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Sage ACT! 2012 Software - A First Review

There are few things that can be relied on with any degree of certainty in this world, but the month of September is when you will notice the days getting shorter, the leaves starting to turn golden and fall from the trees, and Sage will release a new version of ACT! Software. And this year is no exception as Sage ACT! 2012 hits the streets.

Early indications were that this year the main emphasis on this new release would focus on consolidating the basic code and making the whole package solid and robust, and it's difficult to argue with this philosophy.

Evidently, the marketing department then decided that software that just works wasn't going to be enough to justify the upgrade fee for existing users, so a few new bells and whistles were dreamed up for the new release.

Before getting into the details, it's important to realize that ACT!, sorry, that's "Sage ACT!", exists in three distinct flavors.

The "standard" version is called ACT! Pro, the fully featured version is called ACT! Premium. Now I don't know whether the nuances of this terminology are different in the USA but to my British ears the term "Pro" says "Professional" and doesn't distinguish itself from the term "Premium" which sounds to me about the same. Just to confuse the issue further, a few years ago both the standard and premium versions were both referred to as "ACT! Professional" in the UK.

So, what are the differences between Pro and Premium? Well, not a great deal to be frank. Pro has 90% of the features of Premium, and a few of the other features are restricted in Pro. There's a maximum of 10 users in Pro, no limited access facility, no field level access control, no resource scheduling and no network synchronization capability, though you can still synchronize a remote database providing the program is actually running on your server. There are other differences, some of which seem inconsistent. For example, both Pro and Premium offer Dashboard reporting, but in ACT! Pro the reports are restricted to the person logged in; you can't get company-wide reports on Pro Dashboards. However you can get company-wide information from the traditional text reports.

I mentioned there were three flavors of ACT!, well the third is ACT! for Web. In the UK this is currently bundled in the box free of charge when you buy ACT! Premium. Essentially it is ACT! Premium with the extra bits needed to publish the database to an IIS web server which you need to host yourself (or use one of the paid-for ACT! hosting services). The nice thing is that, in the UK at least, the licenses are mix-and-match so you can log in through both the desk-top application and through a web browser using the same credentials. Sage ACT! 2012 sees the introduction of support for browser access using Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4.

Having set the scene, let's get down to the main event.

One of the much trumpeted new features is Google integration. For this you will need a Gmail account, and it doesn't work with Google Business accounts. The thinking behind this is that lots of the young people coming into business already use Google for email, contacts and calendar and this allows them to continue using the tools they are familiar with. I have to say that personally I've never been asked by any business for this facility, but others may get the request all the time, so let's accept it's a good thing to have.

Like the existing Outlook integration you set up Google integration in three distinct parts, email, calendar and contacts (you can have one two or all three). Basically, it works. The main limitations are that you need to be connected to the internet, and more seriously, as with the Outlook integration, the contacts synchronization into ACT! is all or nothing. Whilst I can see the potential benefit of this feature, my main concern is (as with Outlook) if the feature is turned on you risk importing everyone's Google Contact "friends" into your business-critical sales database.

The second new toy is called "Universal Search" which provides a more "Google-like" search capability (anyone detecting a theme here?). The main difference between Universal Search and the existing Keyword search is that the new search engine can look inside attached files as well as in the usual fields, notes and history. The order in which the results are displayed will make you scratch you head, but there is a logic to it if you know what it is. The main limitation of Universal Search is that you can only select one item from the search results; you can't select three or four and do a lookup. In reality it does what it does extremely well. Just keep in mind this is a way of finding a single item you've mislaid somewhere in your database. For everything else use the standard Lookup/Advanced Query options.

The next item to keep you amused is called Scratchpad. No that's not something you use for cleaning the oven, and it's not a way of entering the national lottery. It's a notepad. If you remember "Side ACT!" in ACT! Version 6 you get the picture. So it's a little utility application that can run independently of ACT! Where you can scribble your to-do list. You can later sync your Scratchpad with ACT!, but only if ACT! is running.

Other changes include a Services Discoverability button which opens a screen like the Welcome Page which describes and has links to the Sage ACT! Connected subscription services such as the Email Marketing and Business Information Services. The concept that there are millions of ACT! users out there who simply didn't know they could link to these external services seems a bit unlikely, but as more Connected Services are introduced this does at least provide a tidy way of presenting them.

One of the new Connected Services is Sage ACT! Connect. This has evolved from the ACT! Mobile Live subscription service which allows users to synchronize some of their ACT! Data to their mobile phones. You can still do this, but the difference is that the data goes via a Sage-hosted web site where the same data can be viewed via a browser. Now the data that can be accessed in this way is limited to the usual Contact address fields and the last five notes/history items. You can't view Opportunities through this method. There's also no support for international phone numbers. However, if the limited amount of information that is available is all you require then this service may be for you. It gives you another way to access your database information whilst on the move. If your phone/device is one of those that can't sync

to the data (e.g. iPhone/iPad) you might still be able to access it on the Sage ACT! Connect portal through a web browser. The costs for this service vary from country to country.

One rather scary feature of the ACT! Connect portal, designed to appeal yet again to the Twittered, is the ability to import yet more "friends" from their Facebook Google and Yahoo accounts. Once again, why anyone would want their sales and marketing database corrupted by importing twaddle in this way is beyond me. If you are using ACT! to run the local flower-arranging society it possible has a value but for business to business relationships I fail to see the point.

There have also been some improvements to existing functionality.

Firstly, the installation process has been streamlined and made faster. There's also a database discovery facility which makes it easier to find ACT! databases on your computer if you have more than one and you've lost it (and it's on your computer). Smart-Tasks have seen modest improvements and the Outlook integration has been tweaked to allow for larger time frames when syncing calendars.

One final flourish is that if you import data from spread-sheets you now get a report when it's done to tell you all went well or what went wrong, if indeed it did. Whilst I would have preferred a report at the beginning of the process to tell me what is going to go wrong before I do the import, it's a welcome addition. So there we have it.

To be sure, the major additions in functionality will be useful to those who use them, and the minor tweaks and under the bonnet improvements in speed and reliability will be welcomed by everyone else.

I just worry slightly that ACT! is losing its way in the rush to embrace social networking in an attempt to attract the trendy young managers and sales people whilst at the same time trying to keep existing users on board. There are some things in business that have to be fairly routine and we should make these as easy to do as possible, but I sense the marketing forces within Sage are losing sight of the requirement for continuing development of the core system and are instead trying to appeal to the social networking generation. My biggest concern is that in doing this the potential for erroneously importing unwanted information into our sales and marketing databases has increased enormously.

All in all, even if we ignore the new headline features that you may or may not use, the modest improvements to speed, reliability and functionality are welcome, and anyone with a version of ACT! More than a year old will benefit from an upgrade to the latest offering. Jeff Granger is a professional Sage ACT! Software trainer providing act training throughout the UK.

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