To Cloud your #CRM or Not to Cloud. For that is the question

How to make users feel that using cloud can like trekking through a Brazilian jungle.

I’m guessing that many you might be aware of the issue with Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service which led to massive outages across the internet.

So far, Amazon has not given an indication as to the cause.

 

The only news on their site at this time is that the problems have been resolved: https://status.aws.amazon.com/

But why did it take down so much of the internet?

Yes, many applications were down for some hours. Buffer, Slack, Trello, and a great many more were unusable (or barely usable) during the time that Amazon had their outage.

According to the Synergy Research Group’s 2017 report, Amazon Web Services owns more than a whopping 40 percent share of the global public cloud services market.Other providers, such as Google, Microsoft and IBM are small players by comparison.

So maybe you can understand that when Amazon coughs, we all get colds.

What does this have to do with CRM?

Remember: There is no cloud, it’s just someone else’s computer

More and more, the major (and not so major) CRM providers have been pushing users to move their data to the vendors’ cloud systems. Even Swiftpage has been doing this with Act!.

Of course, there is a big advantage to the vendor to push for these subscriptions – They don’t have to add any real value to the product in order to keep getting your money. A case in point for this is the lack of any new serious functionality in Act! v19. Something I blogged about, here: What’s coming in Act! v19 – Good, bad or very ugly?

Although, more recently, the vendors have even put their on-premises products on the subscription model (Microsoft’s Office 365 and Swiftpage’s Act! are examples of this strategy to get users paying every year. They’ve both overly inflated the pricing of the “outright purchase” or “perpetual” licenses. They’ve also come down hard on the users who would consider buying outright, by making some features only available on subscription and (as Swiftpage says they’ll be doing for Act!) refusing to provide bug-fix updates within the version you purchased.

What are the advantages and disadvantages to you?

 

Advantages of cloud implementations:

• No need for server hardware CAPEX
• The IT costs can be reduced
• Maintenance, upgrades and support are handled by the vendor
  • This can be an issue when they update their version and break things that you use
• Can be easier to access from anywhere – This requires extra work for on-premises
• You, or your IT, are responsible for security if you make it available externally.
• There used to be a reduced upfront cost for the cloud, when compared to on-premises. But, with more vendors moving their on-premises versions to subscription, this is nolonger an advantage

 

Advantages of on-premises implementations:

• Retain 100% ownership of your data
  • How well do you trust the vendor to stay in business?
  • What happens to your data if they close?
• Retain 100% of the integrity of your data
  • About 6 months ago, Salesforce lost 4-5 hours of client data in May 2016
    The outage was caused by a problem with the database. So the folks at Salesforce restored the database back to the time before the problem occurred, four hours earlier, which deleted the previous data, Salesforce explained in a report on its Salesforce Trust page.
• Retain 100% of the security of your data
  • In 2007, a salesforce.com employee fell victim to a targeted phishing scam and was tricked into providing admin credentials to the perpetrators.
  • Last year, LinkedIn, had 117Million accounts hacked with details up for sale
  • Also last year, Yahoo disclosed a hack of more than 1Billion accounts
  • Does your cloud vendor use two-step authentication?
    If not, run (don’t walk) away to use something else.
    Hacks will get more common. If your vendor hasn’t made this a priority, they simply do not care about your data and you shouldn’t be giving it to them
• Less susceptible to external connectivity
  • Not all areas have great internet access
  • Because Handheld Contact for Act! stores the data on the device, I regard it as the best solution for Act! users with iPhones, iPads, Androids or Blackberrys
• Less susceptible to an issue like the recent Amazon one
• Sometimes greater functionality is available in the desktop version
• Often a wider range of integration possibilities
• Ability to customise your CRM solution with add-ons or custom written code that might not be possible in a cloud version

 

How about a hybrid solution?

One of the areas that Act! does best at, is the hybrid solution of using both delivery systems.

This can be a useful compromise:

• You still need your own IT – In-house or out-sourced
• You might still be susceptible to the security issues above … at both sides.
• You can pull your data out in any way you choose
• You are not constrained by internet access and can use the data via an app on your phone or laptop even when out of range.
• Access to both sets of integration and customisation options.
• You’d barely notice an outage from Amazon or the software vendor

 

After all this, what’s best for you?

And that’s really the question to ask. Each person will have a quite different view on this.

• You need to properly document your needs. This article might help: What’s the best CRM?
• You should try to find a VAR or Consultant who’s unbiased in this area so they can look at YOUR needs, rather than selling you something when there were better options. For some assistance in this area, read: How to pick the right CRM consultant for you

Please add a comment to this post with any thoughts you might have on the subject.

 

Technorati Tags: Act,Act!,Act CRM,CRM,cloud,security,smartphone,mobile crm,Swiftpage,LinkedIn,Hacked

ACT! Users Celebrate: Sage sells ACT! & SalesLogix to Swiftpage

For those who haven’t heard:
Sage is selling ACT! and SalesLogix to Swiftpage
And it’s great news for all involved

Here are the relevant official releases:

• Regulatory release: Sage continues to focus its business through non-core disposals
• Statement from Guy Berruyer, Sage Chief Executive Officer: Focusing our business
• Release from Swiftpage: Swiftpage to Acquire Sage ACT! and Sage SalesLogix Businesses
• Release by investor: Accel-KKR To Acquire Nonprofit Solutions Division Of Sage Group plc
• Sage views on what this means to partners and users

As someone who has spent more than 25 years supporting ACT! and supported more ACT! users than anyone else over that time, I have had hundreds of messages and questions about this since the Friday announcement. Mainly focused on these areas:

1. How many owners has ACT! had?
2. Why would Sage sell the products?
3. Is Swiftpage a good choice for ACT! and the ACT! Community?
4. What does this mean for Mike Lazarus 

Let’s discuss these one at a time – However, as I haven’t worked in the SalesLogix space, my views are from an ACT! perspective.

How many owners has ACT! had?

From The History of ACT!, this is the 4th sale of ACT! – and, if you don’t count Pat twice, the 4th owner:

• In 1993: Contact Software International (ex Conductor Software) purchased by Symantec
• In 1999: Sold by Symantec to SalesLogix (owned by Pat Sullivan, one of the co-founders of ACT!) – later renamed as Interact Commerce Corporation
• In 2001: Interact Commerce Corporation purchased by Sage Group Plc (Best Software in the US at that time)
• And now sold to Swiftpage

 

Why would Sage sell the products?

It’s useful to understand the reason Sage wanted ACT! (and SalesLogix) in the first place … a decade ago, companies in the ERP arena like Sage, Microsoft and others believed that they could gain advantages in the small-mid business market by providing a front-office solution to complement their accounting and ERP solutions, in a similar way that solutions sold to larger enterprises had done to lock in users to a single vendor.

This essentially failed for a number of reasons:

• Sage never managed to achieve the promise of real integration between ACT! and their accounting products to a level where they could show an advantage in an SME customer purchasing both from the same vendor
• Unlike with the enterprise users, small-mid businesses do not make the decisions on their accounting and their sales/marketing solutions at the same time or from the same management needs
• Sage never fully understood that the CRM market is different to ERP in it’s use – especially for small-mid market users and for those in international markets

Also, like SalesLogix (Interact), they thought that the ACT! base would become a feeder channel that they could convince to move to their bigger products – this belies the passion that most ACT! users have for the product and the reason why both Symantec and Sage couldn’t remove the ACT! branding to replace with their corporate ones. It also failed to appreciate how the needs of ACT! users differed from those of the other products.

Sage has had a tumultuous relationship with ACT! and the community surrounding it:

• They did recognise that, in order to add functionality that users wanted, ACT! needed to be re-engineered from the CodeBase architecture that the Symantec re-write had been based on. However they made the mistake of jumping on .Net and MS-SQL well before it was ready for prime-time (most tech support issues are related to the Microsoft components rather than Sage code) and this further limited the product in portability to Mac or other operating environments.
• Most of the long-time ACT! staff were let go instead of being promoted. This created a vacuum of requisite knowledge of both the product and the users within the organisation
• With the exception of the brief stewardship of David van Toor, senior management refused to engage the users and partners with any communication about problems or the direction of the product – to me, this was the single biggest error that Sage made. Although, since the more recent promotion of Ben Lederer to the Product Management position, this has been improving as I stated in the post: Looking ahead with #SageACT! 2013
• They gave up on ACT! in many international markets such as Asia, India and recently outsourced the Australian and New Zealand market to ACT! CRM – at least this last one improved the resources for ACT! users and partners
• Sage also failed to understand the mobile needs of the users – or that the mobile users for ACT! and SalesLogix have quite different needs. ACT! has been in the mobile market longer than most (since supporting HP95LX in 1992), but Sage’s years of trying to get their Sage ACT! Connect product (renaming it several times) working has been a distraction and a failure. It was the first time I’d ever publically advised against using a product with the ACT! brand in the post Getting ACT! on your phone and again in Problems with Sage Mobile for ACT! (new ACT! Mobile Live) and, most recently in this Sage ACT! Mobile Solutions Comparison. While the newer Sage ACT! Premium Mobile interface has some good functionality (when they get it right) for Premium users who can administer an IIS infrastructure, I’d suggest that Connect should be put to rest and that Swiftpage should work with Handheld Contact to provide a complete solution.

I do not feel, as some others do, that making ACT! a pure SaaS product would have been the right answer for Sage. One of the long-time ACT! consultants, Paul Marentette, put it this way:

I'm seeing a real backlash in the marketplace against high-cost, slow response plus the restricted controls endemic with SAAS. Remember, ACT! is uniquely positioned to work well over the web, but even better in on-premise/self-hosted environments while supporting mobile and remote users with the full features and fastest response only available from a local database.

ACT! has, in fact, been available as a hosted solution (browser or remote desktop) since 2003 – and I agree with Paul, in that one of ACT!’s advantages has been the variety of remote support options and third-party integration products that are not available in full SaaS offerings. As well as the higher expense that monthly fees typically entail and the fact that ACT! was built around the mobile sales-warrior who will often need access where the internet is not readily available.

That Sage has been wanting to sell off these products should come as no surprise. Most of us arrived at this conclusion seven months ago when Sage defined ACT! and SalesLogix as “non-core” as you can see in this discussion thread (despite Sage’s denials at the time)

Sage has realised that it’s good business sense to focus on the solutions it knows best … and, like when Symantec made the same decision previously, I believe this is the right call and will be good for both Sage Group, plc and for the products they are selling.

There are some who may think that the lack of corporate backing by Sage might hurt ACT!. Sage will maintain a 16.1% stake in the new ACT/SalesLogix operations, so there still is that backing to leverage off when it has value

Is Swiftpage a good choice for ACT! and the ACT! Community?

My answer: A resounding YES!

The Friday announcement is the public statement of intent. It’s still subject to final regulatory approval (which can take from a few weeks in up to 3 months) and no specific details of their plans have been revealed.

So, what is it about Swiftpage that I find so compelling and exciting?

• Swiftpage understands the products and the market
  They have been working with the ACT! Community, as an add-on vendor, since about 2004. Senior Vice President and General Manager - Sage ACT! and Sage SalesLogix, Dan Wilzoch, pointed out:
  As an existing partner and provider of Sage E-marketing for Sage ACT! and Sage SalesLogix, Swiftpage also brings a thorough understanding of our customers, partners, products and the markets in which we compete.
• Their partners find them great to do business with and they inspire loyalty
  I should point out that, unlike other members of the ACT! community, I haven’t had a lot of dealings with Swiftpage as I don’t sell directly to end-users and my client base tends to be ACT! Consultants, Resellers and Add-on vendors that prefer communications and news via forums such the LinkedIN ACT! Fanatics Group – in fact, I previously produced add-ons for ACT! that directly competed with them, such as MergeMaster! for ACT! 5/6. My only connection with them is that I have, at times, recommended them to users via this affiliate link: Swiftpage
  But, I know from all the many resellers and users that I deal with that Swiftpage has been a superlative organisation for them to deal with. They have been responsive and supportive of users and community, alike.
• Swiftpage understands the sales and marketing mentality
  As their focus has been in digital marketing, they come from an appreciation of the needs of sales and marketing, which is quite different from those looking for an ERP or accounting solution.
• They understand the real value of ACT!
  As a long-time add-on vendor, they know that ACT!’s value is in having a great, easy-to-use, core-product with users able to build the solutions they need via the huge number of add-on products available. Hopefully, this will means they will make it easier for such solutions to be created.
• Swiftpage has been in the cloud for a long time
  While most ACT! users prefer the speed and functionality of local copies – as regional internet access improves and the market continues to mature, the benefits of having hybrid systems combining hosted (or SaaS) and on-premises solutions will be an area that ACT! is better enabled to take advantage of.
• Swiftpage is an entrepreneurial enterprise – like most of the ACT! user-base
  ACT! has always flourished best when not constrained by the controls and red-tape associated with larger corporations that try to pigeon-hole it within their broader product range.
• Swiftpage has the necessary financial backing
  Via investment from Accel-KKR, one of the preeminent private equity firms in the US. Accel-KKR has a reputation for creating high growth software companies. They would not be investing in Swiftpage if they did not think they have the skills and resources to make ACT! a big success
• They intend to make the international market a focus
  Swiftpage has a lot of activity internationally and expects the international ACT! market to be an important point of growth going forward. 
• I spoke to Swiftpage’s Chairman and Founder, Bob Ogdon, on the weekend. He reaffirmed that Swiftpage wants to reignite the energy and passion that the communities of both products still have in heavy supply. It is the intent of Swiftpage to  include the ACT! community in a very active role.  He told me that they want to make an impact and they need the key players in the ACT! community to be involved for that to happen.

One can see from this thread that the “ACT! Fanatics” in the Community are very much behind this change:
Announcement from ACT! Fanatics - ACT! and SalesLogix sold to SwiftPage

What about the future?

• They are bringing over 250 of the ACT! staff … this includes UK and US staff. Time will tell as to how many of those stay in place. There are many that I hope do just that – I won’t name those I especially think are important here, for fear of upsetting any I may inadvertently miss
• As I mentioned above, ACT! CRM is distributing in Australia and New Zealand and I’d expect this to continue. While there are some changes I might make to the local policies, I have considerable faith and trust in Michael Bryant (the long-time ACT! Consultant behind the new distributor). He knows the local market, has a considerable investment in both money and time behind the product, and has shown himself to have exceptional business and entrepreneurial skills
• I hope they listen to, and work with, the local Consultants in Europe and South America as well as looking at reigniting the markets in Asia, India and others that Sage left. Most especially, they need to understand some of the international issues that Sage had ignored. I’d be more than happy to assist them in this venture.
• I do hope they remove the artificial barriers of international regionalisation that Sage implemented (especially amongst the partners). While this is de rigueur for ERP and accounting solutions, it’s counter-productive for contact managers and CRM
• They should look at ending the annual upgrade cycle that makes more sense for ERP products than it does for CRM … good products should have their releases determined by development and QA, not by marketing, accountants and analysts.
• They should refocus on the core product – and look at the options to leverage off both on-premises and SaaS. Then promoting the third-party vars for functions they are already doing so well.
• More specific plans will be discussed and announced as the transfer proceeds to a close.

The ACT! world is going to be fun again - In fact, the only negative I can see is that searching the web for “ACT!” produces far too many unrelated results, compared to “Sage ACT!” or #SageACT on Twitter

 

What does this mean for Mike Lazarus 

Well, after 25 years supporting ACT!, including over 13,000 posts to the Sage ACT! Community site, winning the Experts-Exchange Titan Award 3 times and running the LinkedIN ACT! Fanatics Group, I can’t see myself going anywhere in the near future … but I am looking to see what opportunities this may present.

I must say that I have been delighted, humbled and a little amused by the posts in this ACT! Fanatics thread – while I don’t see the option of Pope being available, I would certainly be open to talking to Swiftpage and see how they could best leverage my skills, on-line reputation and passion for the product.

It the mean time, I’m looking to set up an ACT! Fanatics Club to provide the type of training indicated in this thread – please let me know if this would be of interest to you and worth putting the effort in?

 

Technorati Tags: Sage,Sage ACT!,ACT!,SalesLogix,Swiftpage,CRM,Sage CRM

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.

 

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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.

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

Sage eSummit 2.0 – ACT! by Sage Agenda

Sage Business Solutions Australia is presenting their 2nd ACT! eSummit

Wednesday 12th August 2009

To see the recording of the webinar, click here

Title	Presenter	Description	Time
Sage Marketplace	Mike Lorge, MD, Sage Business Solutions	As the leading provider of business software for small to medium businesses, Sage has a range of solutions that can automate all areas of your business, including finance, warehousing, ecommerce, distribution etc. This short session will provide a brief overview of the complete range of solution offerings provided by Sage.	10.00 am - 10.15 am
Driving Revenue & Reducing Costs with Email Marketing	Bob Ogdon, Swiftpage	This session highlights a range of effective tips to make your email marketing campaigns easy, powerful, and cost effective.  Learn how Swiftpage, an integrated email marketing and Sales Force Automation solution for ACT! by Sage, allows you to deliver marketing messages to the right contacts at the right time directly from your ACT! database.	10.20 am - 10.35 am
Personalising ACT!	Allen Duet, Global CRM	Check out some of the awesome ACT! plug ins available to you on Devnet. This session will showcase how you can customise ACT! with some of these free plugins that work with the latest version. If you've always wanted to pimp your ACT!, this is a session you can't miss.	10.40 am - 10.55 am
Anywhere and Everywhere with ACT!	Mike Lazarus, GL Computing	Handheld Contact for ACT! allows you to take your ACT! database anywhere and access it from a mobile device such as a Blackberry,  Pocket PC, or Treo Smartphone . Learn how this ACT! mobility solution can increase the productivity of your mobile sales force and field force agents, while keeping them connected and up to date with company and customer records.  By providing simple, easy access to information through wireless devices you can greatly improve the level of service you deliver to your customers.	11.00 am - 11.15 am
Reduce Costs through Accounting Integration with MYOB	Josh Noonan, Red Onion Software	This session will highlight the benefits of integrating ACT! with your accounting system;, including:• Increased efficiency by streamlining workflows between accounts and front office staff• Increased sales opportunities by Integrating essential client information between ACT! and your accounting systems• Allow sales staff to monitor and manage customer credit• Eliminate dual entry of customer information • The complete solution for optimising workflow and increasing operating efficiency	11.20 am - 11.35 am
SMS Marketing with ACT!	Michael Bryant, ACT! Certified Consultant	SMS4ACT allows you to make sure your appointments are confirmed by sending SMS to your customers or contacts straight out of ACT!, this way you can ensure that your communication gets to the person and not caught up in the junk mail.  You can also conduct SMS Marketing to your database and letting them about an upcoming specials or events.  Improve the effectiveness of your communication through SMS, all the while tracking these communications against the contacts in ACT!	11.40 am - 11.55 am

Technorati Tags: ACT!,ACT! by Sage,CRM,Sage,Handheld Contact,Blackberry,Pocket PC,MYOB

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

The play for CRM in the mid-market

It's interesting to see some of the big boys (including Microsoft) throw their hats into the front-office and chase the mid-market CRM clients over the past 5 years or so.

On one hand, you have products from the likes of Sage who's CRM products started at the low end with ACT! and moved up with SalesLogix and Sage CRM (Microsoft is also at this level with BCM and MS CRM). They need to achieve better scalability and develop an understanding of longer, more complex sales cycles.

On the other hand, Seibel, SAP, Oracle and others who come from the world of large data warehouse implementations are trying to move down-stream to meet a price point of the sites smaller than they have historically developed.

It seems to me that those who started at the bottom typically have better usability in the interface for those working on the "coal face", but those starting at the top can drive business with superior scalability and management reporting... but both need to learn from the other to get the mix right for the market they are all chasing.

One can see Sage's direction in their 2010 White Paper, which shows that they are finally planning to integrate their offerings and embrase Web 2.0 technologies.

Interested to hears other's views on this and, if you agree with my analysis, who do you think is winning and why?