The QuickStudy Guide for Sage ACT! 2013

The QuickStudy Guide for Sage ACT! 2013

Using ACT! Everyday

The Basics

How Did “Quick” Get Included in the Book Name? 

Using This QuickStudy Guide…Hey, Don’t Skip This  What’s Contact and Customer Management Software?  Anytime, Anywhere Access 

ACT! Pro vs. ACT! Premium 

ACT! on the Web (Premium Only)  Starting Your ACT! Software 

Opening a Database 

Setting Up for Your Self-Study  Returning to Real Life 

ACT! Screen Elements  Welcome View 

Changing Your Startup View  The Navbar 

View Toolbar  Layout Tabs  Layouts 

Sizing the Contacts: Detail View Window  Contact Record Basics 

The “My Record” Contact Record  Our Practice Database 

An Overview of Security Roles  Contact Fields 

Inserting a New Contact Record  Drop-down Fields  Duplicating Contacts  Assigning Security 

Limited Access (Premium Only) 

Assigning Limited Access by Default (Premium Only)  Deleting Contacts 

Working with Your Contacts

Browsing Records  Detail View and List View 

Sorting the List View 

Related Task Pane – Another Sort Option  Adding and Removing Columns 

Navbar Lookup Pane  Lookup 

Narrowing Lookups  Previous Lookups 

Back (and Forward) Buttons  Universal Search 

Using Special Characters in Search  Lookup, Any fields 

Lookup Annual Events 

Working In List View Edit Mode  Tag Mode 

Lookup and Omit Tagged Records  Printing Lookups 

Secondary Contacts 

Lookups on Secondary Contact Fields  Promoting from Within 

Documents Tab 

Opening and Editing Files 

Removing Files from the Documents Tab  Relationships 

Social Updates Tab 

Connecting Your Contacts  Viewing Social Media Updates  Your Contact’s Website 

Web Info Tab 

Web Info tab - User Links section 

Attaching Web Pages From Internet Explorer®  Web Info tab - ACT! Business Info section 

Accessing Key Business Info for a Contact or Company  Company Profile 

Importing Companies  Company Alerts  Importing Contacts  Build a List 

Scheduling Your Day

Adding an Outlook Meeting Request to Your Calendar  Scheduling Activities Using the Calendar 

Viewing Your Calendar  Calendar Pop-ups 

Navigation Tips for the Calendar Views  The Today Button 

Filtering the Calendar  Printing the Calendar 

Calendar vs. Task List  The Task List 

Filtering the Task List  Printing Your Task List 

Display the Mini-calendar Any Time!  Modifying Scheduled Activities 

Clearing Activities 

Recording an Unscheduled Activity to History  Recording History to Multiple Contacts  Filtering History 

Taking Notes 

Viewing and Editing Notes  History vs. Notes 

Deleting a Note or History  Rolling Over Your Activities  Sage ACT! Scratchpad 

Transfer a Scratchpad item to ACT! 

Advanced Scheduling

Scheduling for Other ACT! Users 

Displaying Multiple Users in Your Calendar or Task List  Adding “Scheduled For” to Task List View 

Scheduling for Multiple Contacts  Availability (Premium Only) 

Responding to an ACT! Invitation (Premium Only)  Activity Colors 

Alarms 

Responding to an Alarm  Public vs. Private Activities  Attachments 

Scheduling Recurring Activities 

Syncing Your Calendar and Contacts with ACT!  Calendar Synching with Outlook  Contact Syncing with Outlook  Manually Syncing ACT! and Outlook 

Synching your Google Calendar and Contacts with ACT!  Calendar Integration with Google 

Contacts Integration with Google  Manually syncing ACT! and Google 

Accessing Your Data via Sage ACT! Premium Mobile  Using Sage ACT! Premium Mobile 

Adding an icon to your home screen 

Syncing Your Contacts and Calendar Using Sage ACT! Connect  Using Your Sage ACT! Connect Account 

Working Via E-mail & Letters

ACT!’s E-Mail Integration  ACT!’s E-marketing Feature  Setting Up Your E-mail System in ACT!  ACT!’s Integration with Outlook 

Sending E-mail from the Contact  Sending E-mail from Outlook  Dealing with Your Outlook Inbox 

Adding an Outlook Meeting Request to Your Calendar  Creating a Contact from an E-mail 

Attaching an E-mail to a Contact  Using the Quick Attach Feature  Setting Your Quick Attach Preferences  Handling Unattached Messages  Using the Attach to ACT! Icon  Creating an Activity from an E-Mail  Sending Contact Information as a vCard  Recording Gmail History 

Manually syncing Gmail History to ACT!!  Understanding the ACT! E-mail Window 

Reading Your E-mail 

Sending E-mail from ACT! E-mail  Send/Receive Button 

Choosing a Word Processor  New Menu Item in Word  Mail-merge Templates 

Creating a Mail-merge Template  Merging the E-mail Template 

Sending an E-mail to Group or Company Members  Creating Letters, Memos, and Fax Cover Pages 

Printing Documents 

Editing the Attached Document  Envelopes and Mailing Labels 

ACT! Word Processor  ACT! Toolbar  Ruler 

Status Bar  Tables  Graphics 

Sage E-marketing For ACT!

View Some Tracking Examples  Creating an E-marketing Account  Creating E-mail Templates 

Creating your first basic Swiftpage e-mail template  Basic Template Editor Window 

What is [[SpePersonalMessage]] ?  Sending the Template 

Creating a New Template Using Your Base  What are SwiftWindows? 

Editing text 

Saving your SwiftWindow edit  Saving your template changes  Add a signature 

Getting Results  Scoring  Marketing Results Tab  Call Lists 

What is Drip Marketing?  Surveys and Web Forms  E-marketing and Swiftpage Help 

Advanced Lookups

Deleting Query Files 

Groups & Companies

Displaying a Group Lookup 

Manually Adding a Contact to a Group  Companies 

Creating and Populating a Group or Company 

Adding Multiple Contacts to a Group or Company  Using Criteria for Your Groups 

Linking Contacts and Companies  Create a Company from a Contact  Link…Associate…What’s the Difference?  Create a Contact from a Company  Disabling a Company Link 

Pushing Company Changes Back to Contacts  Pulling Changes from the Company Record 

What's the Up Button?  Move or Promote a Division  Cumulative Views of Notes, History, etc. 

Company Note or History 

Manually Sharing Items with a Company (or Group)  Changing Companies 

Filtering Tabs 

Lookup Companies or Groups 

Advanced Queries for Companies and Groups 

Opportunities

Creating Opportunities  Opportunities tab  Updating an Opportunity  Creating a Quote  Closing the Deal 

Opportunity Management  Opportunity List View  Lookup Opportunities  Export to Microsoft Excel  Opportunity Reports 

Opportunity Pipeline  Opportunity Graph 

Viewing Dashboards & Reports

Displaying Dashboard Views  Working in the Dashboard Views  Other Dashboards 

ACT! Reports 

The Anatomy of an ACT! Report  Favorite Reports 

Customizing ACT!

Database Design & Layouts

Customizing Fields  Field Attributes 

Enter field name and type  One-to-Many Tables 

Customize field and list behavior  Customize field behavior 

Manage Drop-down Lists 

Creating Drop-down Lists for Importing  Importing the Drop-down List 

Minor Changes to the Drop-down List  Editing the Database Structure 

Field Security 

Creating New Fields for Other Entities  Defining and Modifying Layouts 

Designing Layouts  Saving Layouts  The Tool Palette  Formatting Toolbar  Modifying Layouts 

Renaming the Field Labels  Moving Objects 

Aligning Objects 

Adding New Fields to Your Layout  Layout Tabs 

Adding Other Objects  Formatting 

Changing Background Tab Color  Make Same Width or Height  Testing Your Layouts 

Field Entry Order  Customizing the Product View 

Feature Customizations

Customizing Menus and Toolbars 

Adding an Object to the Menu/Toolbar/Keystroke  Resetting Toolbars, Menus, and the Keyboard  Modifying the Navbar 

Creating Custom Web Info Links  Priorities 

Customizing Priorities  Creating New Activity Types  Events 

Creating a Custom Opportunity Process  Creating Defined Product Lists  Editing the Quote Template 

Activity Series & Smart Tasks

Scheduling an Activity Series  What are Smart Tasks? 

Creating a Smart Task 

Status of Smart Tasks  Editing a Smart Task 

Creating An Automated Smart Task  Enabling a Smart Task 

How Does A Smart Task Run Automatically?  Running Smart Tasks as a Service  Smart Tasks vs Activity Series 

Criteria for when to use Activity Series  Criteria for when to use Smart Tasks  Keep These Suggestions in Mind  Drip Marketing vs. Smart Tasks 

Designing Dashboard & Reports

Custom Components  Alternative Dashboards  Report Templates 

The Report Designer Screen 

The Report and Page Header Sections  The Detail Section 

The Report and Page Footer Sections  Adding Report Objects 

Formatting 

Is it a Field or a Label?  Sizing Sections 

Using Group By for Sorting or Subtotals  Section Behavior 

Summary Fields  Subreports  Report Filters 

Using Custom Reports 

Using Scripting in Your Reports 

Removing Blank Space Between Fields 

Using Checkmarks for Yes/No Fields in Reports  Make Your Label Choose Home or Business on Print 

Administering ACT!

Setting Up

Using Available Documentation 

Using the ACT! Knowledge Base  Enabling Your Database for Multiple Users  Examining Structure 

File Structure  Directory Structure 

Moving the Database to the Server  Enable Share for an Existing Database  Opening the Shared Database 

Pre-Install Checklist 

Database Security

Understanding Security Roles 

Custom Permissions for Manager or Standard Roles  Creating New Users 

Making Users Inactive  Password Management 

Defining a Global Password Policy  Setting a Password for Yourself  Team Management (Premium Only) 

Limiting Contact Access (Premium Only) 

Assigning Limited Access to a Lookup (Premium Only)  Lookup Contacts by Access (Premium Only) 

“Managers” Team  Field Security 

Database Maintenance

Disabling Notes and History Editing  Disabling E-mail History on User Records  Disabling File and/or E-mail Attachments 

Changing ACT!’s Default Duplicate Checking Criteria  File Locations for a Multi-user Database 

General Database Maintenance  Automatic Update Notification  Back Up 

Automatically Backing Up Your Database  Manually Backing Up Your Database  Restoring a Backup 

Restore As 

Deleting a Database  Check and Repair 

Scheduling Database Maintenance  Checking the ACT! Scheduler Log  Importing an Excel File 

Cleaning Up the Data  Duplicates 

Tips for Dealing with Duplicates  Combine Duplicate Records  Edit, Replace 

Administrator Tasks – Setting Up the Sync Environment  Determine and Setup the Connection Method  Define Remote User(s) 

Restore the Database to Its Final Location  Administrator Tasks – Creating the Sync Databases 

Enable Synchronization 

Remote Synchronization Assistant  Manually Creating Remote Databases 

Manage Sync Sets 

Create Remote Databases 

Prepare the Remote Database(s) for Delivery  Administrator Task – Completing Synchronization Setup 

Setting Up Application Sync 

Setting Up the Network Sync Service (Premium Only)  Setting Up Port Forwarding 

Setting Up Internet Sync (Premium Only)  User Tasks – Restoring and Syncing Your Database 

Changes for Remote Internet Sync  Synchronizing the Remote Database 

Set Up a Sync Schedule with the ACT! Scheduler  Using the Subscription List in a Remote Database  Administrator Task – Territory Realignment 

Synchronization Troubleshooting  Moving Databases 

Appendix

User Roles and Permissions 

Converting an Older ACT! Database-Custom Conversion  Standard vs. Custom Conversion