Web4Advisors Beta
Act4Advisors cloud counterpart, Web4Advisors, has been in development and is now in testing.
The base program utilizes ACT! Premium web access and customizes the interface to allow financial planners and investment advisors the use over a hosted. cloud based CRM offering.
Features include Contact and client management features such as names, addresses and phones for client, spouse and children including personal data fields for birth dates, tax ID, drivers license. etc. Extensible data includes Notes, Histories, Calendar, Task list and Opportunities tracking. This allows the user to track insurance policies, annuities and investment account information via the cloud.
All of the ACT Premium! for Web features area available including the ability to use online AND offline data access.
Users can have access to the data via ACT! Premium and/or Internet Explorer. Optionally, ‘dual’ access is available.
ACT! by Sage 2010 is Now Available!
In classic Sage Software form, the annual release of ACT! by Sage 2010 (v12) was just released.
Like most new releases, defects (bugs) have already been discovered and 2 (yes two) hotfixes have already been released.
Over the years, we have instructed our customers to inquire from us before upgrading their ACT! software. ACT! 2010 is the poster child for the reason behind our madness. Initial releases are always buggy.
Let’s talk about what is exciting about the new features:
- Social Networking via a Web Info tab (sound familiar?). Act4Advisors has had a WebInfo tab since August of 2003!!! Finally, ACT! has its own and Sage happened to name it the same thing we have always called ours….Web Info. The Social Networking integration allows direct access to your contact’s LinkedIn, Plaxo or Facebook info from within ACT!. There are a number of other sites that have integration built in including a Google Map inside of the tab. This is a cool feature but not a ‘gotta have’.
- A new and updated interface has made changes to the sidebar and toolbars. You can search for a contact now via a box on the left hand NAV bar. The buttons on the toolbar are larger and easier to read and access.
- Swiftpage Email is now incorporated (for an additional fee) with ACT! by Sage 2010. ACT! Email Marketing feature allows you to create web based email and drip marketing campaigns without having to leave ACT!. The software also gives you immediate action items based on when an email is read and how many times.
- Opportunities are now their own entity and are more customizable!!! Now, you can manage Opportunities like you would contacts, groups or companies.
- New Dashboards give you quick an immediate access to fields that weren’t available in previous versions.
- The New Reports interface allows you to save a list of your favorite reports without having to browse the reports folder.
- ACT! now supports the iCalendar format giving you the ability to send your calendar to other iCalendar apps such as Google Calendar.
- New ACT! OLEDB Provide is available for external report engines such as Crystal Reports.
- Now includes native integration to the iPhone.
- vCard compatibility is new in 2010 giving you’re the ability to easily bring in contact data from a vCard format.
The question for all is, “Should I go ahead and upgrade?” The answer is…yes but not now.
There have been various inconveniences (bugs) noted in the new version that Sage will hopefully fix with its first service pack. We suggest you wait for this and then call Allied Financial Software to upgrade.
Customers that purchase their ACT! upgrade from us will received free updates to Act4Advisors making it work with the new ACT! Customers that purchase ACT! upgrades elsewhere will have a small fee for the update.
Also, if you decide to try or subscribe to the Email Marketing module, please add Allied Financial Software as Reseller.
Scott Abboud
I have ACT! for Financial Professionals. Can I use Act4Advisors?
Answer:
Yes.
Act4Advisors is an ACT! database that we have customized. It was created using the ACT! by Sage software.
ACT! by Sage for Financial Professionals (AFFP) is a different version of ACT! itself. When you open any ACT! database with AFFP, AFFP will add all of its proprietary fields to the database. The problem is that many of the AFFP fields added are already fields included in Act4Advisors. When you open the Act4Advisors database, fields such as Tax ID, Children, Accounts, Insurance and many more will be duplicated and added to the database. This means you will have a lot of unused fields in the database.
As a result, we recommend that you consider upgrading your ACT! software. You can then backup your AFFP database and restore it using ACT!. You can then import that database into our Act4Advisors database.
How to import data into Act4Advisors 3.0 from ACT! for Financial Professionals.
Working on Scan&Organize Addon for ACT!
I am currently redesigning the website and demo for Scan&Organize Addon for ACT! v4. This program has many improvements including attaching to activity series, automatically creating folders for contact and group records, automatically add subfolders when creating a new folder for each record, attach to emails, etc… I should have the website ready by next week and the new demo by March.
If you are a financial professional using ACT!, you should look at Act4Advisors Addon for ACT! CRM. ScanandOrganize is included with the purchase of Act4Advisors. Act4Advisors interface to ACT! CRM is so much easier to use than ACT! for Financial Professionals and some other products out there. We have had many users tell us they have tried ACT! for Financial Professionals because ACT! Support insisted that they do and found it was a mistake.
Daily I help many financial professionals and their assistants on how to use ACT!. Some of the common questions are how do I create a nice word template?, how do I customize labels to read formal or informal salutations?, how do I export/import data from a mailing list?, etc… I will create movie tutorials very soon on these topics. Email me if you have any questions on these topics or if you would like to see a specific topic covered.
Act4Advisors (4Advisors 3.0) is compatible with ACT! by Sage 2009
What’s New in ACT! by Sage Solutions 2009 (11.0)?
Work More Effectively, Maximize Productivity, and Better Serve Your Contacts
Feedback from customers like you who work with ACT! every day is invaluable to us—in fact, we rely on it when we develop new versions. We observe how customers work with ACT! and ask what would help them work even more effectively. Experience the results for yourself in ACT! Solutions 2009.
Click here for view presentation >
You receive powerful new features and significant enhancements to areas of the product that you use every day, such as Microsoft® Outlook® integration, calendar and activity visibility, and search functionality. All this enables you to work more effectively, become more productive, and better serve your contacts.
Tighter Outlook Integration Provides Options for Tracking and Organizing E-mail
New and improved Outlook integration features afford you the flexibility to track and organize e-mails in ACT! en masse or on a case-by-case basis. Or, automate these functions so you can set them once and forget about them. Calendar integration features enable you to create ACT! activities from Outlook for tracking important action items received via e-mail, and copy your ACT! and Outlook calendars automatically1 or with just one click.
Greater Calendar and Activity Visibility Help You Stay On Top of Your Day
Improvements to calendar printing and viewing make it easy for you to get relevant snapshots of your schedule and give you a heads up on your scheduled activities at-a-glance. This way you can stay on top of your day and realize maximum productivity gains.
Powerful Lookups and Search Functionality Quickly Give You the Details You Need
Lookups and search functionality have been streamlined, helping you find the particular contact or contact details you need quickly, in one lookup-friendly place. Build the most basic or complex searches using a tool that has been simplified and enhanced. And easily recall recent lookups to save time in your day.
More Database Functions and Automation Options Help Maintain ACT! Details
With more database functions and automation options, you can spend time managing what is most important to your bottom line and feel confident your ACT! details are fully maintained. Now, ACT! automatically handles periodic database maintenance tasks and provides you with a variety of options for tailoring maintenance to fit your needs. Additionally, know exactly how your ACT! sync is progressing with the streamlined progress bar, reduce the size of your backup files by excluding attachments, and more.
What’s new in Act4Advisors v3?
> New Tabs! New Look!
> Scan and Organize v4 is included with the purchase of 4Advisors 3.0
> Improved Preferred Mailing Feature
The Preferred Mailing Address feature automatically inserts the desired address into labels, envelopes, and letters. We have added new labels, envelope, and letter templates to reflect what is populated in the Preferred Mailing Address fields. The New Lock Address feature allows you to lock the Mail Name. See example below.
Lock Address Feature: Enter in all the addresses then choose the desired preferred mailing address.
I chose “Home” in this example.
The MailName field is automatically populated with the Contact name for example “Sample Client”.
I wanted my labels, envelopes, and letters to show “Mr. and Mrs. Sample Client“ oppose to “Sample Client” so I made my change.
I then selected Lock Address. When performing the “Update Preferred Mailing Address”, all selected “Lock Address” will not be affected.
Act4Advisors
http://software4advisors.com
Allied Financial Software, Inc.
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