ACT Activities

[princeedwardh]

My Environement

    1) SwiftPage: Subscription: ACT Premium Cloud ACT! Premium Version 19.1.63.0

    2) Microsoft: Windows 10 - fully up-to-date as of 04/07/2017 Office 365 Version 1701 (Build 7766.2060) with Office Updates Off

I have inquiries about the software functionality of Activity Type with ACT running in the above referenced environment:

If these questions are better answered in a User Guide, written for SwiftPage's targeted business owners, not for information technology or CRM experts, then please direct me to it, as such a document has not been overtly offered to me by SwiftPage.

1) What is the functional difference between a Meeting and an Appointment?

   a) In other words, how does ACT software code differentiate between a Meeting and an Appointment? What are the software design differences between a Meeting and an Appointment?

   b) Why is Meeting Not an Other Activity and What is an Other Activity? Why is the software code designed so?

   c) What is the functional difference between an Activity ( Meeting, Call, To Do, Other ) and an Other Activity ( Appointment & Custom Activities) and how does ACT software code differentiate them?

  d)Regardless of the software design differences between a Meeting and an Appointment, what customer business requirements are being met for the two but different ACT Activity Types?

2) Please confirm and provide an understanding for the following regarding Custom Activities:

   a) ACT Premium Cloud is designed such that a customer cannot create his own Custom Activity as this functionality is grayed out.

   b) I have been told three times that ACT software and the business model of SwiftPage is for the customer to consume ACT's Technical Support resources to create new Custom Activities.

        Note: I ask for confirmation here because I have numerous documentation of abject wrong information provided on other matters by ACT Technical Support, even at Level Two, about the software for which the Support professional is to have a core competency.

3) How do I:

   a) Associate a unique icon to a Custom Activity?

   b) Add a Custom Activity to my Toolbar?

Many Thank Yous. I am ardently endeavoring to utilize each and every bit of ACT functionality as represented to me by SwiftPage pre-sale.

[Roy_Laudenslager]

1) As far as the activity in the database is concerned, there is no real difference. All activities are stored in the activities table with links to the appropriate primary table(s). When cleared each different activity type has specific associated history types but that is the only real difference between activity types. As to the dialog used to create an activity, parts of the design owes appearance to legacy when ACT! only provided Call, Meeting, To-do and Other as the only four activity types and Other wasn't differentiated. Later versions added specific options for other. 2) Custom activities can only e created on a local install of the ACT! program. If you're self hosting APFW you would do that from the local install on the server. If you're using a hosting service, most will provide you with a remote database that you could use on a local install of the ACT! program and I believe that custom activities created in the remote database would sync back to the server.

[ch1p]

Here is my take on this -

With the integration of ACT and Outlook it was decided to be able to see if an activity for a meeting had been originally created in ACT or Outlook.

This was done by a meeting created in ACT showing as Meeting and a meeting in Outlook showing as Appointment.

Now it gets a bit more messy -

There are some you can't change like, Meeting, Appointment, To-Do, and some you can change like, Personal Activity and Vacation,  which will appear as Other. You can also add to this list a custom activity which will also show in Other.

BUT --- The ability to change or add activity types is not yet in the cloud version but understand it is on the development list.

SO -- You have to make a request for Activity type changes or additions to the host manager which I think in your case is Swiftpage. 

Tried not to get bogged down in jargon with explanation but probably failed! 

[Gary W]

Hi princeedwardh,

You can find a users help guide built into the software. It can be accessed by hitting F1 in the desktop software, or clicking the ? icon directly next to the search box in the upper right corner of the Act! web interface.

In answer to your questions:

1. Please see the answers above provided by Roy and ch1p.
2. It is currently a software limitation that Custom Activity Types cannot be created in the Act! web interface, or on Remote Databases. Please see the following Knowledgebase article for instructions for requesting new Custom Activity Types on your Act! Premium Cloud database: http://kb.act.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/38673
   This is an area of the software that is on the roadmap for improvement. It is the goal to have this feature be accessible though the web interface.
3. b. See this knowledgebase article for steps to add Custom Activities to your toolbars. Note: This feature is not currently available in the web interface.

[FILLSTAFF]

Hey Gary,

When they are fixing the Activity problems,

 please remind them to fix the ability to use the icons part of Custom Activity things again.

It still does not work for my Pro 17.3 version.  Hot fix soon maybe for that version? Thank you.

[Gary W]

Hi Bill,

The issue around custom activity icons not displaying correctly was fixed in v18.1. The issue starts occurring in older versions when .NET 4.5 or newer is installed on the machine. Unfortunately, since this is a cosmetic issue, it isn't something that we would retroactively fix in a hotfix release for an older version.