Look-ups are a unique feature of Act not found in other CRM’s. There is a particularly useful dozen you will find that all start with the word “Any” followed by fields that appear multiple times in the Contact table like Phone, Email, Address etc.
Save Time and Steps With The Lookup Previous Shortcut!
This month’s Act Tip focuses on the “Previous Lookup” capability! This feature saves the last 9 look ups of the Contact Table from almost all Act screens.
Use the Activity location field to denote other important variables.
Repurpose the Activity “location” field (which is seldom used or needed) to denote other important variables such as the “internal status” of an activity. You can add the field to the Task List to quickly view and “export to excel” for quick reports.
Use the sizing tool in ACT!’s calendar view to expand the mini calendar.
The default calendar view in ACT! shows the entire current month in a full mini-calendar view in a column to the right. This mini calendar view can be expanded to include a visual of 8 months at a time!
Use Custom Activity Types
Change Act by creating Custom Activity types to get a deeper understanding of your business activity. ACT! Admins or Managers can click on “Schedule”, then select “Manage”, select “Activity Types” in menu to add additional Activity Types to those provided with the software.
Quickly schedule from the Calendar
To save time, right click in the Calendar and chose “Schedule” to pick the Activity type. Highlight the “Schedule With” contact and hit the “Backspace” key. Then begin typing the desired contact’s last name. For more options to find the person(s) click on the Contacts drop down icon.
Use Control + C to quickly copy Contact info and paste into other programs.
This tip works best with the cursor placed in the Contact field. While holding down the “Control” Key, press the letter “C” (Control + C) to copy important fields from the Contact record to the Windows clipboard. Next, while holding down the “Control” Key, press the letter “V” (Control+ V) to paste the important fields into other Windows programs like “Outlook”, “Word”, “Notepad”, etc. There you have it, a quick and easy way to copy and paste just about anything when you are using Act!
Freeze Columns in the Contact List to display important fields.
Right mouse click in the Contact List, and select “Customize Columns”. Arrange the columns so the ones you want to freeze start on the left. Select the “Freeze Columns” checkbox, and add the number of fields to freeze. Click OK. In the example below those first 5 fields highlighted in blue will remain fixed and you will be able to slide the data to the right to see all the fields in the list w/o having the important ones disappear off the screen
Enable the “show grid lines” preference for better readability in List Views.
Click Tools, Preferences, and select the “Colors & Fonts” tab. Select the appropriate list view and click the “Show grid lines” checkbox. Click OK. There you have it, a simple and quick way to enable the show grid lines in Act!
Create a “dynamic group” to easily find incomplete contact records.
Create a dynamic group for staff members to easily find and fix incomplete contact records before important mailings. Create View Groups. Click Groups, New Group. Click Groups, Add/Remove Groups. Add the following criteria paying special attention to the “parenthesis” and “OR” commands. Users can select the group and create a lookup to quickly find and edit the relevant contact records.
