names within Groups and Companies and maintain more consistent Group and Company Record structures for improved organization and data accuracy. For example, when tracking multiple Groups or Companies with the same Subgroup or Division name, such as “Sales” or “Marketing,” you can now enter these duplicate labels for as many Group or Company records as needed.

Duplicate Checking for Groups and Companies

Automatically check for duplicate Groups and Companies contained within ACT! when entering a new Group or Company Record. When a duplicate record is found, a prompt will inform you that you are creating a duplicate Group or Company and will provide you with the option to continue or cancel the entry. You also have the option to set and define duplicate record checking criteria for up to three fields so you are only prompted when required by your pre-determined conditions. This ensures the Group and Company information within ACT! remains clean and accurate.

Group and Company Hierarchy

View the entire hierarchy of all Groups and Companies, including subgroups and divisions, when an associated Group or Company dialog box is displayed. This not only allows for easier navigation, it also allows you to more clearly see relationships within the hierarchy, so you can easily decipher which Subgroup and Division is associated with parent Groups and Company records.

Advanced Queries for Groups and Companies

Extend advanced searching capability to perform Advanced Queries on Groups and Companies, allowing you to find Group and Company information more easily. Create new queries identifying all Groups and Companies listed as prospects or located in the same territory. You can save the Advanced Query for later searching and easily re-define the search criterion, reducing time spent on future searches. This enables you to better leverage your customer information based on search results.

Be carreful! This brand new feature has limitations. Actually, Advanced Query for Groups or Companies returns you only Groups or Companies, and you are not able to use both Contact fields and Group/Company fields. For example, it is not possible to create a query which return you a lookup of all contacts having an e-mail address from companies having a "Prospect" status. You have two choices:

  1. You can make an Advanced Query on company fields [ID/Status=Prospect and Referred By=Trade Show] to return a Company List, then you can use UrContactLookup to return all contacts belonging these companies
  2. You can use directly UrQuery to easily return you all contacts from companies having ID/Status=Prospect and Referred By=Trade Show in only one query

ADMINISTRATION AND DATA SECURITY

Company Security (for ACT! only)

When working in a networked environment, improve data security by marking any Company Record private. You can control which users can access Company information, including Company membership and shared Notes and History. Company Security ensures only you have access to the information you mark as private.

Group and Company Security (for ACT! Premium only)

Improve data security by limiting the access to any Group or Company Record by user or by teams of users. Control which users can view and/or edit Group and Company information, including Group and Company membership and shared Notes and History, and automatically limit the access to any new Groups and Companies created, based on the security preference set for ongoing Group and Company. Group and Company Security ensures that team members have access to only the information for which they are authorized.

Custom Permissions for Subscription List

Managers and administrators can restrict remote users from requesting contacts via the subscription list, thus reducing issues when sync requests fall outside the criteria of the defined sync set. Custom Permissions for Subscription List ensures that the sync set defined by the administrator is the only data the remote user can see.

Temporarily Suspend Database Sync on Certain Remotes

Administrators can temporarily suspend a remote database from synchronizing to the parent database to protect unwanted data or deletions from affecting the parent database. It also allows the administrator to help diagnose synching issues by restricting particular remote databases from synchronizing until issue has been resolved.

USABILITY ENHANCEMENTS

  1. Microsoft Outlook E-mail Integration
    • Outlook integration users can now use Microsoft Word as their e-mail editor and create histories for that e-mail.
    • ACT! 2008 features improved Outlook Address book setup through prompting the user to complete the Outlook Address Book configuration during E-mail integration setup.
    • Users can create contacts directly from the Outlook inbox view without opening the Outlook E-mail form.
    • When attaching message to a contact, ACT! auto-resolves and suggests the contacts name, so user doesn't have to find the contact and select it.
    • A new preference and on-the-fly option provides the ability to have Outlook E-mail histories messages marked as private.
  2. Attachments
    • Added “Attach shortcut” (a pointer to a file on a mapped drive) in addition to the “Attach file” (copies the file to the ACT! database folder structure) option when attaching files to ACT! entities.

      Attach Shortcut Notes:
    • Shortcuts will sync and back up, but source files will not.
    • Shortcuts will function on remotes if source path is accessible.
      • “Attach File” is same functionality as in 9.x
      • You can “mix” attaching shortcuts and files
    • On conversion of v6.x database, user has option to
      • Convert attachments as shortcuts, or
      • Convert attachments as files (as in 9.x)
  3. Security
    • Users with the Manager role are excluded from Limited Access records by default on newly created limited access records.
    • Added a new “Access Changed” history type that logs specific changes to the ACL (by user).
    • A new custom permission has been added called Manage sync subscription list which prevents a remote user from “data fishing” without this permission.
  4. Lookups and Queries
    • ACT! 2008 adds new operators in the Advanced Query feature. These new operators include:
      • Does Not Contain
      • Greater Than
      • Greater Than or Equal To
      • Less Than
      • Less Than or Equal To
    • Yes/No fields are now available in Lookup By Example.
  5. Printing
    • Printing a Monthly calendar now allows more than 2 months to be printed at a time.
    • Read-only fields are available to be included in address book printouts.
  6. Other
    • Duplicate Checking criteria now include contact name parts including, first name, last name, middle name, name prefix, name suffix.
    • Character fields may be changed to date or date/time types.
    • Alarms older than 30 days will no longer automatically deactivate.
    • Find field (in dialogs) now provide enhanced keyboard support allowing down ARROW keys to moves from field to list.