Working with Act! again

It has been a few months since I last posted on the status of where I am with Swiftpage and the direction of the product. In that time, I have received numerous requests for an update.

After a call back in March from John Oechsle, Swiftpage's CEO, and Rowan Koons, SVP and GM, followed by four months of detail discussions on how to continually improve the product and user experience, we have reached an agreement for how I can best continue to serve Act! and the broader Act! Community.

Swiftpage has recognised my expertise and passion, and as part of this working together, Swiftpage has endorsed me as an “Act! Certified Expert, sanctioned by Swiftpage” as at 1 August 2017.

I have also been fortunate, during these conversations, to have had a look at the future direction of roadmap for Act!. This has made me more excited to be working with them to try and bring these to market for you.

My Current Focus

It does have elements of the position of "P.O.P.E" as originally suggested as a comment in this LinkedIn thread from four years ago - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/49896/49896-214593198 by Paul Marentette, of Uptime Solutions in Canada, and seconded by many others including Bob Ogdon, Chairman and Founder of Swiftpage.

We have highlighted the following ways to work together:

1. Initially examining areas of the current build (19.2 Update 3), with a focus on MS-Office integration and other areas that users might suggest.

2. Become active again in the Act! Community Site and my Linkedin Act! Fanatics Group. Not just in supporting users, as I have done for many years, but also creating an analysis of the posts to identify the areas that users have the most issues with (usability or flaws).

3. Assist Swiftpage in updating and enhancing Act! Knowledgebase articles.

4. Alpha and Beta testing v20 as soon as it is available.

After this, I hope to assist Swiftpage in improving Act! eMarketing, WebAPI, Mobile Companion, and other areas. I also intend to help them enhance their relationships with the Act! Certified Consultants and other resellers channel.

Help Me To Help You

I have some requests for you, the Act! Fanatic community (users and the resale channel alike):

1. I would like to examine any systems where Act! v19 is having issues with Outlook integration. At this time, I would be happy to take on about three sites per week.
NOTE: This is a NO CHARGE offer - No charge to the user or reseller.

2. Could you please post, as a comment to this blog article, or in the LinkedIn Group, or via private communication to me, any bugs or areas where you think I should allocate additional time. If I do not understand your point, I may contact you to see it remotely on your system.

3. Please also comment in the forums above with any subjects that I could generate a blog article that you think could improve your use of Act!. I do have some ideas that I have not seen done before, but I would still value your opinions.

The Future

This agreement is a great opportunity for me, for the product and for the community of users who have been behind the product for up to 30 years.

Those of you who know me know that I will throw everything I have into testing every function I can - as a user. I will work with other users in the forums, via email or phone, to find the issues that matter most in keeping you productive. Then I will work to try and replicate the issues so that I can report them accurately to QA and Development so they can work on fixing them.

Once this is underway, I hope to also have a small say in helping them prioritise their resources so that they can deliver the best possible solution for us all and make Act! as great a product as we all know it can be.

About four years ago, a user asked me what I would do if the vendor put me in charge of the product. At that time, I described a roadmap over two-three years that I thought would be necessary without the funds of an Apple or Google. I still believe that, over a similar time-frame, we can have a leading solution again.

Please feel free to post any questions or comments you have on this.

Regards,

Mike Lazarus
Act! Evangelist

Finding the hidden functions of ACT! with your Consultant

Part 4 of The Seven Day Blogging Challenge - Share a photo I took this week and tell you about it.

I have thought about today’s Challenge post for a while and, with this blog being about ACT!, there was not much I could think of to take a picture that would be relevant.

So I’ve taken a screen shot of a menu that describes how proper use of ACT! will benefit you:

If you can’t find these functions in your copy of ACT!, I suggest you speak to your ACT! Certified Consultant. These are the people who do more that the break-fix support you might get from a vendor support contact.

A good ACC will take the time to understand your business and the workflow of your operations. They will then assist you in designing ACT! in the best possible way to achieve your goals using functions within the product or some of the many powerful add-ons that extend it’s use.

The ACC can then assist with planning and implementing your installation roll-out including importing your data, connecting to other systems and training your users and administrators to properly get the maximum benefit from the product.

An investment in a good Certified Consultant will generate a Return many times in better managing your contacts

When looking at the ACT! Certified Consultant list, you may find many in your area. So here is an article on how you should go about picking the right one for you: How to pick the right CRM consultant

Should you have any questions on this, please let me know by posting the comments here.

Technorati Tags: ACT,ACT!,Sage,SageACT!,CRM,ACC

Problems with Sage Mobile for ACT! (new ACT! Mobile Live)

Part 3 of The Seven Day Blogging Challenge - Write a blog post on the same topic as one my most popular posts

Well, the most popular posts previously have been:

• Why I prefer Blackberry over iPhone for business
• Getting ACT! on your phone

So I thought I would do another on mobile CRM with Sage ACT!.

I have always supported ACT! as a mobile product … both with sync to laptops and remote offices and with sync to PDAs and smartphones. Over the years, I have purchased new devices along this path to use, test and support other users:

• An HP95LX in 1992 for ACT! for HP95
• Apple Newton in 1995 for ACT! for Newton
• Handheld PC running Windows CE in 1997 for ACT! for Windows CE
• Palm M505 in 2002 for ACT! for Palm OS
• Blackberry in 2000 here I used Companion Link
• Another Blackberry in 2003 using Handheld Contact
• Since then, I have used various devices using Blackberry, iOS (iPhone and iPad) and Windows Mobile operating systems.

I believe in the benefits of being able to access and enter my ACT! data wherever I am and understand the problems that mobile users have.

Since 2003, I have been using Handheld Contact. But I have still tested other products to be satisfied that no other product is better for me to switch to.

Despite ACT! for Palm being the best PDA/smartphone solution for ACT!, the ACT! developers have concentrated on products linking to the native address books and losing much of the functionality that real ACT! users should want. Without this, they may as well be using Outlook for their CRM.

They have had “ACT! Mobile Live” in beta and release for around three years and recently renamed it as “Sage Mobile for ACT!”. It still has many of the bugs and issues I reported in the first beta.

So I thought I’d let you know why I really don’t think users should consider it for their use.

• The country code is not supported in phone fields - this means:
  • You can't dial international numbers
  • You can dial any numbers when travelling overseas
  • You can't enter contacts with international numbers
  • It causes problems if also using ACT! for dialling/faxing with other services
• If sync's with Exchange, Outlook or Google, changes to the outlook profile will either delete records from the ACT! database or duplicate them ... results can be inconsistent
• Some activity types are incorrectly handled causing data changes back in ACT!
• Some activity time-zones cause activities to move
• No formatting of fields
• Not a multiuser service... so can't work with web or hosted environments
• No tracking of History on calls, emails and sms made from the phone

There are a number of other bugs and functional omissions but as the challenge (as mentioned top of this post) is for a limited number of words, I’ll do a longer post on this later.

Considering Handheld Contact is only $50 more, I think the choice is a no-brainer

Technorati Tags: ACT!,Sage,Sage ACT!,CRM,Blogging,Mobile CRM,Blackberry Vs iPhone,iPhone,Sage Mobile

What I learned from my last blog post… and what would you like me to blog about?

Let me start by saying that, while I do like speaking, I don’t consider myself to be a good writer. This is the reason that my posts are largely bullet points or PowerPoint posts and tend to be mostly of a technical nature. Fortunately, blogs in the technical arena gain readerships according to the market they target.

As my blogs are targeted in a small niche of ACT! users who want to improve their technical understanding of the product, I don’t chase the volume hits of more professional bloggers. To put this in perspective, I have been typically achieving about 2000 hits per month on this blog (about the same as I get on the main GL Computing web site.

I try to post at least a couple of times a month and my posts do have a fair degree of text contact, which the search engines love to index.

I do promote my posts via Social Media:

• Twitterfeed automatically sends a Tweet on Twitter very soon after an update
• New posts are automatically added to the News section in the LinkedIN ACT! Fanatics Group 
• Networkblogs automatically posts them to the GL Computing Facebook page and to the streams of those who follow either the blog page or are fans of the GL page.
• I also find other similar blog posts and, where applicable, add a comment referencing my post
• Additionally, I use links to the posts when answering forum questions where I have covered the topic in a post.

Currently, about 50% of hits to the blog are from referring sites (mainly forums I post to and the social media links) and only 35% from search engines.

However, last week, I posted about Why I prefer Blackberry over iPhone for Businesses. This was picked up by a couple of journalists and professional bloggers like Neerav Bhatt on his blog: Introduction to RIM Blackberry Mobile Phones: Pros and Cons

Not only did this article receive a lot of nice comments, but it was highly re-tweeted and has so far received about 1000 hits in less than 2 weeks (500 in the first day).

This raises some questions that I’d like to pose to you:

1. What would you like to see me blog about?

   While I intend to keep targeting the ACT! user base, should I keep the focus on product technical posts? Or would you like to see more posts on other topics that might be of interest, such as: mobile computing, social media, general CRM, general sales/marketing or general IT?
   

2. Would it detract from the site if I added some Google Ads or sponsorships?

   As I provide the content of this blog for free, do you think it would be a problem to go down this path? Previously, I had not considered the hit rate to be high enough to make this worth-while and also reasoned that the technical people who read the site wouldn’t be interested in this.

To add one more thing – While I don’t sell to end-users, if anyone wishes to utilise my services for any work related to ACT! or IT, you just need to have your reseller contact me to book some time. I can be available remotely for work at any time of the day as we support (via our resellers) in all time-zones.

Please let me know via a comment to this article, a comment in the ACT! Fanatics Group or privately via our Web Site Contact Page if you have any thoughts on what you’d like to see articles on or if there’s anything I can assist you with.

Technorati Tags: ACT!,ACT! by Sage,Blogs,CRM,SCRM,Social Media,support

Connecting the Pieces of Social Media

This is a first version of a new presentation I’m working on to help businesses get into social media. As uses of CRM products realise the volume of business intelligence that can be gained from these technologies, the vendors will move to incorporate them into the products.

Having access to the information in community forums, blogs, Facebook, LinkedIN and Twitter is powerful both for gaining information about customers and products as well as providing information to the market, reviewing and protecting the reputation of your brand.

Connecting the Pieces of Social Media

View more presentations from Mike Lazarus.

Please feel free to add any comments or suggestions that you would like added.

Technorati Tags: Social Media,Twitter,FaceBook,Blogs,Social CRM,CRM

Social Media and Your Brand

This post is a response to a post on Sage’s ACT! Leadership Blog

The question was: How do you protect the value of your brand when "the creation of value is in the eyes of the consumers?"

Every product will have unhappy users or even competitors posting on-line about them. This is unavoidable, if you don't have any problems, either the product does nothing or you don't have very many users :-)

The most important focus in the current market is for the vendor to properly engage and respond to their users. The number of complaining ACT! consumers has dropped since Sage North America has started talking to their users via their Community Site – something I blogged about previously

The new wave of consumers, the "Millennial generation" (born 1982-2002), are starting to be a larger percentage of the market. But they are much more likely to look for product information and references from on-site forums than vendor sites. The power of communications is in the control of these users and it is necessary to realise this in-order to attract, serve and retain users in this new market.

In these times of social media, it is necessary to meet the user base where they choose, not  simply hope they will come to you. It also requires doing regular searches of the most common sites (like Twitter) for comments (positive or negative) and actually respond to show that they are being listened to.

With the global effect of the internet not fitting into the regionalisation that Sage's corporate structure uses, it is also necessary to encourage the regional OpCos to step up... to take part on this site, to create their own blogs and Twitter accounts. I have been speaking to Aldo in the Sage AU office about providing them some training in social media and helping them get up to speed with efficient ways to utilise these technologies. But they don't always have the resources necessary. Maybe this is one area that Sage Global can assist the regions in?

These steps should not just be looked at to "protect the brand" but, if done correctly, they can be a significant step in enhancing that brand.

This view has additional implications for Sage. As users of their three CRM products (ACT!, SageCRM and SalesLogix) their own user base will be looking for leadership in this area from Sage. It has certainly been positive to hear that Sage is working at integrating social media into the products so that their users will be able to better monitor and enhance their own brand’s reputation in the market.

Technorati Tags: ACT!,Sage,CRM,Social Media,SCRM

Selling ACT! in tough economic times

This was done as a response to a a post in the ACT! Leadership Blog

It is useful to note that during previously perceived "tough times", ACT! does quite well.

• It's an easy argument to make that, during these times, businesses need to make the most from their assets - especially the ability to mine the valuable asset of their client base and providing better customer service for new and current contacts. CRM is a MUST HAVE to survive these times.
• Compared to other CRM solutions, ACT!'s pricing makes it an easier choice - especially against SaaS solutions as ACT! isn't tied to regular payments that drain cash-flow. The lower entry point, while also using a powerful SDK allowing add-on and custom solutions to provide the answers to business needs.
• The general reputation of reliability and support for ACT! (that did admittedly take a hit with the 7.0 and 8.0 releases) is enviable. A product that doesn’t require expensive support contracts is another way to keep the cash-flow in your favour
• The stated aims of Sage, now that the core product is back to it's desired quality, to integrate better with back-end ERP (accounting) systems and with social media will further cement the product as the central repository for business intelligence.

This is a time that Sage and its channel should capitalize on and, if the users are well looked after, will create long-term clients for Sage Software - with ACT! itself, and also users who may eventually upgrade to SageCRM / SalesLogix and even those who incorporate Sage ERP products.

Technorati Tags: ACT!,ACT! by Sage,Financial,Economic,Sage,CRM

ACT! by Sage and Social Media – Social CRM

More and more businesses are starting to take advantage of various forms of “Social Media” and are looking at the advantages of integrating these with their CRM solution to provide a more complete view of their relationships.

Sage themselves have said they are looking at doing more with Social CRM and have asked users for input in what they would like in these links:

• The ACT! user and Social Media
• Are you Tagging with delicious, Diigo or other Social Bookmarking Tools?
• ACT! and the Web - Social Contact Management: Part 1 of 3

I thought I would post a few ideas on what’s possible to do now with ACT! and what I hope Sage will work on in future versions of the ACT! product.

What types of “Social Media” am I referring to:

Yes, there are a number of different types of social media in use. The ones I’m going to discuss are the ones that I’ve found most useful in business at this time:

• Blogs – like this one.
  • A flow of information from the business or staff members to the market usually with the facility for users to comment.
  • Great for providing detailed news and updates that your target market can subscribe to
  • Easier to maintain and update than their web site “News” pages
• Social networking sites like LinkedIN, Facebook or MySpace.
  • Includes a form of micro-blogging through their status function
• Twitter – social media micro-blogging
  • Short (140 character) updates
  • Very fast updates
  • Allows users to update via SMS or smart phone applications
  • Similar to status functions in social networking sites like LinkedIN and Facebook

What does integrating CRM with Social Media mean?

• Viewing recent information posted by contacts
• Updating your CRM with updated data posted by the contacts to the social networking sites
• Storing information within the ACT! database so it can be searched on or viewed later like history
• Enabling the use of this information to improve business intelligence

What Social CRM is possible now with ACT!?

• Ability to attach web pages from blogs and other URLs to Contact records
• For ACT! 2008 and 2009, Sage has provided a free Contact Web Context Browser Control that can display LinkedIN profiles, Google maps and other information in a tab for contact. You get more information on this plug-in and download it from this link
  

What I’d like to see Sage add to ACT!

• Permanently link the LinkedIN profile to the ACT! contact rather than the current method of displaying a search
• Add the same functionality for Facebook and other major social networking sites
• Lookup for those Contacts where the social media profile and the ACT! contact have different information
• A function to update the ACT! Contact record from the LinkedIN or Facebook profile
• Groups that connect to LinkedIN Groups
• Blog tab to display last 5 blog items
• Micro blog Tab displaying last 20 social network status updates and Twitter tweets
• Ability to Save items from the Blog and Micro blog tabs so they remain in ACT!
• Reply to a status or Direct message a contact and save in the History for the ACT! Contact
• Combine and view Blog and Micro blog tabs in Company and Group records
• Keyword search to include Blog and Micro blog entries
• Dashboard to show most recent blogs, status updates, tweets based on various search terms

Please post a comment with what you’d like to see done in this area and how it would benefit your business.

Technorati Tags: ACT!,ACT! by Sage,ACT,CRM,SCRM,Social Media,LinkedIN,Facebook,Twitter

New Blog URL - Life and Times with ACT! by Sage

Please note, the URL for this Blog has now changed to http://blog.glcomputing.com.au - you may want to change any links to it.