Chicago  ACT! USER GROUP

Meeting Notes

Meeting Date: July 1999

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NEWS YOU CAN USE:

The ACT! SIG is currently on summer hiatus. Our next meeting is September 14, 1999. If you would like to be notified of future ACT! SIG meetings, send an e-mail message to info@etechsys.com.

JUNE MEETING FEATURE: EncycloSmart from MarketingSmart

How many times have you looked for a piece of sales literature in your office storeroom or searched for a presentation on your PC and had a hard time finding it? Once you found it, how sure were you that the document you found was the "latest and greatest" version?

Mike White of Atlanta-based MarketingSmart described and demonstrated EncycloSmart, a new, online "marketing encyclopedia". EncycloSmart is an outsourced service that is particularly valuable to organizations where many individuals must have access to current versions of price lists, sales brochures – even PowerPoint presentations. Typical users include sales forces, distributors, and franchisees and franchisers.

White explained that a marketing encyclopedia is a new Internet approach to a very old and simple idea: the storeroom for the marketing literature, documents, and price lists that a marketing department or sales group produces. A marketing encyclopedia also replaces the decades-old document distribution and document delivery systems that rely on mail and overnight delivery services. With a marketing encyclopedia, your document delivery and distribution is handled securely over the Internet.

In the past, most marketing encyclopedias were a custom combination of tools such as Lotus Notes connected to an Internet web site. EncycloSmart is a hosted secure web-based marketing encyclopedia. A marketing encyclopedia provides central storage of all marketing documents in a secure accessible on-line database over the Internet. The marketing encyclopedia also disseminates marketing documents and marketing collateral to users of the system.

Mike also explained that a marketing encyclopedia is an efficient way to resolve version control problems and to deliver or distribute marketing brochures and marketing collateral to sales people, distributors, remote employees, and even clients.

Posting files in the EncycloSmart marketing encyclopedia is more secure and more convenient than posting the same information on the company web site. First, access to documents and other files can be controlled on a user-by-user basis. Moreover, individuals (competitors) browsing your web site cannot access your marketing library. EncycloSmart is designed for the non-technical user. Library files can be downloaded with a click of the mouse.

Adding new users, building a library, posting and changing content, and organizing and grouping information is done easily without involving the company webmaster. Another feature lets you easily alert selected users by e-mail that a new piece of literature has been added. Setting up new users is a snap; just select the administration level and choose which documents the new user may be allowed to access.

EncycloSmart costs $19.95 per month per user. There are no setup or additional fees per user or per license. For more information visit: www.etechsys.encyclosmart.com/.

Q: Are there any simple expense report applications that will work with ACT!?

A: Check out "Quick Expense". It’s not particularly simple, but it will work with ACT!. Visit the ACT! add-on page at www.symantec.com for more information.

Q: Can you synchronize ACT! schedules with Microsoft Outlook?

A: Scheduling information can be exchanged between ACT! 4.0 and Outlook 98 letting you use ACT! 4.0 to schedule an activity for a contact in an Outlook database and vice versa. This function must be managed through e-mail. Just check the "Send e-mail message to activity participants" check box on the Advanced Options tab in the Schedule Activity dialog box. Choose the "vCalendar Standard" as the attachment format. (The vCalendar Standard is compatible with Outlook 95 & 98.) Upon the receipt of this e-mail message, the Outlook user’s calendar will be automatically updated. Note: this function does not work with Outlook Express -- just Outlook.

Q: How can I sort my ACT! 4.02 database by create date?

A: You can easily look up contact records created within a specific range of dates using the command: LOOKUP, BY EXAMPLE. However, ACT! cannot sort contact records by create date. One way to work around this is to export the lookup to a spreadsheet format like Excel. Use the command is FILE, DATA EXCHANGE, EXPORT to export the data to a text file. Then open the file in Excel. Use Excel’s sorting functions to sort records by create date. Be sure to include the create date field as one of the fields to be exported.

OUR NEXT MEETING

I hope you are having a great summer! The next meeting of the ACT! SIG will be held on Tuesday, September 14, 1999. To receive meeting reminders call E Tech Systems at 847-352-4770 or e-mail us at info@etechsys.com.

The ACT! SIG of the CCS holds meetings on the second Tuesday of the month, eight months of the year. SIG meetings are free and open to all present and potential CCS members.

E Tech Systems is a Sales Force Automation consulting firm which has installed, configured, and customized ACT! for dozens of companies and trained thousands of ACT! users. Alan Lee can be reached at E Tech at 847-352-4770 or via e-mail to alee@etechsys.com.

© Copyright 1999 by Alan M. Lee. Other not-for-profit computer users groups may reprint this material provided credit is given to the author and CCS. Rights for publication are reserved by Alan M. Lee. ACT! is a registered trademark of Symantec Corporation.

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