SHARE YOUR IDEAS

Doing this withing ACT! maybe quite difficult for Sage considering all the possible document types.

 

Maybe, as an option, it might be possible for Sage or an add-on developer to use the APIs in Windows Search 4.0 or Google Desktop Search and the ACT! SDK to scan ACT!'s history and documents areas, find any attached or linked files and thus enable a search that returns the records that have documents found in a search.

 

If this was done by an add-on developer, how much would users be willing to pay for this additional functionality?

 

Regards,

Mike Lazarus

 

Join the LinkedIN ACT! Fanatics Group - http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=49896

What would be hard about searching at least just Word documents?

First... if you search one type, everyone would ask for other types

2nd: Searching the docs is not the issue... finding the records (Contact, Company, Group, Sales Op, Activity) they are attached to is more complex. Especially as they can be attched to multiple records

3rd: The documents are usually stored on a server, not locally. This requires additional complexity in handling the network security and additional issues when you add sync users.

Mine is not the server version so for those who are not on the server, it would just be searching the folder with the stored data. Basic tools like DT Search and others do it and it is so basic. Why can't this be added?

Searching the files is easy... you can do it now with DT.

 

The problem is that there's nothing in the file that says what record or records it's linked to, so the search need to index the SQL and identify the back links between the files and the SQL records.

 

I do believe DT has an API that developers can use to add extensions like this, but it wouldn't make sense for anyone to do this for only single users with a local database. First, that's a small percentage of users who would be less inclined to pay for this function and second, imagine their anger if they grow to a server config and lose this.

 

It is a good idea and is possible... but not  that easy to cover the scenarios in a way that doesn't create support nightmares.

 

For Sage to do it, it has to be general enough to work for all users... for an add-on developer to do it, it has to work for enough users that would be willing to pay for it.

To do this correctly, each document would need to be indexed.  Try X1.com. Its free.

Cool! I will check that out.

It would be nice to have a feature like this built into the product. I am a recruiter so I have to cut and paste contracts and resumes into the notes field which is a HUGE PAIN. In addition, their add on product from another vendor is gauging $249/yr and ACT! itself is less than that. They are really missing an opportunity here. I know someone else who "was" looking at ACT! for their business(non recruiting  - and Word document intensive) but they can't cut and paste everything. In 2010 at least they have a button to add a contact and it grabs a lot of info but the attachment feature has a ways to go I would say. To me that would be a basic feature to search the following: contracts, proposals, legal documents, HR related documents. Sometimes I deal with 13 people in one company. If I need to find a presentation I did, goodness! Do you feel my pain? LOL.