Creating A Custom ACT! Customer List

by Rich Spitz

March 1997

When I leave the office, I want to have fast and easy access to my customer’s phone and fax numbers. While ACT! is great once its loaded, it’s a rather cumbersome process to lookup a single phone number when I’m away from the office, i.e. pop open my laptop, fire up Windows 95, log into ACT!!, select Lookup, Last Name, type "Jones," move to the second record and there it is (a few minutes later).

Instead, I’ve created my own custom telephone directory that I take with me wherever I go. I call it my Custom Customer and Friends List. I print my directory — double sided — once a month and am able to carry the name, phone and fax numbers of 128 Customers on a single piece of paper. This is how I do it.

Use the ID/Status field

I use the ID/Status field to identify the contacts I included in the list. This includes customers and some close friends. In my database, I categorize contacts, i.e. "customers" or "friends," by entering information in the ID/Status field from a pop-up box. If a person is a prospect, I leave the ID/Status field blank.

ACT!Tip: When I see a blank ID/Status field, I know the person is a prospect.

Creating a lookup

This is how I create a lookup in ACT! 2:

1. Select Lookup, Other. The Smart-Query window opens.

2. Select Edit, Clear. This clears any previous queries.

3. Place an asterisk (*) in the ID/Status field. This instructs ACT! to search for records that contain data in the ID/Status field.

4. Select File, Save, name the query custlist.qry. Save the query so you can use it again.

5. Select Query, Execute, or click OK, to run the query.

The resulting lookup gives me a list of my customers and friends.

ACT!Tip: From the Contact List (press F8) you can refine your list by tagging and untagging contacts.

Remember: Anything you put in the ID/Status field will now be included so you may have to modify your search criteria if you use your ID/Status field in a different manner.

This is how you do it in ACT! 3:

1. Select Lookup, By Example. The Advanced Query window opens.

2. Select Query, Clear Query. This clears any previous queries.

3. Place an asterisk (*) in the ID/Status field. This instructs ACT! to search for records that contain data in the ID/Status field.

4. Select File, Save, name the query custlist.qry. Save the query so you can use it again.

5. Select Query, Run Query to run the query.

ACT!Tip: From the Contact List (press F8) you can refine your list by highlighting contacts and selecting the Omit Selected command from the Right Mouse Button menu.

Modify the lookup menu

To make life easy, let’s add the query to the Lookup menu. This is how you do it:

• In ACT! 2, Select Lookup, Custom, Modify Menu, and the Custom Lookup box opens. Click the Add button, and add your query to the pulldown menu.
• In ACT! 3, Select Lookup, Modify Menu. The Modify Menu box opens. Add your query to the pulldown menu.

ACT!Tip: You can add frequently used queries, reports, and letters to ACT!’s pulldown menus.

 

Creating your report

The easiest way to create your report is to modify ACT!’s Phone List report.

This is how you do it in ACT! 2:

1. Select, Report, Edit Template, phone.rep. This opens the Phone List report template.

2. Select File, Save As, and save the template as custlist.rep.

3. Select Format, Page. Change all margins to .5 inches.

4. Change the title to Customer and Friends List.

5. Select Format, Remover Header. ACT! removes the header (This saves space.)

6. Replace the phone extension code <10> with the fax phone code, <9Fax_Phone>.

7. Change the font size to 8 point.

8. Save your file.

This is how you do it in ACT! 3:

1. Select, Report, Edit Template, phonelst.rep. This opens the Phone List report template.

2. Select File, Save As, and save the template as custlist.rep.

3. Select File, Page Setup. Change all margins to .5 inches.

4. Remove the My Contact information from the header.

5. Change the title to Customer and Friends List.

6. Replace the Car Phone field with the Fax Phone field.

7. Change the font size to 8 point.

8. Save your file.

ACT!Tip: Add the Customer List report to the Report menu.

To make your life real easy, write a macro that performs the lookup and runs and prints the report. The macro can be added to the menu bar, assigned to a Toolbar icon, or hot-keyed. Now you’re being real efficient!