by Rich Spitz and Stan Hsu

Technology has been steadily advancing. It has been leading us to a mobile society, where we are no longer constrained by the traditional means of communication.

If you’re a long-time ACT! veteran, you’ll probably remember the old days when a bulky gray-scale DOS/Windows 3.1 laptop loaded with ACT! 2 was considered an ideal, or even luxurious, mobile office. And that was only a few years ago. So what are the modern-day road warriors equipped with these days at the turn of the century and the eve of the millennium?

Personal Digital Assistants

With the emerging popularity of personal digital assistants also known as PDAs, ACT! users have finally found a lighter alternative to carrying their notebook and laptop computer. One of the most popular PDAs is the PalmPilot family made by US Robotics/3Com.

ACT!’s slogan is that it enables users to "Work Virtually Anywhere," and the PalmPilot’s design goal is to be "the most connected organizer." So, if you’ve guessed that ACT! has gotten together with the PalmPilot, you’re right!

ACT! does not run on the PalmPilot. However, there are a several software utilities programs that enable you to exchange your ACT! information with the PalmPilot’s address book and calendar.

ACT!’s PalmPilot Link

ACT! PalmPilot Link is Symantec’s ACT!/PalmPilot synchronization software. It can be found on your ACT! 4 installation CD or downloaded from the Symantec Web site, www.symantec.com/act.

It is a basic and reliable data exchange program that gets the job done nicely. If you do not care about mapping fields, the custom categorization or ACT! fields, or any other advanced features, the ACT! PalmPilot Link will be suitable.

Powerful Linking Software

For those of you want more, Compan-ionLink, developed by CompanionLink Software, formerly DataSync; and IntelliSync for PalmPilot developed by Puma Technology offer two powerful data exchange alternatives.

Both products offer many advanced features like filtering and field mapping. Features that the ACT! PalmPilot Link does not offer. Moreover, both CompanionLink and IntelliSync are able to map any ACT! contact field to any PalmPilot Address Book field. All of the products work with ACT! 3.06 or higher.

Transfer Note/History Items

CompanionLink is offered in two versions. The CompanionLink Professional includes the Category Manager. This enables you to make any ACT! field a PalmPilot category field. (Companion-Link Express works like ACT! PalmPilot Link. It does not provide many advanced features.) The ACT! PalmPilot Link and IntelliSync can only use ID/Status field.

CompanionLink Professional can transfer up to 25 ACT! notes and histories to the PalmPilot Address Book as attached notes. You can also sync data from multiple ACT! databases and even multiple applications. You can, for instance, map your address book personal category to ACT!, and map Customers, Vendors and Prospects to your corporate Microsoft Outlook database, and grab your appointments schedule from both ACT! and Outlook.

Filtering Options

If you need to filter your ACT! data during data exchange, IntelliSync may be your better choice. Both products are able to filter contact records with ACT! groups. IntelliSync enables users to filter PalmPilot records with any ACT! contact fields and activities with any activity fields.

IntelliSync also enables users to set conditional filtering. While we found IntelliSync offers the largest number of advanced filtering features, there is a tradeoff. It is the slowest synchronizer among the three products.

A more detailed feature-by-feature comparison is shown in the following Table.

For more information contact:

• CompanionLink Software: 800-386-1623, www.companionlink.com.

• Puma Technology: 408-321-7650, www.pumatech.com. 

Now, ACT! users can truly enjoy the benefit of managing contact records and schedules from any location, and all the information can be right in your pocket.