ACT! 2005 Premium for Workgroups - Contact & Customer Manager

Other products by Sage

Product Features

• Easy-to-use contact and customer-manager software
• Access, organize, and manage contact details
• Stay on top of schedule 24/7; share customer info securely
• Enhanced group scheduling; link to Palm OS and Pocket PC handhelds
• Includes Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition

Product Details

Data Sheet [452kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0002LXS38
• Item model number: ACTP2005RT
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 27, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #14,520 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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  Software > Business & Office > Schedule & Contact Management > Organizers & Address Books

Product Description

From the Manufacturer
From the top-selling contact and customer manager, ACT! 2005 Premium for Workgroups helps sales teams and corporate workgroups make contact, build relationships, and get results. It helps teams:

• Gain greater customer insights by accessing, organizing, and managing contact details.
• Improve your bottom line by forecasting, tracking, and reporting on sales opportunities.
• Increase larger team efficiency with centralized data, robust scalability, group scheduling, and advanced security (recommended to 50 users).
• Manage your time more efficiently by tracking and completing calls, meetings, and to-do items.
• Take important contact and calendar information with you by integrating with Palm OS and Pocket PC handhelds.

Product Description
ACT! 2005 PREMIUM FOR WORKGROUPS

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars After all these years I thought this product would be better, February 13, 2005

By	Steve Maloney "RE4U" (Alamo, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've been a user of ACT software going back to version 3.0. Being in software sales, over the years most software vendors have adopted more souped-up CRM solutions such as Salesforce.com or Siebel or the like, so I can imagine the interest in this product category has been lacking. STILL, the feature set of this product hasn't changed much in the ten or so years sinced I used the earlier version. In fact, this product has become more bloated and buggy than any commerical software product I have ever used. I've considered listing all the bugs but it would be too long. But I will say this, other than a weird bug that sometimes mis-categorizes contacts into groups I didn't intent them to be a part of, the other bugs tend to be obvious use-ability type things. Bugs that a half asleep QA tester should've found.

Having said that, the positives are these: First, ACT! is nothing if not a good contact manager and task manager - nothing more, nothing less. I like being able to group contacts into multiple groups, and do pro-active email marketing to the members of specific groups - that feature works really well inconjunction with MS Outlook. In fact integration with Outlook and my PocketPC Cell phone is really exceptionjal. Integration with Word is also very strong. So, its this integration strength that keeps me booting this product up each day. BUT, if I was to purchase a product in this category again, I'd buy Goldmine (it wasn't on the shelf when I bought ACT! - my impatience!). Part of the problem with this product may be that its been owned by a number of different companies over the years. Best Software now owns the IP - let's hope they will issue bug fixes and then truly innovate this product in future releases.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Buggy and Slow, November 30, 2005

By	James Zeman (Tampa, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I purchased Act 2005 in May 2005. I have found the software to be very slow and buggy. For example, I was just defining a new field. I hit "OK" and I get an error. Then I was completing a quote and mapped the fields in. The <Company> field will not update in the quote. I get errors, usually different ones, everytime I do anything beyond the core contact management. I too have seen the bugs where, for example, an opportunity suddenly becomes associated with multiple incorrect other companies.

Soon after I purchased Act 2005, I started getting emails from Best about upgrading to 2006. Since 2005 has not worked well for me, I am now evaluating Goldmine. I checked the Act 2006 upgrade list, and it appears that everything from Act 2005 to Act 2006 is simply bug fixes or minor enhancements. If you currently have Act 2005, do not upgrade to 2006. Buy Goldmine!

I am currently evaluating Goldmine and although the user interface isn't as modern as Act's, the software seems to outperform Act. Setting up field mapping in Goldmine is a breeze. In Act, so far it doesn't work and even if it did, the process is not at all intuitive. The Goldmine feature set is better and the software behavior is more predictable, and most importantly, the folks at Anton Systems have been very helpful will all my questions. (No, I do not work for them, nor am I affiliated with them in any way other than a potential customer).

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Slow, buggy and frustrating, November 20, 2005

By	Jim Roche (Ottawa, ON Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've used Act! for about a decade now. I upgraded to Act! 2005 to remain current. The new version is slow, buggy and frustrating. I do not recommend this product. If you are considering using it, carefully check others' experiences before spending the money. I have not used any of the alternatives, but it cannot be hard to beat Act!