Customer Reviews

ACT! by Sage 2009 (11.0) [Old Version]

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(29)

 

 

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.

After 19 years in the IT industry I thought I knew how to pick good software... ACT! seemed safe enough; it's been around forever so they *must* have worked the bugs out, right? Very professional packaging, sold everywhere, all the 'safety' signs are there...

Well I was wrong. Another review called ACT! 'snake oil' and I'd say that's pretty close to the mark.

The first thing I noticed was that the quality of the printed reports (phone lists was my main interest) was horrible - actually horrible to the point of being illegible and unusable. The marketing material rants about how you can print in collins-debden / filofax / etc formats though their wonderful templates but believe me, you'd be better off hiring a blind heroin addict to handwrite your address pages. It would be both cheaper and more legible.

Then there's the debacle over Windows Update - ACT is written so badly that when Windows Update did its thing, ACT had a hissy fit and self-destructed. ACT took weeks to do anything about it, and I lost many frustrating hours diagnosing and fixing (by the way, I used to work inside ITG - the division of Microsoft Tech Support that gives tech support to Microsoft internal staff, so it's not like I'm a newbie at this stuff).

(Also, by the way, the computer of interest is a brand-spanking new business-type Dell, with nothing on it but Windows XP, a good virus checker, and ACT.)

Then after fixing that and using for a couple of weeks the crashing began... then more crashing, then the 100% cpu hanging, then the strange inability to select 'calender' - ever. When I looked at the ACT! user forums the answer was clear - LOTS of users have LOTS of problems with ACT. I was not alone in having problems or being frustrated and feeling cheated of time and money.

That's the big gripes, now the small ones. The user interface is a joke - version 11? What have they been doing between versions? This looks like software did in the early 90's. Then there's the slowness... I just can't figure out why ACT is so slow... this type of database should present no challenge of ANY kind to today's computers, contact management is the computer science equivelant of assembling brightly coloured alphabet building blocks to spell ' C A T '.

ACT technical support staff are just blame-shifters. While reading the forums I read all sorts of nonsense. One support staffer told a customer 'I suspect your problem is that you have a 5400rpm hard drive' - this is CONTACT MANAGEMENT - Not magnetic resonance imaging of the centre of a neutron star! At Microsoft I ran a two Gigabyte SQL Server customer database on 5400rpm drives with a pentium 400 at the helm - a long long time ago so ANY computer today should EAT a small contact database alive. ACT like telling people they need supercomputers because the average joe doesn't realise just how simpe contact management is from an IT perspective and it gets the customer off the phone. That was the worst of the cop-outs I heard, but there were LOTS of others.

I've seen some bad code in my time, but I shudder to think what must be happening at ACT... To have this many problems at version 11, to have performance issues running 1990's software on 2009 computers, to be so sloppy in coding that ACT doesn't work with Data Execute Prevention and Windows Update (two critical Microsoft security features) and with bad tech support to boot...

This morning I uninstalled ACT and a sense of calm and happiness washed over me. I also feel wiser, like the time I got mugged on a train on which I'd foolishly sat too far from the guards compartment at night. This has been a lot like that experience actually, mildly expensive, fairly frustrating, and I won't make that mistake again.

Miserable program! Nothing I've done gives me access to my database now...I've lost huge amounts of data even though I've kept a full backup myself...it won't let me open my backup! Don't buy this program!

I've been an ACT! user since ACT! version 2.0 for DOS was around way back in 1990. The most recent version of the software I had been utilizing was ACT! 2000 (version 5.0), and I was concerned about upgrading because of all the negative reviews of the more recent versions of ACT! I'd been reading.

But someone who I know who's an ACT! expert assured me that version 2009 was OK now, and I have to say from my own experience that he's definitely been right. This program has been working great for me and it hasn't slowed down my computer one bit. And I'm running on a Pentium 1.73 GHz processor with 2 GB of RAM.

In addition, the upgrade from my old version of ACT! 2000 went very smoothly. I was concerned that an upgrade from such an older version might not work out so great in the end, but I was extremely impressed with how everything transferred over correctly into the appropriate fields within the new version. There were a few minor adjustments that needed to be made, but those were handled very easily for me through talking with their customer support people.

So if you've been thinking about upgrading but have been concerned about the negative reviews you've been reading on this version of the product, give the upgrade a try. But save a copy of your existing database just in case you decide that you want to continue using your old software again instead.

I purchased ACT 2008 to work with Vista only to find that it does not work with the Vista 64 bit system. I then purchased ACT 2009 to work with Vista as it says compatible with 64 bit system. When I got it and read the fine print, it said "with some 64 bit systems".
Should have paid attention to all the pans of this product written since it was taken over by Sage a few years back. When you have a older version of ACT, there is a strong temptation to stay with ACT as it is hard to convert a lot of client entries to another contact management product.
Save your money, become a hermit so you don't have any friends or clients to contact. It'll be a much more pleasant experience than using ACT.

Act 2009 does not integrate with Outlook without buying additional software, even though marketing materials state that it does. In short, installing Act and selecting Outlook as the email client breaks Outlook. Act acknowledges the problem but the most recent update (version 11.1 released 11-Mar-09) does not fix it. For details search the Act Forum for "Outlook.exe fails to close".

If you intend to use Act with Outlook email, you will need considerable technical skills and should carefully read the Act Forum to discover workarounds.

That said, here's a bit of background to put this in perspective. We're running Act 2009 in a small business with three users, four PC's, 17,000 contact records, and seven years of history and emails imported from a Goldmine database.

In Dec-08 we choose Act because of low initial cost ($99 per user, not per PC), ability to share the Act database without requiring Windows Server (WinXP peer-to-peer), integration with Microsoft Outlook, ability to import from Goldmine v6 (note that $300 addon software is required to do so).

At the start we knew that Act is very resource intensive. The PC hosting the Act database is a new lowest cost Dell Vostro that exceeds the minimum specs for Act (Penetium Dual CPU, 2.20 GHz, 2GB Ram, 7500 rpm drives) and is running NO other applications. The network is 1GB ethernet. The Act users are on recent vintage Dell PC's with 1 or 2 GB Ram.

After using Act for the last two months we found that:

Getting email to work with Act was a nightmare (due to a deadly mix of Comcast's nonstandard SMTP port assignment, buggy Act/Outlook integration, and our need for HTML rather than plain text email).

Security updates to Microsoft SQL Server (on which Act depends) have twice failed. After a while (weeks to months) Act has released a workaround that installed the updates.

Act speed is not a problem (other than immediately after opening the database, when Act pauses for 20 seconds or so). After that it is surprisingly zippy. Since we threw hardware at the problem we're pleased to have avoided it.

Our three users like the interface (compared to Goldmine's 80's look) and seem pleased with the change.

Bottom line: We would probably choose Act 2009 again even though it was a painful experience.

I would not recommend Act if you want an easy out of box experience, plan to run it on a PC that is loaded with other applications (or Vista), or has minimal hardware resources.

ACT! by Sage 2009 is, hands down, without a doubt, the absolute worst piece of software I've ever had the displeasure of using. It's completely non-intuitive, installation is nearly impossible, and there's an entire industry built up around it that purports to "assist" (for a fee, of course) with upgrading or converting previous ACT! databases to the most recent version. This program is snake oil, flat out. Our ACC (Act Certified Consultant) mentioned no less than four or five times during our consultation how likely it was that this wouldn't work, or that wouldn't work, that this would crash or that would crash. Of course, for an additional fee, everything would end up peachy keen. If you're considering using anything made by Sage, I highly recommend you run in the opposite direction as quickly as possible!

Why do old-school salespeople swear by this product? Probably because they never had to install or upgrade it - there is no greater frustration I know of than trying to install or upgrade ACT. Error after error after error, and for what? A confusing interface that only long-time ACT users seem to understand. A terrible reporting engine that ACT consultants don't even recommend using. It's slow, it crashes regularly, and the expensive customer support offers no help.

Regarding upgrades, don't think for a minute that you won't have to worry about it! Whenever a new version of Windows or Office comes out, you'll need to upgrade ACT! If you're like most small companies who get stuck and figure out you can't do it yourself, you'll have to pay big bucks to have a consultant do it for you. What a racket!

Bottom line is there are a number of on-demand tools out there that beat ACT hands down. No installation required, easy upgrades, better interfaces, easier reporting, and no worries about performance or hardware. Save yourself from the continuing headache that is this software program.

I bought this product because Outlook 2007 didn't seem to have as much power and flexibility for business management. After installing Act 2009 and adding all of my contact data, I found it to be very sluggish on my dual-core, 2.2 ghz pentium laptop with 2 gb ram. There is quite a lag time between clicking a button and seeing the screen refresh.

That being said, the software seems pretty powerful and customizeable, as it is built off a relational database. Integration with Outlook 2007 is good (you can sync your calendar and track messages send via outlook). However, I was sad to discover that you can't even get your Gmail via POP access using ACT because Act does not support the custom port numbers.

I am sure I have not yet tapped into the full potential of this software, but I at least wanted to comment on the speed / performance.

Outlook came out with Business Contacts Manager, which appears to give Act a run for its money. I will be trying that out next.

I bought and use ACT from version 2! I was and I m really enjoyed for the concept program which is really usuful,but from the version 6 they change the internal program language, and it was very very slow. I bought the up grade since V 7, but no really satisfed for the price we invest since the version 6,they are not spectacular modification in the speed, and the new possibilities are not as they promise in term of productivity. We prefer to use our version 6!.
Ovoid to buy it, you will be disapointed for the speed, and try to buy an used V.6, best value price/possibilities! and for the price you install it in various machine...and when ACT Vxxxx will be really speed with major updates,you can always have the possibility to upgrade it for less money.Hope its help.