Product Reviews

Once pre-eminent among contact managers, ACT! has looked decidedly moribund over the last couple of years. Formerly published by Interact, it was then acquired by Sage, which seemingly consigned it to the dusty bookshelf of history, but not for much longer. Yes, ACT! is back and in its new and improved sixth incarnation.

A host of fresh features and improvements are promised, including email enhancements, Outlook integration, improved Outlook importing, Library tab, Look Up annual events, Look Up contact activity, Calendar pop-ups, external Alarms notification, improved Internet services, Calendar and Task activity status, Accounting links and new layout designs.

First, you'll want to populate your ACT! database with details of your contacts. You can type these in or use the Import Wizard to import information from a variety of sources, including Outlook 2000/2002, with minimal effort. Otherwise, ACT! 6 offers field mapping - either manually or from a choice of predetermined product maps - the latter of which we used for Lotus Organiser. Both options are time-consuming, though, and prone to error. And, of course, you don't get the Outlook integration facility, which means you can't access your Outlook data from ACT!, or your ACT! address books from Outlook.

When setting up email, you have three choices of client. You can opt for Outlook Express, but that's accompanied by unnerving warnings of reduced functionality. It's also possible to opt for Outlook 2000/2002. However, bear in mind that you're given a warning to close Outlook while ACT!'s email is still running, so it isn't completely compatible. The alternative is to use ACT!'s own Internet Mail, which is fine on its own.

Once you're set up, the default screen shows details of one of your contacts. As well as the usual toolbar, you get an Outlook-style View bar with buttons to change to other views like calendars, tasks and email. The top part of the main window gives your contact's details - name, company, address, telephone number and so on. The bottom part of the window has a row of tabs, covering notes, activities and extra fields. Some fields also have drop-down lists

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that are automatically augmented by new entries, and cosmetic changes can also be applied to the window's appearance.

An alternative list of your contacts' details can also be summoned for data entry. There's no quick-find button for contacts, but you can use either a clever 'Look for' in any field box, or select Lookup from the top menu to reveal a list of search criteria. However, while this feature is comprehensive, it's unfortunately slow - you'd need something faster with a customer on the phone.

Contacts can also be organised into groups, and you're then able to view activities or sales associated with those groups. What's more, it's possible to attach notes, histories and files - just like contacts. Groups can be used to 'associate' contacts - your agents or distributors, say, or the different parts of a far-flung organisation. ACT! implements this feature in much the same way as GoldMine Business Contact Manager (see Reviews, issue 93, p138), though not as simply. You can't, however, link contacts together as you can in Mulitiactive Maximizer 7 (see Reviews, issue 94, p150) or Lotus Organizer. Also, you're still unable to enter company details once and link unlimited contacts to these details; instead you must duplicate information each time you add a contact.

You can, however, attach documents such as spreadsheets, reports, letters or emails to your contact records. Using the Library tab, it's possible to link documents (price lists, memos, letters, presentations, contracts, pictures and so on) so that you can edit them from within ACT! - these are useful as telesales scripts. Also, as well as Internet links, you're able to attach complete web pages to your contact records and view them from within ACT! as well.

Standard reports cover phone lists, activity reports, relationship histories and sales summaries, and these can be customised to meet your specific needs. It's possible to print contact lists and calendars to over 20 formats, including DayRunner, Day-Timer and Franklin, but not Filofax. Alarms can be set for important events and tasks and then monitored - even when ACT! isn't running - by the resident SideACT! program in your System Tray.

ACT! benefits from the advantages of familiarity and popularity, with over four million users claimed. Not too much has changed, but the improvements, though some are minor, are worth having over previous editions, and the price is right too. ACT! is good for group sharing and collaboration, although alternative packages like GoldMine offer better scheduling, while Maximizer offers better linking of contacts. This is a worthwhile purchase if you're already an ACT! user, but for others - depending on priorities - it's worth looking at the competition.