Alternatives for Access (1 Viewer)

[jd_boss_hogg]

Hi All - i have access 2007 for contact dbase management. We have 8 users around the country, who all sync once a day (VPN).

I've been asked to change to ACT - the reason behind this, is email history. Currently, we have to remember to cut/paste any emails sent to clients (and received) into a form, and obviosuly this is not only lon winded but also we soon run out of space. So, i'm looking for an alternative.

I really don;t like ACT - it's not configurable enough for me, and we'd lose half the features that we run regulary if we swap over.

Is there anythign else out there that would allow me to attched files and email history, and at the same time allow easy syncing?

thanks !

 

[Banana]

You mean this Act? (I ask only because so many things are named "Act")

FWIW - if you use Outlook as your email, Access can in fact link to the Outlook and extract the emails. If you needed something more sophicated, you can look into automation, manipulating either Outlook or Access with VBA so you can automatically copy/move emails into Access.

Googling a bit for Lotus Notes (email program), it seems that you can use NotesSQL driver and thus link to it as an ODBC database so that's one solution if you're using Lotus Notes instead of Outlook.

Does that help?

 

[Dairy Farmer]

I used to work for a large architectual firm and we had hundreds of onging projects. When I was emloyed as the IT manager the Exchange server was a mess. Users were forwarding emails like crazy to each other and saving emails as text files and putting them into project folders on the file server. Think 10,000's of duplicates and very long file names or totally meaningless names.

The folder system on the file server was well orginized and users knew how to use them. So I just duplicated the system on the Exchange server.

With Exchange:

You can have shared contacts.
You can have shared email folders.

Contacts - You can set permissions for who can add, who can edit and who can delete. Examle: all users can add new contacts. Owners and admin can edit details. Admin can delete contacts.

Email folders - A folder is created for each project. Receive an email for Project 1? Just drag and drop it to the correct folder. Visible to all conserned. "Hey Bob, Richard just sent over the changes to Project 1. Check out his email." No need for Bob to forward the whole email to Richard.

BTW you don't even need your own Exchange server. You can have a hosted Exchange server.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

who is insisting you change to ACT?

all software is a compromise.

buy a nice package, and find it's deficient in some areas.
Develop your own to do what you want - but you find it costs more, and sometimes you don't have the expertise to do some things.

So you pays your money and you takes your choice.

 

[jd_boss_hogg]

thanks for the feedback guys... i'm persevering with ACT at the moment. I found the sync very quick and effective, but it's really just a contact management dbase and couldn;t really be used for other stuff.

 

[Galaxiom]

People who make decisions about implimenting software often have no idea about what really matters. They get hung up on one small aspect they see in the promotional blurb and imagine it is going to solve all their problems.

I used to work in a place that had a full management and stock control package. It included a comprehensive CRM with builtin word processing and email capabilities. It didn't call this part CRM but that was exactly what it did.

One particularly stupid, computer-challenged salesman who invariably assumed he was smarter than everyone else, demanded that we buy a CRM package and had done some research. No amount of explaining that the existing system had it built in would change his mind.

After I left the company he continued to raise the issue. Last I heard they were still thinking about buying one because the integrated one required the contact to be entered in the system. I wonder what they thought would have to be done in the CRM package?

 

[jd_boss_hogg]

Well said !!! My sentiments exactly !

I have an Access database that does exactly everything that we need at the moment. It's perfect for our needs. I spent ages fine tuning it - if anyone assk me for any information or new reports, BANG - it's done in an instant. And then the MD had a demo online of ACT and he was sold as some eutopia to all his problems.... and he knows NOTHING about databases at all, and hasn't ever used mine ! The times i've heard "i wish i could get figures on XXX" and then i point them to the switchboard menu and show them exactly the report to run (which was even named that a dummy would recognise)

The big problm, is that a dbase is only as good as the data fed into it. We have 6 sales guys, and i'm the only one that uses it! And then the boss moans that he can't get any useful sales information. ACT has added 1 hour a day onto my work schedule. I'm pissed, but it's what i've come to expect where software is concerned. (i'm sub contract on $30 hour - they recently had me write some software, took 15 hours even though i showed them something off the shelf for $69 which was perfect for our needs!)

Moan over - back to work.

 

[Lightwave]

JD

That's why its good to corner away a responsibility to yourself. Its your responsibility and you manage it how you want. Hey presto you choose the database package and no more bleeding awkward ways of doing simple things.

Being able to listen to others (and understand them) is vastly under rated.

M