ACT! 2011 New Features – Importing Data Directly from MS Excel (and other usability enhancements)

ACT! 2011 introduces a range of new features designed to make ACT! an even more powerful tool in support of your business processes. As well as ‘Smart Tasks’ which automate workflow management and enhanced integration with Outlook, ACT! now features a union with Hoovers, the mobile arm of Dunn and Bradstreet to bring real time financial data about your prospects or clients directly to your ACT! users.

New features also include the ability to import data directly from an Excel spreasdheet into ACT! (without having to convert to CSV) and even creating new ACT! fields on the fly as the data is imported!

BluebirdCRM Sage, ACT! & eMarketing July Newsletter out now – Sync ACT! with your iPhone for free!

Included this month; iPhone Sync for ACT! Great new add on which allows you to synchronise your ACT! Contacts with your iPhone, and best of all it wont cost you a penny!

Sage Accounts – are you getting the most from this powerful tool? Find out how Sage Accounts software can help unlock the potential of your business by illuminating unseen opportunities and possibilities. Get up to speed with Sage Accounts Training.

And finally, Email Marketing – Email Subject Lines are still critical to the success of your campaign. We give you 15 Rules to ‘Write them Right!’

Top 20 ACT! eMarketing Tips – Secrets of Enduring Success!

ACT! eMarketing is a powerful tool, but this alone does not guarantee positive results. Without a clear understanding of email marketing principles and best practices, ACT! users who were initially impressed with the features of eMarketing can quickly become disillusioned. With a little careful thought and planning however, ACT! eMarketing can help develop relationships that will lead to considerable new sales and even transform your businesses.

Email Marketing is the practice of engaging with your existing clients and potential new customers through the broadcast of valuable targeted communications. The interactive nature of this medium helps you to understand what those on your mailing list are waiting to hear. Armed with this knowledge, you can build strong trust-based relationships that lead to increased revenue. Say goodbye to ‘shotgun marketing’ and become a crack shot e-sniper, hitting your targets more accurately with every message that you release.

Download our Top 20 Tips for ACT! eMarketing Success!

BluebirdCRM Sage, ACT! & eMarketing June Newsletter Out Now

Included in this month’s edition; iPhone Sync for ACT! A great new add on which allows you to synchronise your ACT! Contacts with your iPhone for FREE (nice price!).

Sage Accounts – Are you using your Sage Accounts programme correctly? If not, your finances and calculations could be meaningless! Get up to speed with Sage Accounts Training.

And finally, Email Marketing – Email Subject Lines, absolutely crucial to the success of your campaign. View this months article – 15 Rules to Write them Right!

Click here to access right now.

BluebirdCRM March ‘ACT!, Sage & eMarketing’ Newsletter out now.

This month’s edition features a new addon for ACT! – SMS 4 ACT! Now you can send SMS messages from with your ACT! Database. Find out more information and set up a free account today!
Sage Accounts – a Dashboard Addon for Sage which allows you to view all useful information in one place.
And Finally, Email Marketing – Swiftpage white paper, a ‘Must read’ for anyone interested in Email Marketing.
read the newsletter.

BluebirdCRM February ‘ACT!, Sage & eMarketing’ Newsletter out now.

featuring a great new addon for ACT! – Smart Notes uses a sticky note format to display important information quickly on your contact records. Discover more, view a video demo and trial for free. Sage – Online VAT submission and Payroll Year end. We’re here to help you!  And Finally, Email Marketing – Marketing Sherpa’s 2010 Email Marketing Awards and this months principle – Personalise for greater relevance. Check out the newsletter here.

BluebirdCRM January ‘ACT!, Sage & eMarketing’ Newsletter out now.

January ebulletin: Included in this month’s issue:

New 2010 dates for our ACT Training Courses: 1 day courses cover 2 levels of training and are beneficial to both new and established users of the system.

Also, Important Sage Accounts and Payroll information (end of V11 Product Lifecycle; will this affect you?)

And finally, more Email Marketing hints/tips and information in this month’s slideshow – ‘Segment Lists for Better Results’.

January Newsletter

ACT! e-Marketing

ACT! E-marketing is the powerful email marketing tool that has now been integrated within ACT! (version 12 ACT! 2010 onwards). This tool is a market leading, tried and tested delivery mechanism for mass email.

ACT! E-marketing features interactive response tracking (open and click-through statistics), opt-out suppression (to assist with management of legal compliance), spam filter checking to aid deliverability and full reporting back into your ACT! database.

The system allows you to design and upload your own email templates or you can adapt one of the many built-in graphical html email templates to create a professional look and feel to your communications without the need for technical expertise.

All you need to know about ACT! E-marketing and how it works. Right here…

ACT! software ‘patched’ to the most recent version?

We’re receiving a number of ACT! support calls from clients where the solution is a simple application of the most recent update for their version of the software.

Why bother applying ACT! updates?

1. Fixes known bugs and errors within the software

As issues are discovered within the current version, these are reported to the ACT! development team. Whilst the product is in-life many issues are addressed and solutions released in Hotfixes and Patches. As all users of a database need to be running the same version of ACT!, most patches are not made available as automatic updates but need to be downloaded and installed as a separate event.

2. Improves ACT! performance

Poor performance is a cause of real frustration for users and an area that receives constant attention from the development team. Updates often include improvements to memory handling and other elements that help ACT! run faster.

3. Improves integration with third party products

As the development schedule for Microsoft Office (and other integrated applications) does not always run in tandem with that of ACT!, it is often necessary to enhance the way in which these software components interact in order to ensure continued operation. Updates often improve the effectiveness of integrations.

Patches may be downloaded from www.sage.co.uk or www.act.com, or we have a library available to all BluebirdCRM Customers containing all the latest update patches for ACT! Versions 7-12 (2005 -2010). Contact us today for your free update.

Not sure whether you have the latest update or not?

Find out which update you have under the ‘Help’ then ‘About ACT! ‘ menu in your software. Check to see whether it corresponds with the latest available patch in the table below. If it doesn’t, contact us for your free download. See image for help finding patch number.

ACT! Version: ACT! Update Patch Number:
ACT! 2010 (V12) 12.0.409.0 *Hotfix 3
ACT! 2009 (V11) 11.10
ACT! 2008 (V10) 10.0.3
ACT! 2007 (V9) 9.0.1
ACT! 2006 (V8) 8.0.2
ACT! 2005 (V7) 7.0.4
ACT! 2004 (V6) 6.0.3

*Hotfix – Please note, there are a number of additional Hotfixes available for various peripheral utilities including synchronisation services and Sage links etc.

ACT! 2010 Bug – Opportunity Reports no longer reflect key dates (Bug 3 of 3)

No. 3 in a series of 3….

When running an Opportunity report (by ‘status’ for example), the user is invited to include/exclude opportunites based on their status as ‘open’, ‘closed/won’, ‘closed/lost’ or ‘inactive’.

Historically, the logic used to build this report where multiple statuses (statii?) were selected was sophisticated in terms of the way that the report generator dealt with the selected date range: When listing ‘open’ opportunities, the report included those where the’estimated close date’ falls within the selected date range. Where ‘closed’ opportunities were also included, the report would reference the ‘actual close date’ rather than the ‘estimated close date’. It was quite clever really.

In ACT! 2010, it seems that this cleverness has escaped: Whichever status is selected, the ‘estimated close date’ is always referenced rather than actual close date, thereby generating inaccurate reports.

Also quite annoying is the fact that the report does not not print/render the ‘name/label’ of the status: instead of displaying ‘open’, ‘closed/won’, ‘closed/lost’ or ‘inactive’, it displays 0,1,2 or 3!