Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

Jeff_Granger — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:50:22 GMT

Many people assume that ACT! does this already and are somewhat perplexed to find that it doesn't. We also need to be able to automatically create companies when importing contact data. Probably the best way to handle this would be to have some additional options in Preferences.

Option 1 - Do not automatically create Companies from Contacts.

Option 2 - Always create a new company if it doesn't exist when adding a new contact and automatically add to a company if it already exists.

Option 3 - Always create and link a new company if it doesn't exist when adding a new contact and automatically link to the company if it already exists.

Jeff

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

dflood — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:00:32 GMT

Jeff, this would be good. I think you do need to have the options as there will always be users that want to have it one way or another.

Having said that I would suggest that option 3 should be the default. We spend an inordinate amount of time training and cajoling clients to create companies. It is a highly under-utilised side of the application. That is mostly because there is so much work involved in manually creating contacts and then linking all the conacts to it.

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

GLComputing — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:01:52 GMT

I think another option should be to ask when adding a contact - similar to the way you can have it ask when adding a contact with more than 2 names how it should parse it.

Sometimes, you do want a new company... and sometimes you might not.

This might make a better default option.

Options 1,2,3 above should also be available for Imports... obviously my one wouldn't apply there :-)

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

ois — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:28:04 GMT

This is one of the more requested features we see--would be extremely helpful.

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

eatkin — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:52:11 GMT

Hi Jeff,

Yes this is definitely one I get asked about regularly. Would be a great addition and massive time saver.

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

alduet — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:26:46 GMT

Good suggestion.

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

Jeff_Granger — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:21:25 GMT

And... we also need the ability to automatically create Companies from existing contacts in the database.

Jeff

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

Thatch2 — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:49:14 GMT

I've written a small application for a client that takes all the contacts in a database and creates companies from the existing contacts (and links them to the companies). It also has a button that deletes all the companies from a database (so that you can create a whole new set of companies).

I will be posting the application on our site 123-addons.com next week for anyone interested.

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

Thatch2 — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:31:37 GMT

I just posted the application on our site. It is called Create Companies from Contacts for ACT!. It does 2 things: one, it creates companies from the company field; It has some logic that prevents it to create duplicate companies. Second, it has a delete button that will delete all the companies. We will be posting it on the ACT! Addon products store as time allows, but it can now be downloaded from 123-addons.com .

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

djoseph — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:27:30 GMT

I agree that this would be valuable. The simplest, and perhaps most obvious, would be to be able to highlight a range of contacts (presumably sorted by company) in contact list view, right-click, and select an option to create a company from the contacts and link them. Where you now have "Add Contacts to Company", just add the option "Create Company and Add Contacts".

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

kstalcup — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:28:51 GMT

This is a great feature request.....would you expect that the Company name would have to be an exact match to recognize it as an existing company?

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

GrahamS — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:59:08 GMT

This could be good, I am always using the "Create Company from Contact" on the Companies tab. In Act9 the only annoying part is that it does not include my Custom fields in the new Company. If the Creat Company from Contact was automatic, we would also need to be able to specify/map the default fields to include in the new Company record. (In Act9 outside the USA it is always better to create the contact first, then the company from the contact as there is an annoying bug with the phone area codes if you update the contact data from the company. It was fixed in Act 10.).

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

Jeff_Granger — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 14:51:57 GMT

How about...

As you type the name into the Company field in the Contact record a box pops up and does the "Type Ahead" thing and presents you with all the Company level records that match what you've typed, complete with a couple of lines of their address, so that if the record already exists you are made aware of the fact and can select the appropriate match, whereupon, the Contact record address fields are automatically populated.

Jeff

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

GrahamS — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:16:06 GMT

This good idea should be tied into other new and quicker ways to enter new contacts - see Entering new Contacts, Companies and Addresses from other digital sources - www Contact page, email,... .and Automatically Create Companies from Contacts )

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

GrahamS — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:25:18 GMT

Hi Jeff, a great request.

Along with this we need more field choice options when creating Coy from Contact, including Custom fields (unless that has been improved since ACT9.)

This will be 1 step closer to speeding up the slow and painful process of creating new contacts from info in other docs - emails, company directories, LinkedIn, website contact pages etc.

Your idea should also be part of the following ideas to speed up the New Contact process noted above:

Entering new Contacts, Companies and Addresses from other digital sources - www Contact page, email, Word doc etc.

and: Drag and Drop Information

(P S I thought my previous comment hadn't posted, so wrote it again here, hopefully a bit clearer, and with the right last link. Sorry about the duplication.)

Message Edited by GrahamS on 03-05-2010 03:31 PM

Re: Automatically Create Companies from Contacts

GrahamS — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:26:35 GMT

Hi Jeff

re Type Ahead idea above, quicker and easier than selecting a Company from the Link to Company which only shows phone numbers, then View/Refresh (I always seem to be ahead of the refresh cycle), then Update Linked Contact.

If Company name is the same but address different, option to update address and Add Contact, OR create new Division/Branch (I would love to see a Branch layer under Divisions, see my other posts) OR create New Company.

Graham