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Manual Notes
(you create)
* Manually attach notes to a contact record.
* Show important facts and share observations.
Conditional Notes (appear automatically)
* Scans user defined rules and displays a note
when contact data matches those rules.
* Alerts you to important facts that might not
otherwise be noticeable.
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• Quickly bring important information to the screen.
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• Uses 'sticky note' format to display information.
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• Never miss important information about your customers.
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• Reminds you of things to say or ask a customer.
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Situation: You've got a lot of prospects and customers in your ACT! database along with lots of details about each of them. Great! But how do you get to the essence of that information, quickly, easily when you need it most, like when a customer calls. What information is beyond the main screen you're looking at? And what about important comments others may have that they want you to know?
Solution: Smart Notes goes through your data and look for information you deem important (using rules you've created) and presents it to you in a visually neat and informative manner in the form of a sticky note.
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Smart Notes digs for information and puts it at your fingertips. It even helps you communicate with others and jog your own memory as you attach note(s) about a contact for others to see.
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Jason Ingram, Accelerated Wealth, Columbia, MO, "I'm amazed at how useful and powerful
this little program is. Who would have imagined? I've got three different departments
using it... accounting, sales, and support."
Jeff Granger, Big Blue Marketing Limited, ACT! Consultant, United Kingdom, "That has got
to be the best ACT! Add-on I've seen in ages... and at the right price! Congratulations!"
Lindsay Garrison of On the Verge, Incorporated, ACT! Certified Consultant, features
Smart Notes in their informative blog. They also feature a very good video introduction. |
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Smart Notes for ACT!
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| Q |
What versions of ACT! does Smart Notes work with?
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A
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It works with ACT! versions 2010, 2009, and 2008. However, only ACT! versions 2010 allows you to formulate rules on the Opportunity table.
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| Q |
Is Smart Notes for ACT! a sticky note system?
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A
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No, absolutely not. It uses the form of a sticky note to deliver a message, but it's much more than a "remember to buy milk on the way home" kind of system.
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Then how would you describe Smart Notes for ACT!?
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A
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Smart Notes for ACT! is a program that
* allows you to create one or more manual notes and 'stick' them to a contact record
* will scan your database for pre-defined existing conditions and then create notes
when those conditions are met.
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| Q |
What's the purpose of Smart Notes for ACT!?
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Smart Notes for ACT! is really about putting customer information quickly at your fingertips when you need it. It's about making sense of a lot of data and information about customers and bringing important facts to your attention.
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| Q |
When would I use it?
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| A |
Anytime you're using ACT!. Let's say you get a call from a customer. Smart Notes for ACT! will quickly bring important facts to your attention without any effort on your part. If you have a VIP customer calling with a sales opportunity closing in the next few weeks, wouldn't you like to know that before picking up the phone? You bet!
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| Q |
Are notes customizable?
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Yes. When creating a new note or defining a conditional one, you can choose from various fonts, styles, colors, sizes, and more. You have full WYSIWYG editing capability, color choice, texture, size, and position. And Smart Notes for ACT! will remember where the note was last placed. And when viewing them, you can minimize them or make them disappear until the next time you leave and return to this very same record.
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| Q |
Explain how I would user "manual" notes.
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You can create and attach one or more manual notes to a contact, company, group, or opportunity record, choosing color, size and standard editing capabilities.
You might use it to remind you of something you (or others) need to ask the customer next time you talk to him or add a note just to bring attention to a fact about the caller, such as "technical beginner", "VIP", "Big Sale Pending", etc.
The idea is that you want to get someone's attention quickly. To make sure no-one misses the content of the message, you can make it larger and place it right in the middle of the screen (Smart Notes for ACT! will remember where you placed it last) so that it can't possibly be missed.
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| Q |
Explain how I would use "conditional" notes.
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Conditional notes are the real power of Smart Notes for ACT!. You may pre-define as many "conditions" as you would like to check. Examples are "scheduled call is more than one week overdue", "a sales opportunity whose value is greater than $500 and expected to close in next 30 days". "credit hold / cash only", etc. Possibilities are nearly unlimited.
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| Q |
What information in ACT! can I check?
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Most any data from the contact record, company record, activity records, and opportunity records.
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| Q |
Are notes always shared with other users?
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No. You can add a note to a contact and mark it private. Then only you will see it.
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| Q |
That's cool, but if I want, can I use it as my own personal "to do" reminder?
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Yes. One way to do that would to attach notes to your "my record" and make them private.
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| Q |
You said I could use it even when ACT! wasn't loaded.
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A
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Feature under development. You can click on an icon in the system tray that will allow you to automatically add a personal note to your "my record" or you can do a lookup of customers and then add a note to their record, just like if you had ACT! open.
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| Q |
How much does it cost?
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It is sold "per workstation". Our prices are listed here. We're priced it very low, hoping you'll see value of adding it to every workstation where ACT! is used. Everyone and every department can use its features.
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Does Smart Notes for ACT! work with ACT! for the web?
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No, not yet, but we're working on it.
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Manual Notes - These are notes you manually attach to an ACT! contact record. They can contain any information you think is useful either to yourself or others. It may even contain information not otherwise found in the record, such as "Boss' brother". The formatting of the notes is highly customizable.
Conditional Notes - These are notes that appear on certain ACT! records based on pre-defined conditions being met for the record showing on the screen. You may define conditions that examine the contact, company, activity, and opportunity records. This is a powerful tool to 'data mine' and quickly bring information to your attention. Every time you land on a record, the information is examined to see if one or more notes need to be displayed.
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Manual Note Examples |
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Conditional Note Examples |
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VIP Account ABC |
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Contract expires in less than 30 days |
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Hot Lead |
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Final decision making stage |
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Decision Maker |
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Opportunity scheduled to close in less than 10 days |
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Friend of the CEO |
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Customer |
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Cranky customer |
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Customer within last 6 months |
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Not computer literate |
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No service contract |
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Talkative |
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Renewal contract due < 30 days. Please ask.... |
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Cash Only or Credit Hold |
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Outstanding RMA |
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Handle with care because ...... |
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VIP account - Level (auto filled) |
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Deal almost closed |
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Balance Due > $1,000 |
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Upset over recent support issue |
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Balance due > 500 and > 60 days. |
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Has open customer service issue |
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Total sales > $5,000 |
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Don't for get to ask... (fill in) |
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Overdue scheduled call |
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Be sure and tell them that ... (fill in) |
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Call scheduled this week (or today or ... ) |
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Personal info I should know ... (fill in) |
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Overdue activity |
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any notes from notepad you wish to highlight |
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Cash Only |
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SMART NOTES  SPEC SHEET
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Manual Notes
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Configurable: Size, color, skin, mixed fonts, bold, underline, center, bullets, graphics, web links. (standard editing functions). |
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Field elements: Includes category, main text area, name and date of who created the note and a privacy check box. |
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Privacy check box used to make note private or public (most will be public).
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Expire date: Note will not display after this date.
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Inactive: Manually mark a note so that it is no longer visible. |
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Remembering size and location: Will remember the last size and position on the screen, even if closed or minimized. Make them big and put on the middle of the screen to make sure you get someone's attention Notes are sizable and moveable while on screen. |
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Conditional Notes
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Configurable: Same properties as manual notes Standard editing functions apply. |
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Merge Fields: Notes can be constructed in the designer to include merged data from ACT!. For example, you could have a note that not only says Balance > 90 days but also include the balance information if it exists in ACT! |
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Field elements are: Fields from ACT!, main text area, name and date of who created note. Also privacy check box (note can be seen by person creating only). Expire date: Note will not display after this date. Conditional notes can only be edited by person creating the note. |
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Note is sizable and moveable while on screen. |
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Conditional Notes cannot be edited by viewers. They always come back to their original location once you leave and return to the record. |
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Minimizing or closing: By clicking on the appropriate icon on the note header, one can easily minimize a note, minimize ALL notes, or close a note(s). In all cases, the note will return once you leave and return to the contact record. |
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Condition Rule Builder
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Build rules describing how the ACT! data is to be examined for the purpose of creating Conditional Notes. |
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Rules may check fields in the Contact, Group, Company, Activity, and Opportunity Tables. |
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Rules may be "simple" or "complex" (involving queries of multiple tables and nested conditions. |
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My Record Notes
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You may add personal notes easily to your 'My Record' in ACT! These are private. |
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Working with Conditional Rules
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You can easily look at a list of all defined conditional rules, and sort in various ways. |
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Working with the Template Designer
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You may choose to include merge fields in the notes. |
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Reporting
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Conditional Rules Report (active only, with expire date). |
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Manual Notes Report - All, with expire date, expired, marked personal, within time period, sorted by date or user |
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Utilities
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Purge manual notes (old or expired notes). |
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Licensing
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SNFA is license to individual workstations. Each workstation must have access to an ACT! database. |
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Add additional users to workstations when needed. |
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Smart Notes for ACT! Videos
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Product Videos.
View - Product Overview (9 minutes)
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Tutorial Videos.
View - Rule Designer (24 minutes)
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