Beta Testing

[LloydBedik112444]

I have been a beta tester for the last three years. Under the new ownership will I still have this opportunity? Lloyd Bedik Lloyd@Bedik.com

[GLComputing]

I've been wondering the same thing for myself ... having been an ACT! beta tester for 25 years :-)

In the past, the beta was made public around June and there was an announcement in the Community on how to apply for access.

[ghollister]

Lloyd,
Stay tuned to this Community forum. Announcements for Beta testing participation will be posted here. When Sage owned ACT!, Beta testing usually began around mid-June. I have not heard this will be any different with the new owners (Swiftpage).

[vogelap]

I hope we're able to retain our beta-tester status. It's been helpful and appreciated!

[benjamin]

We are taking a new approach to beta this year with a significantly smaller audience of active partners. There will be no public beta. 

I am greatful for your previous participation. I can't wait to showcase what we've accomplished. 

[vogelap]

Oh wow... I hope that means that those of us that have tested for the last several years (I've got quite a few, but not 25 like Mike!) are not considered "public" as in "public beta".

Is that too much to hope for?

[benjamin]

That is the case. Previous years active beta participants will not be involved in this year's beta. 

I apologize for any difficulties this has caused and I appreciate the dedication that many have shown over the years. Maintaining a large public beta takes a lot of work and the value of feedback we have gotten in the past was not sufficient to justify the cost.

A very small portion of participants provided actionable feedback via the community while the majority provided feedback in ways that weren't detailed enough to act on or worse only did the minimum required to get a free license. 

Our focus this year is live attendance events with key partners with the drive to pull the feedback out with R&D representation and guided small group interactions. Quality of responses over quantity. 

I'm confident that this will provide us a better product.

Again I apologize for any inconvenience this change has made and I am greatful for your involvement in our community. 

[jotero]

The thing is that they do not include installation and upgrade tests in Latin America (Servers - Operating Systems and Software in Spanish) - So how to know what is going to happen? (For example currency symbol in Latin American countries)  Should be able to preview the issue but without Public BETA TESTER will not be possible.

[ch1p]

We must be near the beta testing of ACT v22. For the last few years Swiftpage have not let the small group of power users take part as they said they did not get value from the free licences they gave as a reward for the testing. Since the change in policy I have noticed a higher amount of defects getting through to the commercial release so would ask that this policy be reviewed.

The beta testing was also flawed for 2 reasons -

It was too near the release date so most defects found were not corrected before the commercial release.

It gave a set menu of testing and yet most of the defects I found were not in the testing schedule list.

Maybe look at the most helpful of those who give time and help to other ACT users in this forum to participate in the beta testing of ACT V22 so you provide a better product at the release date.

[ladybt28]

ch1p - I am in Northern Ireland - do you do specialist coding for Act or know anyone who does.  Need to use smart tasks and put back some sort of link to an outside email client for a particular set of emails since they shut down Swiftpage legacy email client.  Act emarketing no good - field list too restricted.  AMA too cost prohibitive per email and so a key part of Act that I used very successfully in my business is completely destroyed.  can you help?

Ladybt28