What's New in #SageACT! 2012 – released Sept 1st

This is the official information from Sage. I will soon post an article on my opinions of the new version.

Update: Sage have release a day-0 Hotfix 1 … Any installs from now will get this update slipstreamed and there will be a download soon for the early birds. As soon as I find out what this fixes, I’ll let you know.

The Sage ACT! 2012 release is focused on a number of  significant enhancements including Google® Integration, Scratchpad, Connected Services, Universal Search and much more. All this enables you to work and communicate more effectively, become more productive and efficient, and better serve your contacts. Click on one of the links below for more information on the specified topic.

 



New Features and Functionality


For details regarding each new feature, click the link for Knowledgebase article for that feature.
Google Contacts, Calendar and Gmail Integration
  • Contact Synching capabilities from Google to Sage ACT! and Sage ACT! to Google.
  • Contact Sync set capabilities to allow users to select a sub-set of their Sage ACT! contacts to synch over to Google.
  • Calendar synching that allows users to update both their Google and Sage ACT! Calendars and have them synch regardless of where events were created or modified.
  • The ability to choose which systems alarms display in for events.
  • Users can select whether they want Sage ACT! or Google to “win” for conflict resolution when both calendars have been changed.
  • Activity type synching options allow users to choose which activity types will synch. The defaults options are Appointments and Meetings.
  • Scheduling synching options as frequently as one minute is available, but to limit performance impact, the suggested synching interval is 10 minutes.
  • A new Google Integration synchronization panel from the Tools menu is available to set up both Contact and Calendar synchronization at once.
Knowledgebase article: 27988

Sage ACT! Scratchpad

  • Provide Sage ACT! users with a virtual piece of paper on their desktop to do the following tasks:
    • Quickly jot down notes, reminders, and to-dos in one simple user interface, with or without Sage ACT! running
    • Organize items in the list
    • Check-off or delete items
    • Print the list so you can take it with you
    • Add items as notes, history or activity in Sage ACT!
  • Items from Sage ACT! Scratchpad will be sent to the Sage ACT! database that the user is currently logged into.
Knowledgebase article: 28077

Universal Search

  • Users now have the ability to find that key documents or piece of information they need in their contacts, groups, companies, opportunities, notes, history, and attachments, because search is faster and more expansive than ever.
  • The ability to perform advanced search using operators
  • Filter search criteria by all dates, last 24 hours, last week, and last month
  • View search results displayed by relevance and double-click on the item of interest to be taken to that particular field or attachment.
  • Users can also filter search results for secondary contacts and products
Knowledgebase article: 28034

Services Discoverability/Connections View

  • A new Connections view within the Sage ACT! application that helps users sign-up and learn more about Connected Services that could improve their bottom line and efficiencies in running their business.
  • Users can manage their existing Connected Services through this view.
Knowledgebase article: 28094

Installation/Getting Started

  • For new customer installs, third party applications such as Microsoft® Office, Microsoft Outlook® and Internet Explorer® do not need to be closed before Sage ACT! installation. Users can now continue to be productive while Sage ACT! installation is progressing.
  • Installation panel that provides prerequisites and average times to install before installation begins.
Knowledgebase article: 27964 (Sage ACT! Pro), 27971 (Sage ACT! Premium)

Database Administration

  • Improved usability in opening and sharing databases
  • Shows all databases attached to the local SQL Server® instance and the most recently used databases in a dialog.
  • Users can also share databases from within this dialog – no need to find the buried menu.
Knowledgebase article: 28142

Import

  • Import logs are now available to give counts of successful records imported and details of what records failed.
  • Import log is displayed at the final stage of import.
  • Users can quickly get out of the import process (no need to confirm that they want to cancel an import process)
Knowledgebase article: 27976

Outlook Integration

  • When Sage ACT! detects that the user is attempting to integrate Microsoft® Outlook® 64-bit with Sage ACT!, a message dialog will be displayed that states that Microsoft Outlook 64-bit is not supported, and that the 32-bit version is supported.

Web Administration (Sage ACT! Premium web client)

  • Ability to manage critical administration tasks from Sage ACT! Premium (access via web) client.
  • Manage users
  • Manage teams
  • Lock/unlock a database
  • Manage password policy
Knowledgebase article: 28095

 

Fixed Issues for Sage ACT! Pro and Sage ACT! Premium

Synchronization – Remote Databases

  • In previous versions, changing fields to a different drop down field list does not sync to remote databases. This issue has now been resolved.
  • In previous versions, updates on the parent database do not get synchronized to remote if both sides modify the same contact. Original data on the remote replaces the changes on the parent. This issue is now resolved.
  • The changes made in the document attached to a contact in the remote database are not synchronized to the document on the parent database. After editing and syncing to parent, a GUID number is added to the file and updated properly on the remote database. On the parent, the document is still linked to the original file name. On remote, the document is linked to the edited attachment. This issue is resolved.
  • Outlook contacts are removed from the remote database after syncing to parent. Issue is now fixed.
  • Resolved issue of not being able to change settings on multiple remote databases.

Outlook Integration

  • There was an issue where Contact and Calendar sync were failing with the following combination of conditions: User Account Control (UAC) in Windows® is turned ON, sync is run from the Sage ACT! menu or sync is run from the Sage Integration menu, and both Outlook and Sage Integration are run as/by a Windows Standard user. This issue has now been resolved. In other user privilege combinations and if a failure occurs, the proper messaging guiding users on how to resolve the issue is displayed.
  • Issue where the Outlook add-in for Sage ACT! displays a runtime error during loading when upgrading to Sage ACT! 2011 SP1, is now resolved.
  • Performance degradation when loading task list after sending an email using Outlook. Specific to Windows 7 and Office 2007 environments. Issue has been resolved.
  • In Terminal Services environment, Act.Outlook.Sync.exe errors display when logging in with multiple users. Multiple users can now log on to the same machine and sync Sage ACT! and Outlook simultaneously.
  • When attempting to send an email to two separate distribution lists on the same email, the email will not attach back into Sage ACT!. Issue has been resolved.

Contacts/Companies

  • Issue of not being able to continue using Sage ACT! without saving company name has been resolved.
  • Salutation field is deleted when users have set a preference to not fill the salutation field. Issue has been fixed.
  • Error while editing data in Company list view while in customize columns mode. Issue has been fixed.
  • In the Company detail view, if a user creates a company with divisions and then expands the tree view in the left navigation to show divisions and then switches the layout of the detail view to another layout, the expansion in the left navigation collapses.
  • Company name is right justified after performing a lookup. Issue is now resolved.

Import/Export

  • If contact with several names is not mapped in the multiple contact name dialog, nothing is imported into the database. Issue has been fixed.
  • Contacts of Opportunities are not exported when export from one database to another database. Issue has been fixed.
  • Import from Microsoft Excel® showing incorrect date format. Issue has been resolved.

Security

  • Emails sent to other users incorrectly adds the file to the attachment supplemental files folder. Issue has been resolved.

Lookups

  • No response after clicking Go to Advanced Query link on Lookup Opportunities view. Issue has been fixed.
  • Record Manager listed as Manager when doing lookups. Issue has been fixed.

Copy Database/Save As/New

  • The issue of not being to delete users in empty copy databases after applying Sage ACT! 2011 SP1 has now been resolved.
  • The issue of not being able to change default duplicate checking criteria in empty copy database after applying Sage ACT! 2011 SP1 is now resolved.
  • Teams created when setting team level security in empty copy database.

Reports

  • Gross Margin by Product calculated total cost incorrectly. Issue has been fixed.
  • Opportunity by Product does not display correct information. Issue has been fixed.
  • Issue of Group reports coming up blank when all sub groups are selected for selected groups is now resolved.

Smart Tasks

  • Deleting or changing an attachment to a Smart Task step after that Smart Task has been set to auto-run will result in no attachments being included in the Smart Task step. Issue has been resolved.

Activities/Notes/Histories

  • When adding a resource to an Activity in Sage ACT!, the activity is duplicated in the task list if the filter criteria for the task list is set to “all users”.

Restore

  • Database Restore does note restore custom layout.
    Workaround: Use "Restore As" function instead of "Restore".

Sage ACT! Email Client

  • Attaching emails to contact history is not working from the Sage ACT! Email client. History recording to Groups or Companies does not work as well for emails from Sage ACT! Email.

Other

  • Error message displays when users select “Add Permissions” link in Manage Users dialog. The link now opens correctly without error message.
  • Sage ACT! Office Add-in disables Quick Print function in Microsoft Word 2007/2010 after applying Sage ACT! 2011 SP1 update. Issue has been resolved.
  • Company Web Info tab links are not refreshed with current entity data if Web Site field has never contained data. Issue has been resolved.
  • Information on relationship between two contacts is not saved when using the Relationship hyperlink. Issue is now fixed.
  • When printing calendars using Quick Print, data from days other than those showing on the screen are printing.
  • When using the Facebook® and Google® links in Internet Explorer® 8, information will not display in the web info tab because of changes made by these sites to not display in frames. Issue has been resolved.
  • OLEDB Provider – Ambiguous Column Name when querying table with spill-over tables.
  • Alarms – Snoozing alarms causes error: Index was outside the bounds of the array.
  • Follow up activities not marked private even though the preference of "Make new activities public" is unchecked. Issue is now resolved.
  • If a user edits a layout within the first two minutes of opening Sage ACT!, Sage ACT! will switch between views and the layout designer 5 times. This behaviour is intentional; therefore we do not have plans to turn off background loading at this time.
    Workaround: Wait for more than two minutes before editing layouts after opening Sage ACT!.
  • When performing a mail merge to a Microsoft® Word document using Microsoft Word 2010, no history record is created for the record.

 

Fixed Issues for Sage ACT! Premium (access via web)

Installation/Uninstall

  • Syncconfigfile.xml file not copied during install, resulting in not being able to set up the Sage ACT! Internet Sync service. Issue has now been resolved.

Contacts/Companies

  • Contact Detail view is blank after selecting contacts from the contact lookup list, and when users navigate to other views, they are logged out of the database. Issue has been resolved.
  • Clicking on an email address in contact list gives a 404 error. Issue has been fixed.
  • When Customizing Columns in Contact List view, the dialog is in a distorted view that displays only the Available Fields. Issue is not resolved.

Activities

  • Resolved the issue of not being able to sort activities by date or time from Web client when start time is after 5:00 PM.

Outlook Integration

  • Outlook displays error about missing .dll files when loading Outlook integration. Outlook integration is now loaded without errors.
  • Sage ACT! address book is not listed as an available address book in Outlook for Outlook integration. Issue is now resolved.
  • When updating the time on a Sage ACT! activity and checking the “send invitation email” box on the activity dialog, the sender will get an updated iCalendar invitation, but the time still shows the original time for the activity.
    Workaround: The sender must manually change the activity time and/or date inside the email message. The manually updated message does update the receiver’s existing Outlook Calendar.
    Note: Microsoft currently has no plans to refresh the cache more often or provide a mechanism for Sage ACT! to refresh their cache due to performance.
  • Act.Outlook.Sync.exe errors when logging in with multiple users in Terminal Services. Issue has been resolved.

Preferences

  • Fixed the issue of not being able to change record creation options from the Web database client.

Opportunities

  • Custom date ranges on opportunity list filters does not return any results/data. Issue has been fixed.

Lookups/Keyword Search

  • Sorting on results of contact column after performing keyword search does not sort in any logical order. Issue is now resolved.
  • Lookup Keyword Search does not find all records, specifically is searching the Current Lookup. Issue has now been resolved.

Mail Merge

  • When Microsoft Word is set as the word processing editor for Sage ACT! Premium (access via web), if a user opens the mail merge fields dialog to add fields to the mail merge template, the fields are not in alphabetical order. Issue has been resolved.
  • Mail merge to Microsoft Word and print does not record history. Issue has been resolved.

Firefox™ Web Browser

  • Unable to perform advanced queries when accessing the web database client via Firefox®. Issue has been resolved.

Login

  • User logs in and in a varying time from 5 minutes to 20 minutes, the user will start getting a pop up message stating "Continue to stay logged in". The user then receives this same popups every 1,2, or 5 minutes asking them to click to continue. Issue has now been resolved.
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