ACT By Sage 2008 10.0 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I have been in IT for 20 years and am currently an IT manager for a Fortune 500 company. Act 2006 and then the "upgrade" to Act 2008 have been the worst software experiences I have ever seen, bar none.With a ~12 seat install of Act premium, we got Act 2006 up and running with the help of a Certified Act consultant. It was ugly and the entire user base complained of not only Act being very slow, but the computers slowed to a crawl when performing all other functions as well. See the reviews of Act 2006 and you will see my experience is the norm.
An upgrade to 2008 was ordered. Cold feelings of dread went up and down my spine. The same consultant returned and we started.
Every single machine had a minimum of 6 errors related to the upgrade. Some had many more. A listing of actual and paraphrased errors follows. The consultant struggled until late in the evening to get the first four or five working. SQL was removed and installed, registries were hacked and edited. Finally she got those working.
The next day I personally attempted to do the rest.
Eventually after about 5 person-days I got the machines installed, and now the users are telling us that this version is even slower than the dog called Act 2006.
This should not reflect badly on the consultant. She was quite good. This is all about the product put out by Rage Software.Run, don't walk away from this evil thing called Act.
----------------------------------
Small sample of the errors I jotted down as we went down this bloody path:
All users had errors when adding an Outlook address book, Licensing error-User count. Which eventually went away after 6-8 tries or 10 minutes, not sure which fixed it. We had the proper volume licenses.
When updating the local DB all laptops gave an error pop up "Error in the Application" with "ok" being the only choice. It seemed to complete ok after this however.
Over half had SQL errors upon upgrading from 2006 to 2008. Gave up and removed 2006 and 5 related pieces instead of upgrading.
None could register online due to Act not speaking SSL through a Windows configured proxy. (A fairly standard configuration in a corporation) We did work around this by connecting/activating with another method.
Half of the laptops caused Outlook 2003 errors when launching. "Error in registry for extension: (Exchange Extensions) Syntax or format of the registry entry is incorrect." This dialog appeared about a dozen times in a row and then Outlook would eventually launch.
25% had errors when upgrading related to SQL. The upgrade from 2006-2008 did not handle the SQL portion well at all. Once we manually uninstalled Act 2006, 4-5 SQL pieces and the XML 6 Parser, and then installed 2008 and then manually installed SQL Server it went somewhat better. There were still a couple that had major errors though relating to SQL even after doing this elaborate process.
Errors with SQL failing to start - SQLWriter-SQLDumper library failed initialization. Installation Corrupt/tampered with.
SQL Server could not find specified named instance (ACT7) please specify the name of an existing instance at the invocation of sqlserver.exe
And on and on and on.....

Click Here to see more reviews about: ACT By Sage 2008 10.0

Make contacts. Buildrelationships. Get results.ACT! by Sage 2008 (10.0) is a feature rich, robust contact andcustomer managerideal for individuals and small business customers of up to 10 networked users1in a variety of industries looking to organize contact information, manage dailyresponsibilities, and communicate more effectively to improveyour productivity.ACT! by Sage 2008 (10.0) is for individuals and small business customers in avariety of industries looking to organize contact information, manage dailyresponsibilities, and communicate more effectively to improve yourproductivity.

ACT! is the #1 selling contact and customer manager that helps you organizecontact information, manage daily responsibilities, and communicate moreeffectively to improve your productivity. With over 2.7 million users and 41,000corporate customers, ACT! has maintained its position as #1 for 20 years becauseit's renowned for being easy to learn and use, and is an effective solutionfor anyone who regularly works with contacts.Why Should You Choose ACT!?

Keep important contact details in one place with ACT! so you have quickaccess to the information you need.
Be up and running quickly because ACT! is easy to learn and use.
Manage your daily responsibilities soimportant calls, meetings, andto-dos don't slip through the cracks - and ultimately improve yourproductivity!
Integrate ACT! with everyday applications, including Office, so you canwork the way you're accustomed.
Use ACT! out-of-the box or highly customized to fit the needs of yourbusiness..

ACT! can be used out-of-the-box or customized to suit your needs, and alsointegrates with everyday tools like Microsoft Outlook, Word, and Excel.WithACT! you'll have critical contact

Click here for more information about ACT By Sage 2008 10.0

Read More...

ACT by Sage 2009 (11.0) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I unfortunately started with ACT! 2006!, and upgraded from there one. Every year since then a new version came out at about $100+ for the upgrade, and instead of cutting my losses, I purchased each upgrade. about $800 dollars later, I've had enough. Please note that I have never written reviews, but became so jaded about this program that I felt I had no other choice. Also, please note that I use act on my computer and my assistants.
This program is horrendous. It is extremely slow, crashes constantly, and has tons of error messages. I remember upgrading to 2009 just so that I could get another few months of tech support. It seemed as if the upgrade cost would make sense, considering their crappy support charges by the minute. Anyway it wasn't and now I am looking into getting my database converted (my biggest issues being the notes) at this I don't care how much I spend on the conversion, or even If I have to retype all my notes over. I hate this program, and will literally toss it out of my window as soon as I can. Trust me, look for an alternative. If you don't mind the effort, attempt in creating a database on filemaker, or just use outlook.

Click Here to see more reviews about: ACT by Sage 2009 (11.0)

The #1 selling contact and customer manager for over 20 years, ACT! by Sage 2009 (11.0) helps individuals and small business owners work more effectively. Easily access a complete, integrated view of your contact relationships, impress contacts with your follow-up, leave no task undone, and make informed decisions to advance your business. Since ACT! is easy to learn and use, you get up and running quickly. Customize ACT! to fit your business requirements and integrate it with everyday solutions such as Microsoft Office. With more than 2.8 million individual users, ACT! continues to help customers like you provide superior service.

Get 86% OFF

Click here for more information about ACT by Sage 2009 (11.0)

Read More...

Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I'm a longtime user of Office 2003 with Outlook and was eager to try out this upgrade for Outlook as it's the application I use the most (other than Access which I use for my software development projects routinely). I really didn't have any need to upgrade the other applications, so this stand-alone was perfect for me. I actually don't use Outlook for email generally, preferring to use the standalone email open source product Thunderbird which gives me a lot more ability to customize and add other features to (and since I don't have to connect to an Exchange server or anything else that specifically forces me to use Outlook.) So I personally was not put off by the fact that things like spell check will not work if you use Outlook 2007 with the rest of the Office 2003 suite. That's been well documented here by other reviewers, so I won't go into it.
Putting those issues aside, this is a really nice upgrade. A lot of upgrades are sort of "so what", but this one really impressed me. First, the look and feel of it is much more polished. It's more than just a pretty face, I find the items on my calendar for instance much more striking and easier to see what I have coming up at a glance. While the install itself seemed endless, the final product does seem to run plenty fast enough on my machine (it's fairly high end, 8 GHz, 3 gig of RAM) older machines may have more problems. Outlook 2007 uses a different style of toolbar than older versions, I really like the new toolbar, with the tabbed panels and fancier icons, it's just a matter of getting used to it. Here are some highlights from the different sections of Outlook, things that I specifically like or don't like. Please note that in some cases, I may be mentioning things that are possible to do with customization...however, they are not things that are easy for the average user to figure out, particularly since the product comes with basically no documentation at all, other than typical Microsoft Help.
1. Email - as mentioned, I don't really use this much, but it *does* include a really nice RSS reader with a large list of feeds you can add immediately. Ironically, the one for Outlook 2007 is wrong, it adds the Outlook 2003 feed, I went to the Microsoft site to find the link for the correct one. One thing I also noticed is that when you are in Email, or any other area of Outlook other than the Calendar, there is a new "To Do" bar that displays all your upcoming appointments and tasks, and a field to create new tasks. Really great new feature.
2. Calendar - I really like the way appointments look as mentioned. Also there are now very clear Day - Week - Month buttons at the top, these were not as easily found in the previous version. I do find it funny that there is still no Year view. I can do this with calendar apps on my tiny Pocket PC, it seems ridiculous that I can't see a yearly overview, or at least a 3 month overview on my desktop. Also, there doesn't seem to be a way to customize the number of lines for appointments on the monthly calendar. If you don't have large numbers of appointments, it'd be nice to show 2 lines so you can read the whole appointment, as you can on the weekly view. In particular, this would be nice when printing calendars, rather than holidays and birthdays that are all chopped off. I did notice that I have spell check available when creating appointments, so clearly it's available for at least some functions. I also though ran into issues with Outlook not wanting to save my appointment when I was editing it and trying different options...but it didn't give me any really detail as to why, just kind of a random thing.
3. Contacts - In additional to the new interface, you've got all kinds of new stuff you can add and link with contacts. There's some neat new options, such as a link to go to the address on MSN maps, open their webpage in your browser, total customization of the business card for the contact, etc. You can add images to their contact notes, as well as a variety of other things like charts and graphs if you have the rest of Office 2007. I did notice as well that I can now sort my contacts by category. This drove me nuts in the 2003 version, that it would not sort by category, so very glad to have it now!
4. Tasks - Fairly similar to the changes with contacts, lots of additional things you can link to the task, I like being able to paste in the business card of the contact for the task, for instance. You can also link the task over to an account in the Business Contact Manager
5. Notes are still a bit more basic than I care for, but I use OneNote so only use these rarely now. It's definitely easier now to group them into categories, color code them, sort them, etc. but very basic functionality. OneNote is so superior in every way, but unfortunately is still sold as a separate product. Kind of a side note here...but I really wish that with many of these parts of Outlook you could add drawings as you can in OneNote, for those of us that have a tablet.
6. Business Contact Manager - So here's the real jewel in this product. I really didn't use the one that came with Office 2003 and only now see how much I was missing! First, to use this it will install SQL Server Express on your machine. I run standard SQL Server from a separate box, so it would have been nice to be given the option to specify a SQL location to use instead of forcing a new install of the server on me. But at least it only starts up when you try to access this section of Outlook, so that reduces the load at least somewhat on your machine. Overall, I'm pretty impressed with how much this does, the name really doesn't do it justice. I'm really putting some time into getting my current accounts, contacts and projects loaded into this, as it basically does the same sort of things that I was using a different project management program to do. Now, this is hardly going to replace a full-fledged, multi-user project management software application. But for a sole proprietor like myself, it does the basics well enough to be useful. I can create projects, enter tasks for the project, add notes and hours worked, view custom reports on my projects, etc. I don't do much sales and marketing at the moment, but that's all in there as well. I really just wish it did even more. I'd like to be able to link files and documents to my tasks, for instance, or at least, include better integration with OneNote, which is ideal for project documents and notes. I found it particularly strange for instance, that in my regular Contacts, I had a link to OneNote to create custom notes for that contact...but I did not have the same button in the Business Contacts (which is where it is *really* needed.) Better integration with OneNote would really be a huge boon to those of us that are using both of these products.
Just as an additional side note, I was glad to see the upgrade did not break my ActiveSync with my SmartPhone, everything still works fine and syncs properly. I did notice that the contacts in the Business Contact Manager do not sync with the PPC, but that's to be expected (just something to be aware of). There's also still a big problem with Outlook and that is the issue of alarms not going off if the program isn't up and running. I always like to have them synced to my phone so I am less likely to miss them just because the program isn't open.
Overall, this is an excellent upgrade, as long as you have a machine that can handle it and are not effected or bothered by the various issues with using it along with the Office 2003 suite. Some improvements to some functions would make it even better, but it is certainly still worth a look.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager

MicrosoftOutlook w Business Contact Mgr 2007 Win32 English CD

Get 24% OFF

Click here for more information about Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager

Read More...