By Dale Farris
Golden Triangle PC Club
February 2006

Program Overview

ACT! by Sage Premium for Workgroups is the #1 selling contact and customer manager that helps corporate workgroups and sales teams make contact, build relationships, and get results. ACT! Premium for Workgroups provides advanced workgroup functionality for administration, security, and opportunity tracking for up to 50 users. Your team can access and share information to grow productive business relationships.

Offering a low total cost of ownership, ACT! Premium for Workgroups can improve your team’s bottom line by forecasting and tracking customer opportunities. ACT! Premium for Workgroups can be tailored to specific business requirements and integrates with the tools your team uses everyday, such as Microsoft Office, Lotus Notes, and handheld devices.

ACT! by Sage Premium for Workgroups 2006 is the high-end, workgroup edition of this important, powerful program that dominates the market for customer relation management (CRM) software. This edition is specifically designed for workgroups to share a centralized database of customer contact information, while the ACT! by Sage program is tailored to single users working on a stand-alone computer.

ACT! Premium For Workgroups 2006 Allows You To:

Centralize critical contact and customer information and stay organized

Manage and grow business relationships through top-notch communications

Prioritize your work to stay on top of appointments and tasks

Forecast and track sales opportunities for an improved bottom line

Access and report on information quickly for a complete view of customer interactions

Stay productive by taking critical information on the go

Enable team collaboration for increased productivity

Securely administer and deploy to large workgroups and teams

Organize Your Contacts

Centralize critical contact and customer information – and stay organized. ACT! Premium for Workgroups allows you to centralize contact and customer information that is captured across your entire organization. You can track and manage complete customer information including contact details, notes and history, appointments, to-do items, communications, documents and sales opportunities, so you increase productivity and stay organized.

Populate 60+ pre-defined fields including Name, Company, Phone, Address, Web site, E-mail, Last Meeting Date, ID Status, or add your own. Create Company Records and view a roll up of all Notes, History and Opportunities associated with Contacts at those companies. Link Contacts to a Company, so when Company information is updated, it is automatically updated in each Contact record as well. Enter virtually unlimited date- and time-stamped Notes and History on each contact record. Create Notes, History, Activity and Opportunity details using Rich Text Formatting that supports colors, bullets, graphics, and URLs. Track collections of related contacts using the Groups or Company Record features for an at-a-glance view. Create up to 15 levels of Subgroups for managing information. Customize layouts including changing colors, adding logos and moving relevant filed displays so ACT! is unique to your business.

Stay In Touch

Manage and grow business relationships through top-notch communications. Communicating with prospects and customers and tracking the results has never been easier! ACT! provides robust mail merge and e-mailing capabilities to ensure you are always in touch. Track prospect and customer correspondence on the relevant contact record for a history of all communications with that contact and organization. Writer letters in ACT! using Microsoft® Word or the ACT! built-in Word Processor which supports tables, graphics, HTML and spell checking. Select a group of contacts and perform a mail merge to a letter or e-mail. A history is automatically generated on each contact record. Create, send and track e-mail to contacts using the ACT! E-mail Client Send e-mail through Outlook®, Outlook Express or Lotus Notes® e-mail. Utilize Rich Text Formatting, spell check, signatures and adding multiple attachments when e-mailing customers and prospects.

Prioritize Your Work

Prioritize your work to stay on top of appointments and tasks. Never miss a meeting or a deadline. ACT! provides features such as at-a-glance calendar views, activity alarms and the ability to roll incomplete tasks over to the next day so you never miss a beat! Schedule calls, meetings and to-dos quickly and easily. Filter calls, meetings and to-do items by priority, date range or user, even displaying totals for each activity type for a complete view of your day. Access daily, Weekly and Monthly calendar views. Utilize calendar pop-ups for an at-a-glance view of each activity. Use Activity Alarms to stay on top of deliverables. Utilize group scheduling functionality for at-a-glance user availability for everyone in the database. Synchronize your ACT! and Outlook® calendars to facilitate appointment scheduling with company employees not using ACT!.

Track Sales Opportunities

Forecast and track sales opportunities for an improved bottom line. ACT! enables sales professionals to track sales opportunities from initial inquiry through close using either a standard sales process or one customized to suit your organization’s needs. View and report on all your open opportunities so you always know where you stand! Utilize the built-in Sales Process or customize it to suit your specific business needs. View all sales opportunities at once or filter by Users, Estimated Close Date, Status, Sales Stage, Amount or Probability of Close. Utilize the Product List feature to easily enter repeated products or services and automatically fill in information such as name, item number, cost and price. Customize Opportunity field names and type to capture the most accurate information. Enable multi-select values from drop down fields. View graphical Sales Pipeline and graphs for insight into sales trends. Generate instant quotes for any opportunity without having to re-key information. Choose from one of the 20+ pre-formatted Sales Reports or export to Excel with one click for further analysis.

Report On Activities

Access and report on information quickly for a complete view of customer interactions. Instantly access every important contact or detail using Advanced Lookups or Keyword Searches. At the end of the week or month, it’s easy to report on activity or milestones with one of the many standard reports that ship with ACT!. Perform a lookup on most fields or use Keyword Search. Perform numeric lookups such as greater than or less than queries. Access 40 standard reports including Phone Lists, Activity Reports, Relationship History, Sales Summaries and more! Utilize the Report Designer to create your own custom reports and send most reports to Excel, HTML, PDF or e-mail. Customize priority, activity and history types for better tracking and analysis.

Information On The Go

Stay productive by taking critical information on the go! Take your critical information with you so you can be productive, whether you are in the office or on the road! Synchronize your ACT! Calendar, Contact and To-Do information, Notes, and History items to Palm OS or Pocket PC devices. When accessing a networked database, synchronize the database to your laptop for complete offline access when out of the office. Or, access critical contact and customer details using Citrix or Terminal Services. Print to over 20 popular paper organizers so you always have your schedule with you. Print from any ACT! calendar template and the contact hone number for any scheduled call is automatically printed on the calendar.

Team Collaboration

Enable team collaboration for increased productivity. ACT! Premium for Workgroups offers advanced workgroup functionality to boost team productivity and scales to up to 50 concurrent users. Group scheduling enables users to view other team members meeting availability, team membership enables individuals and managers to view individuals that make up a team and schedule meetings or assign actions to those teams, and Advanced Opportunity tracking capabilities allow for more accurate data and better reporting.

The actual number of users and contacts supported will vary based on hardware and size and usage of your database. The 50 user limit is based on performance tests using minimum hardware requirements and is a recommendation. You must purchase one license of ACT! per user.

Secure Administration / Deployment

Securely administer and deploy to large workgroups and teams. ACT! Premium for Workgroups delivers a host of administration and deployment features designed specifically to meet the needs of larger teams and workgroups. With silent install you can now install, activate and register ACT! on the server and then push deployment of ACT! to different users on the network, eliminating the need to install the software on every individual machine.

Centralized administration makes it easy to grant contact access to individuals and teams, as well as mark select contacts in the database as public, private or limited access. User permissions can be customized by user. Automatic database synchronization and backup ensures your customer information is always up to date.

Key Capabilities

Contact and Customer Management
■ Track and manage complete customer information including contact details, notes and history, appointments and to-do items, communications, associated documents, and sales opportunities
■ Populate more than 60 pre-defined fields including Name, Company, Phone, Address, Web site, E-mail, Last Meeting Date, and Status/ID, or add your own
■ Create Company Records and view a roll-up of all notes, history and opportunities associated with contacts at that account

Calendar and Activity Management
■ Filter calls, meetings, and to-do items by priority, date range, or user, even displaying totals for each type of activity
■ Use Activity Alarms to stay on top of deliverables

Notes and History
■ View virtually unlimited date- and time-stamped Notes and History
■ Create notes, history, activity and opportunity details using Rich Text Formatting that supports colors, bullets, graphics and URLs
■ Update a note and history for one contact and have the option to update the note for all contacts that share this note

Lookups and Groups
■ Perform numeric Lookups by ranges such as greater than or less than queries
■ Create and save Advanced Queries for reusable searches
■ Track collections of related contacts using the Groups or Company Record features for an at-a-glance view
■ Create up to 15 hierarchies of Subgroups for managing information

Sales Process Automation
■ Use the built-in Sales Process or customize it to suit specific business needs
■ Generate history automatically as an opportunity moves through the sales process

Opportunity Tracking
■ View all sales opportunities at once or filter by Users, Estimated Close Date, Status, Sales Stage, Amount, or Probability of Close
■ Access and update opportunities from main view
■ Use built-in Product List to easily enter repeated products or services and automatically fill in information such as name, item number, cost, and price
■ Support multiple products or services for each opportunity

Customer/Prospect Communications
■ Perform mail merges using the ACT! Premium for Workgroups built-in Word Processor and track a history on each contact record
■ Track crucial e-mail communications. Select from three history types including subject line, subject line and first paragraph, and complete email text
■ Use Rich Text Formatting, spell check, signatures, and adding multiple attachments when e-mailing customers and prospects

Reporting
■ Access 40 standard reports including Phone Lists, Activity Reports, Referral Source, Sales Summaries, and more
■ View graphical Sales Pipeline and graphs for insight into sales trends
■ Choose one of the 20 pre-formatted Sales Reports or export to Excel with one click for further analysis
■ Use the Report Designer to create custom reports.

Customization
■ Easily add, delete, and edit field and tabs to meet specific individual or organizational needs
■ Field types can be designated as Date, Currency, Yes/No, Expansive Memo, and Picture fields
■ Customize Activity Types, History Types, and Priorities

Integration with Core Business Applications
■ Seamlessly integrate with core business applications such as Microsoft Office and Lotus Notes 5
■ Integrate with back-office accounting applications such as Peachtree Accounting to eliminate duplicate data entry and ensure your organization has a complete view of all customer interactions, from quotes to orders

Administration and Security
■ Install, activate and register ACT! Premium for Workgroups on the server and then push the deployment to different users on the network
■ Assign access rights using five security levels that include Administrator, Manager, Standard, Restricted, and Browse-only rights
■ Set custom permissions for Standard role users, enabling or disabling them to delete data and/or export to Excel
■ Grant user contact access to multiple database contacts at once. Easily make contacts public, private or limit the access to specific individuals or teams

Mobile and Remote Workforce Support
■ Utilize Citrix/Terminal Services6 support to allow multiple users from different offices to access the same ACT! database, without the need for VPN access
■ Ensure up-to-date customer information with automatic database synchronization and backup
■ Access information on the go by synchronizing key data to Palm OS or Pocket PC handheld devices

Targeted Customers

ACT! by Sage Premium for Workgroups 2006 enables individuals and organizations to instantly access complete contact and customer information, manage and prioritize activities, and track all contact-related communications to help build productive business relationships. Renowned for its ease of use and intuitive interface, ACT! offers advanced high-impact functionality and best-in-class levels of quality and performance for a low total cost of ownership. ACT! Premium for Workgroups was specifically designed for larger workgroups, accommodating up to 50 networked users for enhanced team interaction and group functions.

With more than 2 million individual users and 30,000 corporate customers, ACT! continues to be the market leader in contact and customer management for small businesses and workgroups or divisions of larger organizations. Specifically designed to maximize user experience and productivity, ACT! Premium for Workgroups builds on the ACT! reputation of being the preferred choice among sales professionals, while also providing management and administrators with advanced workgroup functionality in the areas of administration, deployment and security.

ACT! Premium for Workgroups is an easy-to-use solution that offers a low total cost of ownership. ACT! is a single, central repository for critical contact and customer information captured across your entire organization. ACT! enables you to access detailed contact and customer information, manage team calendars and activities, capture all customer communications, track opportunities throughout the sales process, and report on overall team effectiveness.

ACT! Premium for Workgroups enables sales professionals to track sales opportunities from initial inquiry through close using either a standard or customized sales process. When working an opportunity, sales professionals can simply click “Follow-up” and a new activity will automatically be created with the prospect’s details, ensuring the prospect is properly managed throughout the sales process. View all sales opportunities at once or filter using selected criteria. Opportunity fields are customizable as well for advanced flexibility. Use drop-down lists with selectable field values to ensure data consistency when creating a new opportunity. Change field names as well as field types to capture information important to your team. In addition, fields can be adapted and customized to generate a history from a field, to make a field mandatory, to disable the editing of a field, and to change the field length.

Price

$369.99 ACT! by Sage 2006 Premium For Workgroups

$199.99 ACT! by Sage 2006

Volume licensing is available for the server and the workstation products.

System Requirements

Important Note:
In a shared environment, ACT! by Sage 2006 is designed to work with up to 10 users. If you intend to use workgroup functionality or share a database with more than 10 users, you must purchase ACT! by Sage Premium for Workgroups 2006. You must purchase one license per user. Customer registration and activation are required in order to use this software.

ACT! Premium for Workgroups 2006 by Sage System Requirements
Client installation using Microsoft SQL Server (SP3) 2000 Desktop Edition (MSDE)

Win XP Home, XP Pro, 2000 Pro, Server 2003 Web Edition
550MHz Pentium III (or equivalent) processor
512MB RAM
500MB free hard disk space
CD-ROM drive
SVGA (800x600) or higher resolution monitor

Database Server installation using Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition
Win 2000 Server Standard Edition, 2000 Advanced Server, Server 2003 Standard Edition, Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, 2003 Small Business Server
550MHz Pentium III (or equivalent) processor
512MB RAM
500MB free hard disk space
CD-ROM drive
SVGA (800x600) or higher resolution monitor

ACT! Premium for Workgroups 2006 Works With
Outlook 2000/2002/2003
Outlook Express 5.5/6
Eudora 5.2/6
Lotus Notes 6.5
Internet Mail SMTP/POP3
Office 2000/2002/2003
IE 5.5/6
Adobe Reader 5/6
Peachtree Accounting 2004/2005/2006
QuickBooks 2005/2006

Palm OS Minimum Device Requirements
Palm OS 3.5-5.4
33MHz or higher processor
8MB or higher memory
500K free memory plus 1K for each contact
Hot Sync Manager 3.5 and 4.1

Pocket PC Minimum Device Requirements
Pocket PC 2000/2002/Phone Edition (Windows CE 3.0)
Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC (Windows CE 4.0 and 4.20.0) (Excluding Smartphone Operating Systems)
133MHz or higher processor
16MB or higher memory
500K free memory plus 1K for each contact
Microsoft ActiveSync versions 3.5 – 3.8

About Sage Software SB

For over 25 years, Sage Software has led the way in developing and supporting automated business management solutions. With a wide range of front office and back office solutions including accounting, human resources, payroll, fixed asset management, customer relationship management, and e-commerce software - Sage Software offers award-winning products and services that have revolutionized the way small and mid-sized companies do business in today's marketplace.

Sage Software began not as one company, but as the efforts of many entrepreneurs who built their successful products and businesses with a sincere focus on their customers. Today, the company represents the culmination of that combined entrepreneurial spirit, drive, and vision.

The parent company, London-based The Sage Group, plc., reaches a global client base that numbers 4.7 million SMB customers worldwide. It serves these businesses through more than 8,000 employees in operations in North America, the UK, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, South Africa, Australia, and various countries in Asia.

Contact Information

ACT! by Sage and Sage CRM SalesLogix
8800 N. Gainey Center Drive, Suite 200
Scottsdale, Arizona 85258
888-855-5222
www.act.com