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 Sage ACT! 2011 — Part Two

Enhanced Outlook Integration And Sage Business

Info Services Help Make Your Workday Smoother

In our last issue, we covered the Smart

Tasks feature, new with the Sage ACT!

2011 release. This release also includes

enhancements designed to make your work

day smoother, safer, and more efficient. In

this article we learn about the new StartUp

and Welcome pages, enhanced Outlook®

Integration, and connectivity to Business

Info Services.

Get Started Faster

With Sage ACT! 2011, a new Startup page

assists you with opening a database, and the

welcome page now includes helpful how-to

videos for common startup tasks.

The import feature has been enhanced to

simplify the process, especially when importing

from Microsoft® Excel®. The Import Wizard

helps you through the process. You have the

option of modifying the import to include custom

fields or you can use the default settings

and take advantage of the built-in field name

normalization and synonym mapping features.

Synonyms are stored in an XML file and are

customizable. Normalization ignores case,

embedded spaces, and common punctuation.

For example, the import program will recognize

the field First Name whether the database

column is named first, firstname or First Name.

Excel now is an option on the list of database

types to import from. The import wizard

also includes an option to create a field from

the import source with just one click. And

the layout designer will launch automatically

if new fields are added.

Enhanced Outlook Integration

According to research by Sage, 85 percent

of Sage ACT! users also use Microsoft

Outlook. Enhancements in Sage ACT! 2011

are added to both Contact and Calendar to

make the synchronization process smoother

and more seamless.

»» Contact Synchronization — Now you

can configure options such as choosing

whether to create new Outlook contacts

from Sage ACT! data, or create new Sage

ACT! contacts from Outlook data — or

both. You can control which Sage ACT!

contacts are added to Outlook, and define

the contact synchronization sets. To use

the contact synchronization features, you

must first set up an address book in Sage

ACT!

Sage ACT! 2011 — Part Two

(continued on page 2)

Headline News

Enhanced Outlook Integration And Sage Business

Info Services Help Make Your Workday Smoother

1900 East Golf Road

Suite 950

Schaumburg, IL 60173

(847) 352-4770

[email protected]

www.etechsys.com

The new Sage ACT! Startup screen makes it easy

for any user to open a database or create a new

one; a welcome video is available on this screen to

help explain the process.

Sage has made some changes

to the naming conventions of

the various editions of ACT!

beginning with the release of

Sage ACT! 2011.

ACT! by Sage is now called

Sage ACT! Pro. The editions of

ACT! formerly known as ACT!

by Sage Premium and ACT! by

Sage Corporate Edition are now

both Sage ACT! Premium which

includes access via Microsoft

Windows® and the Web.

Sage ACT! Tip: Modifying Lookups For Optimum Results

Finding the contacts you need before visiting

a city or running a targeted marketing

campaign is a common and essential

task for many Sage ACT! users. Here we will

explain how to add to or narrow an existing

lookup to speed the process of finding the

exact list of prospects or customers you need.

Adding To Lookups

Suppose you have looked up all the contacts

in Phoenix, but you realize many of the

prospects you are looking for are in nearby

cities. To add to the lookup, simply click the

drop-down list for the current lookup and

choose the Add to Lookup option. Put your

new lookup criteria, such as city of Scottsdale,

in the Search for box, and click OK. All the

records that fit your new criteria are added to

your previous lookup. You can repeat these

steps as many times as you need to until you

have all the contacts you want.

Narrowing Lookups

What if you have the opposite problem

and there are too many records in your first

lookup? You can narrow the lookup by using a

different field to reduce the number of records

that fit the criteria. Determine a different

field to use to narrow the lookup and rightclick

on the field, or click the Lookup menu

commands to display the Lookup dialog box

for that field. For example, perhaps you want

to narrow the list of all Scottsdale contacts

to those with an ID/Status of Prospect. You

would choose Lookup/ID/Status type, PR, and

select Narrow Lookup, then click OK. If you

forget to choose the Narrow Lookup option

for this lookup, it will replace the previous

lookup instead of narrowing it. As with adding

to lookups, you can repeat these steps

as many times as you need to until only the

records you want are displayed.

Please call us with your questions.

»» Calendar Contact Synchronization — By

synchronizing your Sage ACT! calendar

with your Outlook calendar, you ensure

that both calendars are always current

and accurate—regardless of where events

were created or modified. You can say

goodbye to time-consuming duplicate

entry, and the synchronization process will

run even when Outlook or Sage ACT!

are not open. In Sage ACT! 2011, a new

Appointment activity type allows you to

create an activity when no other contacts

are invited. If you later invite contacts,

the Appointment will automatically be

changed to a Meeting in Outlook during

the next synchronization. Even your

attachments will transfer across to the

other system.

One simple interface allows you to set

up the Contact and Calendar integration

features at the same time. The Sage ACT!

Administrator enables the synchronization

capability, then each user can set up their own

configuration preferences. You can schedule

synchronization as frequently as once every

minute, although for best performance we

recommend a minimum interval of ten minutes.

Only one instance of Outlook can synchronize

to one Sage ACT! database.

Sage Business Info Services

Sage ACT! was created to help you organize

the important details of your life and

to optimize your business. Sage is building

on that foundation by offering additional

business services. Sage ACT! 2011 includes

a cloud-based service, Sage Business Info

Services for ACT!, that allows you to seamlessly

import data from Hoover’s™ into Sage

ACT!. The Hoover’s database gives you access

to 85 million contacts and 68 million companies

that you can use to build prospect lists

based on a variety of parameters such as location,

size, industry, and type.

Compatibility Update

While Sage ACT! 2011 no longer supports

the Safari® browser, it now supports FireFox®

3.5 and 3.6 in addition to Internet Explorer®.

Microsoft Office 2010 32-bit version support

also has been added.

Give us a call with your questions, or for

assistance with your upgrade.   Call 847-352-4770

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