by Rich Spitz

For years, ACT! users have struggled with the shortcomings of the email client that comes with ACT!. There are a few issues that I hear clients complain about when it comes to ACT!'s email. The first is that there's no formatting. If you want to use bold, italic, a different font, or graphics, you're out of luck. ACT!'s email client is text only. The other complaint I hear is that there's no way to do a personalized mail merge with an attachment. These seem to be the biggest concerns. So what's an ACT! user to do?

There are two utilities that solve these issues. The first is the ACT! to Outlook Email link from Ugly Software. The name might be ugly, but the functionality isn't. The program runs with the aid of Windows Scripting, so you must download that program—it's available at www.uglysoftware.com. You download and install Windows Scripting, then the link. When installed, this allows you to create an email from ACT! that actually uses Outlook as the email editor instead of ACT!'s text-based editor. This is a great benefit, as you now get to use all of the email addresses in your ACT! database and the power of Outlook to send emails. As if that weren't enough, the program gives you three options in sending out emails. The first is that it will record that you sent the email in your Notes/History section. The second option allows you to store the contents of that email in the Notes/History section, and the third one allows you to store the message contents as an attachment. Figure 1 shows the screen with the three options.

So any way you choose you can get access to that information in your Notes/History section. But wait—there's more! I haven't told you the price of this valuable utility: It's free. Yes, the good people at Ugly Software believe "There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but there is such a thing as free Ugly Software." It's certainly a valuable utility that's worth much more than its price. You can download this utility at www.uglysoftware.com.

Although Ugly Software doesn't provide the ability to do mail merge, there's another valuable tool that can. Enter Mail Merge Mania, an add-on product from Northwoods Software. To quote their literature, "A mail merge tool for ACT! that will excite you with the possibilities of sending attractive, dynamic email to your clients and prospects."

Since November, when Leon Bloom initially reviewed the program for Easy ACT!, it's gone through some revisions and is now in version 2.11.

The product was designed just for ACT! users, so as long as you have your email addresses in ACT! and a Pop3 mail account (sorry, AOL users) you should be all set. As an aside, you can now set up Yahoo! as a free Pop3 mail account. The installation is fairly easy to set up once you've gotten through the download, as long as you're careful not to make any typos in the names of your mail servers. If you're using Outlook or Outlook Express, these can be found in your Mail Account setup. The concept is that you create the mail message you want, select the recipients in ACT!, merge the list with the message, and then send the message out. There are some nice features in that you can create an HTML message and use any formatting you like. You can also include graphics, but they must be on the Web. They don't have to be on your site, as you can link them from anywhere on the Web. Mail Merge Mania can create a history record with any subject you like, as well as send attachments of any file. The look of the message is totally up to you. If you're creative and have a good sense of design, the letter or message will look good; otherwise, it can be just a plain message. A nice feature is that you can have each one personally addressed by having "Dear ____" in each message, which takes away from the junk-mail look. There are several ways to create an HTML message; the easiest I found was to just create the message in Outlook or Outlook Express and do a File | Save as in HTML format. You can do this with Netscape as well. For those who want more control, FrontPage or FrontPage Express will do any tricks you want.

Another benefit of Mail Merge Mania is that it uses dual HTML and text merge technology, so those who have an old email reader or can't read HTML can still read the message. This requires you to edit the text message and ensure that it wraps correctly and looks good without the formatting. Older versions of AOL can't read HTML, so keep that in mind when creating your message.

After loading the program, you'll see the screen shown in Figure 2.

One of the challenges of Mail Merge Mania is to create the proper HTML document with the correct formatting. The program allows you to insert ACT! fields by using double brackets ([[ ]]). For example, you could start a letter with Dear [[Salutation]],. There are also codes for an interactive dialog box and to add a record type of information. The latest version has added the ability to store mail merge fields in the clipboard (see Figure 3), but the HTML template must be created outside of Mail Merge Mania.

Clients for whom I've installed Mail Merge Mania were relieved to be free of ACT!'s email limitations. One client is going to use Mail Merge Mania to send out their monthly email newsletter. It's a great and easy way to keep in touch with your clients/prospects. I personally used it to send out a notice to all of my clients about Sage's acquisition of Interact Commerce Corporation. Since I copied and pasted parts of the article from Interact's Web site, I was able to quickly send out hundreds of personalized emails in less than 15 minutes. The only thing that took some time was making sure I had the most current email addresses from my Outlook Express Address book (by the way, there's no easy way to do this).

While I do agree with Leon Bloom that the initial interface wasn't intuitive, there have been a couple of changes in later versions. I would have also liked to see a quicker and easier way to purchase and upgrade the product from the trial version. The Email Merge dialog box in Figure 4 is now more similar to ACT!'s Write | Mail Merge dialog with Current contact, Current lookup, and the ability to add a mail subject. Similar to ACT!, this screen allows you to select who you want to send to, what you want to send, and how you want to send.

Overall, I highly recommend Mail Merge Mania, as it can save you lots of time and give you a nice professional look that allows you to better keep in touch with your clients and prospects. For more information, check out the Northwoods Web site at www.nwoods.com/act/MailMerge.htm, where you can download a free 30-day trial. The price for purchasing the software is a bargain at $129

There are two utilities that can help you overcome some common shortcomings of the ACT! email client:

• The ACT! to Outlook Email link from Ugly Software lets you use Outlook as your email editor instead of ACT!'s text-based editor.

• Mail Merge Mania is an add-on from Northwoods Software that allows you to send dynamic and professional emails to your clients and prospects