Just like clutter can affect you at home and your place of work it can also get in the way with your Act database. The following routine will check for one of the common ways an Act Database can become cluttered and will cause your Act database to take a long time open. Once the clutter is removed you will notice an improvement.

Start by clicking on the Task List in the Navbar.

The next step is to make sure all of the filters above the column headings say “All”. Don’t Forget to click on Users and select “All”. If it seems to take a while to display the Activities you probably have clutter.

Then, sort by the date field to see how far back the Activities go. Anything more than a few weeks is a problem.

The next step is to make a note of how many total activities appear at the bottom of the screen. It does matter how big the number for this exercise but we will cover that problem in another tip.

Then you will go to the Options panel on the right side of the toolbar and select Show Cleared Activities. These are the result of users clearing Activities that would then create a History.

If the total Activities increased significantly after the Cleared one were added that probably means the users are doing a good job. It also means you might be able to remove a lot of Clutter and speed up your database very easily.

We strongly recommend doing a backup of your database before doing ANY cleanup. We also recommend doing database maintenance Check and Repair and to do it after business hours. We advise doing the removal in stages, particularly if you have Remote Databases in use. It is best to have them sync after each wave of cleanup and to run “Check and Repair” on the Master and Remote.

The steps to remove data are quite simple but if you select any thing other than Cleared Activities you will cause a problem. The routine is in Tools/Database Maintenance and it is just a matter of checking the box for Cleared Activities and putting in the quantity of days to maintain recent ones.

Since the addition of the History List View there is not much value in keeping Cleared Activities except to be able to see them in a Calendar.