Wednesday 11 March 2009

A New Release of ACT! Hits the Streets


Hot news! I've just heard that ACT! 2009 V11.10 will be available from 21st March 2009.


So, what changes have been made to ACT! 2009 v11.10?
ACT! 2009 v11.10 introduces a number of software improvements, which are documented in Knowledgebase Article 23645.

Some of the key improvements include:

Improved installation experience - There are now two installation options, Typical and Custom. It now takes fewer clicks to complete the Typical Installation, whilst the Custom installation is more flexible than ever.

Related Contacts - Using the new Related Contacts feature, you can create key relationships between contact records. For example, if Contact A has an influential relationship with Contact B, this can be recorded for future sales or marketing campaigns. For more information about this new feature, please refer to Knowledgebase Article 23893.

Licensing and Activation - ACT! 2009 v11.10 detects whether a proxy server is being used. Upon activation the user can connect and register their ACT! software through their proxy server.

A couple of points of interest to note:

Firstly this release is billed as 11.1 not 11.01 as we might have expected. This would indicate that it is more significant than a few bug fixes, and indeed it is.

The biggest change is a new feature, the Relationship tab.
The relationship tab allows us to capture relationships between contacts in our database.
For example, let's say we are a company selling log cabins. In our database we have contact records of all our customers and prospects to whom we actually make the sale. In addition, we have contact names for installation sub-contractors who do the installations for us, architects who can draw up the plans, and contacts in the local authority planning departments who approve the plans.

What we can now do is go to our customer's record and in the Relationship tab put a link through to the other contacts in our database who are involved in the project, which is something I've been asked for on more than one occasion.
As a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software package ACT! has always been a great way to monitor and control our relationships with our database contacts, what we can now do is monitor and control relationships between contacts, which is a really powerful tool.
This feature is going to be really powerful. And it's free of charge if you already have ACT! 2009 V11.00. If you have an earlier version visit our web site at bigbluemarketing.co.uk to see how you can save money on an upgrade.
I'll get back with more details when I've had a chance to evaluate the product in more detail.
Jeff