ACT and Office 365 Comapatibility

[TechDoc4u]

What is the real story with ACT and Office 365.  Is there a reason they dont have a fix yet for this?  More and more small businesses will be using 0365.  I don't mind the answer being that I have to upgrade to 2012 0r 2013.  I just want to know that Sage understands that this is what is needed.  Or I will have to direct all my clients to migrate to another CRM.

Any one have a comment?

[benhamilton]

Office 365 can be a number of things.

It can mean the client has a subscription license to 20xx Microsoft Office. Sage ACT! works with 2010 or 2007 (oh, and 2003).

It can mean it's a cloud based Microsoft Office, if that's the case, Microsoft currently don't allow ANY addons to integrate with it.

Ben.

[TechDoc4u]

We use Outlook 2010 and had an issue with Sage 2010 where the appoinments all disappered after synching with Outlook.  Sage blamed office 365. I said I thought that was not the issue as you stated that Sage integrates with Outlook 2010.  I was then asked about additional things synching with Outlook.  I said "everything" synchs with Outlook. 

Based on your response, it should work with O365 as a backend if you use Outlook 2010 as the front end.  I had a severe issue occur and I am trying to help the client decide if we should upgrade to 2012, wait for 2013, or stay where we are now.

Thanks for the input. 

[benhamilton]

At this point, I'm recommending my clients stick with MSO2010.

It's solid and reliable, and importantly, it does integrate with ACT!.

For sync'ing Tasks/Calendar/Contacts with MSO, however, I MUCH prefer to use 123Sync instead of the built in sync, Tom (at 123Sync) has been helpful, and the product has become far more useful and solid. Because it runs on the server, users can't much stuff up, and it runs even if the users machine is not one. The built in ACT! sync only works if the user has ACT! open. 

Ben.

[GLComputing]

If something else sync's with Outlook, DO NOT use the conatct or calendar sync in ACT! ... it will fail due to Outlook changing the ItemID

[TechDoc4u]

So, no workaround no fix, just dont use it?  Pretty lame. ACT needs to be in concert with Outlook to provide synchronization.

[GLComputing]

It;s not really ACT!'s fault ...

Outlook changes the ItemID on records (it's not globally persistent like ACT!'s UniqueID) ... and this can't be monitored without a lot of code that most corporations wouldn't want running.

As of O365, ACT! connects to Office 2010, which is the desktop interface to O365 ... the web version doesn't have APIs to connect to

[GLComputing]

There are many third-party fixes ...

123 sync (as men mentioned) will sync to Outlook or Exchange
Handheld Contact will sync directly to mobile platforms - iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry

[Hammatime]

We now have a product that makes ACT! and Office 2013 play nice together!

https://www.designr1.com/shop/office-2013-pack/