ACT! 2005 for Dummies®

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Format: Paperback
Pub. Date: 2004-09-24
Publisher(s): For Dummies
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Summary

ACT! 2005 will help you manage your business contacts and relationships (not just with customers, but also with prospects, vendors, and suppliers) more efficiently and effectively. But there is a catch-you have to ACTivate it. ACT! 2005 for Dummies helps you get your ACT together with basic information about fields, records, files, and navigation, and step-by-step guidelines for: Setting up and customizing databases Using the calendar to plan your schedule Using the alarm to alert you to things to ACT on, whether it's checking on a huge order or remembering a customer's birthday (so you'll get another huge order) Protecting your database by assigning specific security levels to users or password-protecting it Creating reports and broadcast e-mails Written by Karen S. Fredricks, an ACT! Certified Consultant, ACT! Premier Trainer, and self-professed ACT! FanACTic, ACT! 2005 For Dummies covers both ACT! Standard Edition 2005 and ACT! Premium Edition 2005. It shows and tells you how to: Use ACT! Notes and ACT! Histories to maintain records of all communications and activities Tag contacts (to designate whether they are interested in a new product, whether they like golf, whether they rate a glorious gift basket at Christmas or get the automatic fruit cake, or whatever) Integrate with Excel, Outlook, and other programs Use ACT! reporting and forecasting tools to manage and track sales Contacts and relationships are the key to any successful business. With ACT! 2005 helping you manage them, you can focus on building your business. Wouldn't it be nice to have a lot of new customers to add to ACT! 2005?

Author Biography

Karen S. Fredricks began her life rather non-technically growing up in Kenya. She attended high school in Beirut, Lebanon — where she developed her sense of humor while dodging bombs. After traveling all over the world, Karen ended up at the University of Florida and has since been an ardent Gator fan. In addition to undergraduate studies in English and accounting, Karen has a Master’s degree in psycholinguistics. Beginning her career teaching high school English and theatre, Karen switched to working with the PC in its inception in the early ’80s — and has worked as a full-time computer consultant and trainer ever since.
Karen is an ACT! Certified Consultant, an ACT! Premier Trainer, and a QuickBooks Premier Certified Advisor. She is the author of many training manuals and a contributor to numerous newsletters. A true ACT! FanACTic, she founded the ACT! Users Group of South Florida and served as the official host for the ACT! 6 Launch Tour in Florida.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1(1)
About This Book
1(1)
Conventions Used in This Book
2(1)
What You Should Read
2(1)
What You Don't Have to Read
3(1)
Foolish Assumptions
3(1)
How This Book Is Organized
3(3)
Part I: The Opening ACT!
4(1)
Part II: Putting the ACT! Database to Work
4(1)
Part III: Sharing Your Information with Others
4(1)
Part IV: Advanced ACT!ing
5(1)
Part V: Commonly Overlooked ACT! Features
5(1)
Part VI: The Part of Tens
5(1)
Icons Used in This Book
6(1)
Where to Go from Here
6(1)
Part I: The Opening ACT!
7(42)
An Overview of ACT!
9(6)
What Does ACT! Do?
10(1)
The Typical ACT! User
11(1)
Terms You Need to Know
12(1)
The Basic ACT! Ground Rules
13(1)
The Two ACT! Flavors
13(2)
The Various Faces of ACT!
15(14)
Locating the Correct Database
15(2)
The ACT! Login Screen
17(1)
The Importance of Being My Record
18(1)
Finding Your Way Around in ACT!
19(6)
The title bar
19(1)
The record counter
20(1)
The layout
21(1)
The menu bar
22(1)
The toolbar
22(1)
The Back and Forward bar
22(1)
The Contact Detail window
23(1)
The Divider bar
23(1)
The Navigation bar
23(1)
The ACT! tabs
24(1)
Getting Help When You Need It
25(4)
Getting Your ACT! Together
29(20)
Creating a New ACT! Database
29(2)
Copying an Existing Database
31(3)
Adding Multiple Users to a Database
34(3)
Deleting Login Users
37(2)
Working with Passwords
39(2)
Setting a password
39(1)
Resetting a password
40(1)
Changing a password
40(1)
Giving ACT! the Preferential Treatment
41(4)
General
41(1)
Colors & Fonts
42(1)
Calendars & Scheduling
43(1)
E-mail
44(1)
Communication
44(1)
Startup
44(1)
Customizing the Navigation Bar
45(1)
Modifying Menus and Toolbars
45(4)
Tackling the toolbar
46(1)
Deleting toolbar icons
47(2)
Part II: Putting the ACT! Database to Work
49(78)
Making Contact(s)
51(12)
Adding New Contacts
51(8)
Letting ACT! do the work for you: Automatic formatting
55(2)
Getting the most out of ACT!: Using the drop-down lists
57(2)
Duplicating Your Contacts
59(1)
Deleting Contact Records
59(2)
Thinking before deleting a contact
60(1)
Three warnings before deleting a contact
61(1)
The Contacts, They Are A'Changin'
61(2)
A Few Good Tabs and Lists
63(12)
Meeting the Lists and Tabs
63(4)
Remodeling lists and tabs
65(2)
Sorting your lists and tabs
67(1)
Corralling Your Secondary Contacts
67(4)
Adding a secondary contact
68(1)
Deleting a secondary contact
69(1)
Promoting a secondary contact
70(1)
Documenting Your Documents
71(4)
Adding a document
72(1)
Opening a document
72(1)
Removing a document
73(2)
Working with Your Data
75(12)
Contacting the Contact List
75(5)
Getting to the Contact List is half the fun
75(1)
Finding a contact in the Contact List
76(1)
Tagging contacts in the Contact List
77(1)
Sorting your contacts
78(2)
Importing New Information into ACT!
80(7)
The ACT! Lookup: Searching for Your Contacts
87(16)
ACT! Is Looking Up
87(1)
Performing Basic Lookups
88(3)
Searching Your Groups, Companies, and Opportunities
91(3)
Grappling with your groups
91(1)
Calling all companies
92(1)
Ogling your opportunities
92(2)
Performing Special ACT! Lookups
94(6)
Searching by keyword
94(3)
Annual event lookups
97(1)
Searching by contact activity
98(2)
Creating Advanced Queries
100(3)
Looking up by example
100(1)
The Advanced Query
101(2)
Stamping Out the Sticky Note
103(10)
Getting to Know ACT! Notes
103(3)
Adding a note
104(1)
Working with notes
105(1)
Discovering ACT! Histories
106(4)
Creating field histories
106(1)
Recording activity histories
107(1)
Manually recording a history
107(3)
Working with Your Notes and Histories
110(3)
Playing the Dating Game
113(14)
Scheduling Your Activities
113(4)
Working with the ACT! Calendar
117(4)
The mini-calendar
120(1)
The Recap List
120(1)
Using the Task List
121(2)
Creating a lookup from the Task List
121(2)
Printing the Task List
123(1)
Exploring Activities
123(4)
Viewing the Activities tab
123(2)
Editing your activities
125(1)
Clearing activities
125(2)
Part III: Sharing Your Information with Others
127(70)
Advanced Dating 101
129(10)
Creating an Activity Series
129(7)
Using the Activity Series Template Creation Wizard
130(2)
Scheduling an activity series
132(1)
Modifying an activity series
133(1)
Creating an Activity Series trigger
133(1)
Adding custom activity types
134(2)
Editing priority types
136(1)
Using Annual Events
136(3)
Creating an Annual Event field
137(1)
Creating a lookup of annual events
137(2)
Using the Basic ACT! Reports
139(16)
Knowing the Basic ACT! Reports
139(4)
Running an ACT! Report
143(3)
Printing Address Books
146(3)
Creating Mailing Labels and Envelopes
149(2)
Modifying Labels and Envelopes
151(1)
Working with Quick Report
152(3)
Creating a Quick Report
153(1)
Setting the Quick Report preferences
153(2)
Designing Your Own Reports
155(14)
Understanding the Report Designer
155(1)
Naming Your ACT! Report
156(4)
Saving early and often
158(1)
Using the toolbox and properties
158(2)
Changing the Report Content
160(3)
Working with existing fields
160(1)
Adding a field
161(1)
Adding a summary field
162(1)
Filtering Data in a Report Template
163(1)
Sectioning Your ACT! Report
164(5)
Defining report sections
165(1)
Modifying report sections
165(2)
Hiding a report section
167(2)
Merging Your Information into a Document
169(14)
Mail Merge Isn't Just about Mailing
169(1)
Picking Your Word Processor
170(2)
Converting Existing Document Templates
172(1)
Reaching an Audience of One
173(2)
Creating a Document Template
175(4)
We're Off to See the Mail Merge Wizard
179(4)
ACT! E-Mail
183(14)
Getting Started with ACT! E-Mail
183(5)
Setting your e-mail preferences
184(3)
Editing e-mail addresses
187(1)
E-Mailing Your Contacts
188(6)
E-Mailing an individual contact
188(2)
Sending mass e-mails
190(4)
Working with Incoming E-Mail
194(3)
Part IV: Advanced ACT!ing
197(70)
Creating Contact Fields
199(16)
Understanding the Concept of Fields
200(1)
Do Your Homework!
201(1)
Adding a New Field to Your Database
202(5)
Working with Lists
207(8)
Creating a drop-down list field
207(1)
Creating a drop-down list
208(2)
Managing the Product List
210(2)
Managing the Process List
212(3)
Customizing Layouts
215(18)
Modifying an Existing ACT! Layout
216(8)
Arranging fields the way you want them
216(3)
Adding new fields to the layout
219(2)
Changing the tabs
221(1)
Changing the order of things
222(2)
Beautifying Your Layout
224(3)
Doing minor touch-up work
225(1)
Creating an extreme makeover
225(2)
Adding the Finishing Touches
227(6)
Lining up fields and labels
227(2)
Resizing fields
229(1)
Adding a logo or a graphic
229(1)
Creating a circle in a square
230(1)
Adding text boxes
230(1)
Building a table
231(2)
Zen and the Art of Database Maintenance
233(18)
Understanding the Need to Check and Repair
234(1)
Determining the maintenance frequency
234(1)
A little shopping list of database horrors
235(1)
Performing Routine Maintenance
235(2)
Backing Up the ACT! Database
237(4)
Performing the basic ACT! backup
238(1)
Backing up to various media
238(1)
Restoring a backup copy of your database
239(1)
Backing up personal supplemental files
240(1)
Performing Spring Housecleaning
241(10)
Weeding out duplicate contacts
242(2)
Removing old data
244(1)
Deleting a database
245(1)
Copying or moving contact data
246(1)
Performing a global edit/replace
246(2)
A few more housekeeping tips
248(3)
ACT!ing with Synchronizations
251(16)
What in the World Is Synchronization?
251(2)
Why synchronize?
252(1)
The synchronization cycle in a nutshell
252(1)
Things that change during a synchronization
253(1)
Performing a Synchronization in Three ACT!s
253(10)
ACT! 1: Doing your homework
254(1)
ACT! 2: Setting up the main database
255(4)
ACT! 3: Setting up the remote database
259(4)
Maintaining the Synchronization
263(4)
Viewing the last data synchronized
263(1)
Looking up the Sync Set lookup
264(1)
Viewing and printing sync settings
264(1)
Stopping the synchronization process
265(1)
Re-creating a remote database
266(1)
Part V: Commonly Overlooked ACT! Features
267(72)
Integrating ACT! with Microsoft
269(16)
Changing Your Outlook on Life
269(9)
Sharing ACT! and Outlook address books
270(2)
Using ACT! with Outlook's e-mail
272(2)
E-mailing to Outlook contacts in ACT!
274(1)
Sharing ACT! and Outlook calendars
274(2)
Displaying Outlook activities in ACT!
276(1)
Viewing ACT! activities from Outlook
277(1)
Exploring the Internet
278(1)
Taking advantage of Internet Links
278(1)
Using one of the Internet Links
279(1)
Excelling in Excel
279(4)
Exporting a list to Excel
280(1)
Importing a product or drop-down list into ACT
281(1)
Mapping ACT! fields to Excel
282(1)
What's in a Word?
283(2)
Attaching a document to a contact record
283(1)
Sending a document as an e-mail
283(1)
Sending a document in a fax
284(1)
Showing ACT!'s mail merge fields
284(1)
ACT!ing on Your Opportunities
285(22)
Creating Opportunities
285(8)
Initiating the opportunity
286(6)
Modifying the opportunity
292(1)
Closing the deal
293(1)
You Can Quote Me on That
293(2)
Creating a quote for an opportunity
294(1)
Editing the opportunity quote template
295(1)
Viewing the Opportunity List
295(3)
Filtering the Opportunity List
296(1)
Resetting the Opportunity List filters
297(1)
Printing the Opportunity List
297(1)
Viewing Opportunity History
298(1)
Tracking Opportunities
299(8)
Reporting on a single contact
299(1)
Reporting on all your opportunities
300(1)
Creating an opportunities graph
301(2)
Viewing the opportunity pipeline
303(4)
Grouping Your Contacts
307(14)
A Few Good Reasons to Create a Group
307(2)
What All Groups Have in Common
309(1)
Creating a Group
310(3)
Updating group membership
312(1)
Adding a single member to a group
313(1)
Setting Up a Group Query Definition
313(2)
Working with Groups
315(6)
Using groups to schedule activities
316(1)
Using notes with groups
317(4)
Joining a Company
321(18)
The 411 on Companies
321(1)
Hey Dude, Where's My Company?
322(4)
Hyperlinks
322(1)
The Companies tab
323(1)
The Company List
323(2)
Knowing the juicy company details
325(1)
Company Housekeeping
326(5)
Forming a new company
326(2)
Creating a division
328(1)
Deleting a company
328(1)
Converting a group to a company
329(1)
Following the company rules
329(2)
Joining the Company Association
331(2)
Linking a contact to a company
331(1)
Adding or removing company members
332(1)
Working with a Company
333(4)
Jotting down a company note
334(1)
Associating a note, history, activity, or opportunity with a company
335(1)
Accessing the company files
336(1)
Getting the Company Reports
337(2)
Part VI: The Part of Tens
339(26)
Ten Differences between ACT! 2005 and ACT! 2005 Premium
341(6)
Sharing Databases between the Two Versions
341(1)
SQL Versions
342(1)
System Requirements
343(1)
Scalability
343(1)
Number of Users
344(1)
Limited Access Contacts and Teams
344(1)
Group Invitations and Scheduling
344(1)
Scheduling Resources
345(1)
Synchronization
345(1)
Pricing and Availability
345(2)
Ten Cool New Features in ACT! 2005
347(8)
Sequel
347(1)
Opportunities
348(1)
New and Very Much Improved E-Mail
349(1)
Cool New Field Types
349(1)
The All New Documents Tab
350(1)
Consistency of Templates
351(1)
All the News That's Fit to Print
351(1)
Quick Print
352(1)
Redesigned Report Writer
352(1)
Improved Activity Series
352(1)
Grouping by Company
353(1)
Cool New Look and Feel!
353(2)
Ten Tips to Make ACT! Work Better
355(10)
Refreshing Your Data
355(1)
Linking Your PDA
356(1)
Linking Your Accounting Software
356(1)
Sharing Your Database over the Web
357(1)
ACT! Add-Ons and Enhancements
358(2)
ASDS
358(1)
The New Hampton Group
359(1)
Northwoods Software
359(1)
Reporting Software
360(1)
E-Blast Software
360(1)
Tips from the ACT! Guru
361(1)
Hiring an Expert
362(1)
Joining a Users Group
363(2)
Index 365

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