Issue 19 • ACT! 2005/2006 Edition

Dear FIRSTNAME,

One of the most powerful aspects of ACT! is its ability to perform advanced queries and complex lookups.  This issue of our tips & tricks newsletter focuses on a few advanced lookup features that we think you'll find useful. 

Click these links to learn more detailed information about the the tips outlined in this issue:

As always, if you have any questions about ACT!, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me at 800-322-1049.

Best regards,

The staff at

Innovative Solutions
 

  

Brought to you by:

Innovative Solutions
ACT! Certified Consultants
4423 Lehigh Road
Suite 404
College Park, MD 20740
800-322-1049
www.is-crm.com
 

  

L A T E S T   N E W S

This section removed for the newsletter archive.
 

We recommend that you purchase:

Managing Contacts
with ACT! 2006
$24.99   $22.49

Click here to order.
 
 
Performing an Annual Events Lookup
Relevant for ACT! 2005 & ACT! 2006 Users

If you want to see a list of all of the subscription renewals that are due this month, all the birthdays that happen this week, or all the anniversaries that happen today, you could perform an annual events lookup.

To perform an annual events lookup:

  1. Click Lookup | Annual Events. The Annual Events Search dialog box will appear.
  2. In the Search for drop-down, select the annual events field(s) you'd like to include in your search.
  3. In the Time Range area, select a time range for your lookup. You can search for annual events that happen sometime in the current week, in the current month, or in a specified date range.
  4. Click Find Now. The matching contacts will appear in the lower part of the Annual Events Search window.
  5. If you'd like to create a lookup of the resulting contacts, click the Create Lookup button.
  6. If you'd like to schedule a to-do (like a reminder to send a card) for the resulting contacts, click the Schedule To-do button.
 
Performing a Contact Activity Lookup
Relevant for ACT! 2005 & ACT! 2006 Users

Have you ever wondered how many contacts in your database had a call attempted last month? How contacts have been sent an email in the last year? How many contacts were modified in any way this quarter? You can locate these modified/unmodified contacts with the Contact Activity lookup feature.

To perform a contact activity lookup:

  1. Click Lookup | Contact Activity.
  2. In the top area, select whether you'd like to search for the contacts that were changed or were not changed in the time range you specify.
  3. In the Since Date section, select a date.
  4. In the Search In area, select the areas of the database on which you'd like to search. For example, if you select Contact fields, you'll find all the contacts that had a field modified (nor not modified) since the date range you specified.
  5. For more options, click select history and activity types from the Histories and Activities drop-downs.
 
Performing an Advanced Query
Relevant for ACT! 2005 & ACT! 2006 Users

Most of your searches in ACT! will be simple lookups, but every once in a while you may need to find contacts based on a complex query. For example, if you're looking for all contacts in a certain territory who haven't been contacted in six months and have purchased more than $5000 in the past year, you could perform an advanced query to isolate just those contacts--all in one step.

The Advanced Query functionality has been completely redesigned in ACT! 2006. The new interface is menu-driven and doesn't require that you learn any sort of advanced query language. The advanced query is now completely menu-driven.

To perform an advanced query:

  1. Click Lookup | Advanced | Advanced Query.
  2. The Advanced Query dialog box appears. In the Type drop-down, select the type of field you'd like to add to the advanced query. (You can search through contact fields and opportunity fields in the advanced query feature).
  3. In the Field Name drop-down, select a field you'd like to search on.
  4. Choose an operator from the list of available operators.
  5. Type a value in the Value field.
  6. Click the Add to List button to add the query string to the list.
  7. Repeat Steps 2-6 until you have added all of the query strings necessary for your advanced query.
  8. If necessary, change the value in the And/Or column for the query strings you've added to the advanced query.
  9. Click the Preview button to preview the results of the query.
  10. Click OK to view the resulting contacts in the Contact List view.

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© 2006 Thomson Course Technology.  Text adapted from Managing Contacts with ACT! 2006. Reprinted with permission.