How can this be number 1?? WOW

[Royel]

Would you give the steps you use to set duplicate checking? Did you go to Tools | Preferences | General tab and click on the Duplicate Checking button on the bottom of the dialog? I can't duplicate what you are describing.

[AJones]

In addition to the steps you are using, what version are you on?

If you would, go to Help / About ACT! If you are on 10.0.0.237, you'll want to download and apply the 10.0.1 update.

[ACTisHORRIBLE]

Thank you all for your help.

I am using version 10.0.0.237, Hotfix 1.

When I try to set duplicate check settings, I go to Tools > Preferences > Duplicate Checking

The record type is Contact

The duplicate match options are only the select 10 or so categories that I created.  No "ordinary" field such as Contact, Email, Address, Company, etc is available.  This holds true with each of the 3 match settings pull down menus.

[AJones]

It sounds like there is an issue with the Overflow tables. You will definitely want to upgrade to 10.0.1 to resolve this.

ACT! 10.0.1 Standard Update (US)

You'll need an act.com profile to access the download. If you don't already have one, you can register with the site and you should get a confirmation email in minutes.

[ACTisHORRIBLE]

The update did take care of the duplicate checking issue.

Thank you.

[dcparris]

ECSI,

Yes I agree on "due diligence" before making a purchase.

On the other hand if you are a longtime user of ACT and have watched the product get better every time there has been a newer version and all of the sudden you upgrade, only to find out that it seems everything has changed. And modifications you have made to increase your efficiency gone and you have to go back to square one to recreate is not in my book an upgrade.

Just because a version number moves up a number does not make a product better than the previous version, bells and whistles do not make a product, functionally does. With 2008 using Office 2007 I have lost much, mostly my time probably some business along with it simply because the functions I could do with Ver 6 I can not do with Ver 10. They are there to use, but since Sage did not create a conversion process for activity series as an example I now have to recreate each of them manually, the conversion process for Word templates finally ran after 3 tries, unfortunately did not convert all of the fields, it did not touch any of the fields in the body of my letters.

I did not realize how many activity series I had, I thought it was only about 25, instead I have 72, each one will have to recreated in V 10, each of my Word templates will have to be opened, reviewed and changed if it contains fields in the body and most of them do, I have well over 500 of those, yes many are the same, the only thing that is different are the fields in the body, but I still have to change them.

It is just me here, I have built my business on efficiency and a reputation for complete follow-up via mail, email and phone. I have lost everything because of the upgrade. I use to come into the office in the morning and could complete my entire days follow-up in less than 90 minutes, the rest of the time  I could use for face time with business partners and customers. That is not happening, what should I give up? My face time or my reputation, no matter which one I choose I still lose.

Maybe the way you use the product it is great for you, but since support is no longer available on the product I had purchased, I had to either find a new  product that I have never used or upgrade my current product with the company I have come to trust for making me more efficient chose the latter and it has been a mistake.

Yes these forums are for people having trouble with their product, my point is if you look hard at some of them you will see many of the posts are the same problems occurring over and over. And they are not being addressed by Sage, my thanks to everyone out there trying to help, but they have a business to run themselves not try to fix problems created by Sage that should be addressed by Sage.

I understand they want to make money, but for the number of problems V 10.0 has created I think they should be more compassionate for their customers when it comes to support, if I supported one of my customers the way they support theirs I would not have many.

I am sorry for the length of this message, but I think it time that Sage ACTS!

[Ironlion]

I have used ACT since ACT 2000.  I configured it for 54 locations and wrote a user manual for it.

I purchased 3 copies of ACT 2007 and want to go back to 2000.  No I don't have 100,000 clients but why should I have to put up with the rest of the junk because it needs to be that heavy.

The ACT word processor will not work correctly with multiple page templates (ACT says use Word) and Word does not give you the merge fields to adjust your template.  What a joke.

OH, I'm also using the other joke Vista Business.  ACT 2007 will not work with Office 2007.  (ACT told me that it does not support it because ACT came out before Office--another joke).

I got an error message and sent 12 emails to their tech department.  I had to call their main office and complain at the person who answered the phone to get someone from tech support to call me. 

What a joke.  I'm about ready to load ACT 2000 back on all these computers and let my people get back to work.

Message Edited by mfaubert on 03-14-2008 11:10 AM

[alfcentral]

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@dcparris wrote:

Yes I agree on "due diligence" before making a purchase.

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Unfortunately, I did, and made my critique, but I am not the purchasing decision maker, so I have to use what we have. Realistically, though, any program has its issues, but this one definitely seems to chap my hide more than others just from an out-of-the-box usability point of view. I'm not saying that it's crap, because there are definitely strengths to this program, and in fact, the layout, in many ways, is simple, effective, and generally easy to use. It's just some stuff that I sort of expected coming off using Maximizer (which, again, don't get me wrong, drives me nuts for other reasons - software is nothing if not imperfect!), such as easier ways to multi-select contacts (without doing a search as originally mentioned at the beginning of this thread), their bulk mailing tool really is better designed without an add-on (e.g. you can preview a message before sending it to a bulk list), etc.

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dcparris wrote: Just because a version number moves up a number does not make a product better than the previous version, bells and whistles do not make a product, functionally does.

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Oh yes! I still use Word 97, even though I've got all the way up to 2007 loaded on my machine(s), for various user support reasons, because of added features that really don't add functionality.

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dcparriswrote: Yes these forums are for people having trouble with their product, my point is if you look hard at some of them you will see many of the posts are the same problems occurring over and over. And they are not being addressed by Sage, my thanks to everyone out there trying to help, but they have a business to run themselves not try to fix problems created by Sage that should be addressed by Sage.

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I think that's a very valid opinion. I look forward to finding out what Sage comes up with in future releases, if they bother to take some of these issues under consultation. Probably, but whether they "fix" it to users' satisfaction, well, you can't satisfy everyone all the time, can you!

[GLComputing]

• “Look for” box in Contact List is absolutely useless.  Does not search any other field than company name, most times does nothing when Enter is pressed to search (waste of time)

It will do it by whatever field you've sorted by. Click on the header for a different field and try again

• Phone format is not consistent, no way to mass edit this (waste of time)

Not sure what you mean

• Replacing contact field cannot be done in Contact List mode (waste of time)

Make sure you're in Edit mode

• Stock reports are setup horribly! – have to waste time designing my own

Most people need different reports according to their needs

• Have to waste 3x the $$ of the program on add-ons to make it useful! (waste of time/$$)

Depends on an individual's needs

• Can’t just select contacts and perform operations, always have to “create lookup” – (waste of time)

Other wise it doesn't know if to use current contact or the entire list

• When scrolling page (clicking with mouse and dragging scroll bar) you have to stop for it to update display (waste of time/pointless)
• Program runs terribly SLOW!  Freezes up often.

How much RAM? What speed hard disk?

• Can’t create a new Company just by highlighting several contacts w/ same company name.  Have to first make a company using only one contact, then highlight and add the rest to that company.  (waste of time)

Worthwhile making a Feature Request - click the Feedback link bottom of this page, then Feature Request

• No error message when importing contacts supposedly failed

Yes... I thinkg there should be an import log like here is for conversions and sync. Worthwhile making a Feature Request - click the Feedback link bottom of this page, then Feature Request

[Zerk]

I am not the brightest person on the block and programming was one of the most difficult classes I took at Arizona State University in 2003, however having considerable experience in the business world before going back to school, I would think the makers of ACT would have  produced a better product than this 2008 10.0. Given the amount of time i have given this product I would think I should have made the sync work by now. Having a user guide like the one ACT 10.0 has is worthless. I have learned more on these disscussion pages than any information included with ACT. I have to ask , should the company open up the support at no charge. Is the thought that because only a few users that are completly lost take the time to look up help issues. If 1 in 100 people who have problems actually seek help I would be amazed. If the user problems continue maybe a recall should be demanded.