[Wolves] Pete's cry for help

[Peter Cannon]

On Monday 07 February 2005 09:06, David Goodwin wrote:


> 1) Are you saying that SugarCRM can replace ACT?

Possibly? I need more R&D time to answer that honestly, what I will say is its 
faster.

> 2) What's the feature comparison?

This will be the killer! again I will need a week to a fortnight to answer 
this.

> 3) How do the users find a web based client compared to a thick client?

We had some initial problems (Network issues) but most are up and running 
there is an annoying 'forgotten field' when setting up users, you set up the 
user then go back and change the password that you never had an opportunity 
to set in the first place!

> 4) What was the conversion process like? Do you have so few records that
> you could do it manually?

This was a nightmare we have 29000 records the default import value is 2MB we 
upped that to 50MB but it fell over so I had to split them into 1000 
record .cvs files the trick is to import them as Accounts first then import 
again as Contacts this could surely be remedied by someone with 
sql/sugar/import-table skills.

> An ex-employer now uses Act, after using Goldmine... I tried to convince
> them to move to one of the many nice looking web based CRM tools (e.g.
> http://www.salesforce.com), unfortunately I failed to sell them on the
> idea... and now they've moved to Act on a windows server... (talk about
> closed minds).

ACT is (possibly was) IMHO the best contact management software, I've used 
them all in my time I live and breath data and databases I think you need to 
ask what do you want to do with it what I mean is are you going to use it to 
keep tabs on customers & prospects then expand on the features, do you need 
to improve your sales/contact i.e do you want to email from it? Do you want 
to run an email campaign from it? Do you want to quote from it? the list is 
endless.

The thing is, as I've said before, people buy with their eyes so if you 
offered them say a raw sql database using command line they would hate it. 
Give them some nice icons pretty screen background and say the ability to put 
their company logo on it and they will love it especially if there is an easy 
function to customise it to their tastes. what I mean is if Doris in accounts 
can add an extra field without having to have a masters degree in computer 
science.

I'm no sql expert but ACT Professional is using some sort of stripped down 
version as it runs on everyones workstation as apposed to the normal sql 
database with an sql client.

I'll keep you posted how we get on over the next couple of weeks.

-- 
Regards,
Peter Cannon.
peter at cannon-linux.freeserve.co.uk
Fedora Core 3 & Suse Pro 9.2

"There is every excuse for not knowing
there is no excuse for not asking"
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