Record Creation Options for Country Orientation

[#1]

A significant number of larger ACT! sites have users in other countries, remote from the home country database, synchronizing or web accessed. A useful feature in ACT! would be the ability to set default entries in fields on record creation. The obvious requirement is to set the Country field correctly. Right now any default entry for Country is global, as a user I can't choose my own preference. Head office is USA, I'm in Canada dealing with local customers, inevitably I have to edit the Country field each time I create  a new record.

Suggestion:

In ACT! Preferences for Record Creation Options, add the facility to specify the default Country data to your ACT! user profile. Likewise if you are a sales organization having Territory, or for that matter any particular custom field, user definable for default entry on record creation.    

[#2]

It should be the same as your My record, as it's bneen since ACT! started .... except for the currency , that's set when the database is created

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Australia
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[#3]

Michael,

Please read the suggestion again. It isn't about the My Record and country definition. It is about the default data that can be set for any field in the field definitions. The problem is that setting is global for whoever logs on the database and creates a record. 

[#4]

This can be done with field updates in Smart Tasks.

[#5]

Using Smart Tasks. I don't think so. It isn't as simplistic as replacing Country data based on the identity of the record creator.

[#6]

What am I missing?

[#7]

Firstly it's retrospective, which has phone mask format and subscriber database consequences and secondly it isn't necessarily every created record that is wanting to be retain the default country. For instance our own database in NZ is set to country = New Zealand, as that is where the majority of our customers are, however often, on creation a record needs to be altered to say Australia or USA etc. I would also think you would have to be careful on importing records as inadvertently the wrong country would be set.  

[#8]

Will the phone format be wrong if I switch the country after creation but before I enter a phone?

What subscriber consequences? In Sage ACT! 2013 you can set Smart Tasks to run offline (by default every 2 minutes but could be more frequent) to read and make field changes. This could be set to ignore records that were imported with today's date. 

How would your solution enable changing the country for records not in NZ? Wouldn't it be based off of every record the user adds?

I'm not following how this wouldn't be solved by a combination of My Record and field triggered Smart Tasks. 

[#9]

The correct country data needs the oversight of the record creator. It isn't, for instance as simple as every record created by an Australian remote user being country = Australia, however it does make sense to have the default entry in define fields set for country = Australia, presuming  a NZ based database where all the NZ users are set as default = New Zealand. ( I'm not talking My Records here). In other words applying a blanket process of record creator = X then country must be Y approach doesn't work..

Leaving aside the detail, it is applying a sledgehammer to a nut to apply an automated fix whereby including the default country as a user preference for newly created records is obviously a more efficient way of doing it, just as the facility already exists for assigning correct Limited Access at  record creation time. It is a logical extension of that facility and without the complexity. I wouldn't like to see Smart Tasks become the catch-all as a retrospective  'fix' for what could be better handled at source through improvements in design.        

[#10]

Record Creator X means Country Y if Country is blank. Would this criteria work? Smart Tasks in Sage ACT! 2013 don't have to be retrospective, they can be started based off of field triggers. 

I just don't know I see the effeciency of development work for a limited need when a tool exists to provide that functionality. 

[#11]

I'm understanding the concept, but I can't agree that what is inherently a user profile preference setting replaced by running Smart Tasks. Minor savings development wise but adds too much complexity for both the user and database administration. Introduces complexity and overhead unnecessarily.