Outlook Archives | MondoCRM

Should I use Outlook as a CRM tool ?

Mondo — Tue, 17 May 2022 05:00:33 +0000

Short answer: No. It lacks too many essential features.

Given that we use Outlook in house to manage e-mail, personal contacts and a personal calendar, our opinion isn’t out to snub Outlook just to pitch CRM.

In fact, you don’t need to abandon Outlook to get a CRM. Most CRMs will integrate with Outlook to integrate e-mail, contacts or a calendar so critical information can be seen on the smartphone. Furthermore, you can see the email correspondence on the contact record from the CRM.

Difficulties of Using Outlook as a CRM:

Courtesy: Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels.com

Documenting conversations by date/time stamp and easily sharing them among your team.
Implementing contact security among your peers.
Creating a sales forecast.
Creating a mail-merge to a Word document.
Creating effective user fields to classify contacts by more than one field such as “category”.
Re-Entering the same data among different applications like Word or Excel becomes a chore to create call reports or sales forecasts.
Using Outlook is ineffective as a help desk ticketing system.

Zoho Bigin allows an easy way to get into CRM.
And you can still use Outlook.

In a matter of minutes, you can have a starter CRM system that tracks contacts, companies and a pipeline along with a mobile app.

Integrations include:

E-Mail: Zoho Mail, Outlook, Office 365, IMAP
Zoho Apps: Zoho Flow, Books, Invoice, Campaigns, Analytics, Desk and Meeting.
Popular Apps: MailChimp & Zoom Meeting.
Advanced Tools: Zapier & API

Good on the budget:

Pricing starts at $9/user/month.
Annual discounts available.
Training videos included. Chat support provided by Zoho at no additional charge.

Start a Free Trial

What if Bigin isn’t enough? Don’t worry. We offer plenty of options.

Courtesy: Olya Kobruseva from Pexels.com

What’s the best CRM platform for you? It depends on what business processes you want to improve. For instance, if you want one point to see all meeting notes, emails and ability to create a report based on those activity KPIs then WiredContact is a great solution. If you want to have one platform to manage CRM, e-marketing, help desk, projects and accounting then Zoho One is a great candidate.

Conversely, if your focus is marketing automation on a tighter budget, Benchmark One has many capabilities similar to Hubspot at a lower price.

Once we know the features you need; then, we craft with a custom solution based on your budget. If you aren’t sure how to approach this, feel free to contact us for a complimentary discovery call.

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Act! and Outlook Tech Support Check List

Mondo — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 19:12:47 +0000

This checklist outlines the most common solutions to solve Act! Outlook E-Mail integration:

Initial Checklist:

Make sure your version of Act! is compatible with Office, and you can use this chart to checklist to ensure your versions are compatible.
Office must be installed before Act!. If this didn’t happen, uninstall and reinstall Act!.
Until Act! v19, only 32 bit versions of Outlook are supported, and here is how you check your edition of Outlook. If you have to downgrade Office; then, reinstall 32 bit Office. Then, reinstall Act!.
Click to Run versions of Office are known to problematic, and here is the deep article to determine whether its present even if you installed a full version.

If you have Outlook 2016, and made a software update after June 13, 2017, read this before going further. Many of these problems were solved with v20.1, and we recommend upgrading.

If emails are not recorded to Act! history, try these procedures:

Solution 1

For Office 2013+, re-enable the Act! Outlook Addin. Instructions

Solution 2

Sometimes, for reasons unknown, Act! trashes the user name/password setting. Add the Act! Address book credentials back to Outlook.
- From Outlook go to File -> Account Settings -> Account Settings -> Address Books
- Select Act Address Book and press change
- Enter the Act! user name and password
- Restart Outlook

Solution 3 (up to v21)

Reset the history queue. Instructions

Solution 4 (up to v21)

Reset the Act! History Service. Instructions

Solution 5 (up to v21)

If only one e-mail didn’t work, look at the history queue for individual messages’ status

Solution 6

Re-Enable the Redemption Helper Extension in Outlook. Picture

Solution 7

If starting Outlook, and it states the “Act! Address book isn’t found..Would you like to edit the settings ?” try one of these fixes:

Restart SQL. This usually applies to single user deployments or sync databases. Instructions
Click on Yes and change the settings to your current Act! file location, user name and password. If you changed the Act! user name or password or the path on the network where Act! is hosted, this error will come up.

Solution 8

If the above suggestions didn’t work, here are additional articles from Swiftpage for history not recording to Act!.

Solution 9

Here are additional reasons on the address book not connecting from the Swiftpage website.

Additional Options

Here are the tech support options if these articles don’t work:

If your company is on Act! subscription; then, you can contact Act! LLC at 866-578-7875 for phone support at no additional charge.
For Act! Pro clients, Act! LLC offers a $150/user/year support contract for Act! v23+. The number of users purchased must equal the number of licenses you own. So even if one workstation out of a five user license has this problem, a 5 user support contract must be purchased.
Use actkb.com as self-help tool
Acquire fee-based support from MondoCRM

Sometimes, we recommend Act! 4 Outlook written by another consultant that is more stable and offers more features. For $40 a workstation + optional installation services, it’s a good deal.

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Act! and Office 2016

Mondo — Mon, 26 Jun 2017 20:39:37 +0000

On June 13, 2016 Microsoft released Office 2016 version 16.0.8201.2102. This build broke some of the standard MAPI APIs used by Act! and other 3rd party programs. One symptom is if you try to setup Act! <-> Outlook email integration, and the setup wizard doesn’t list Outlook. Another symptom is e-mail no longer records history to Act!. A 3rd symptom is broken calendar or contact sync.

Here is the short term solution:

Close Act! and Outlook
Open the folder “C:\program files (x86)\act\act for windows” in Windows Explorer
Rename adal.dll to adal_old.dll (Screenshot)
Reboot

The cause was a recent Outlook update now has a file called, “adal.dll” also. Since Act! wrote something called, “adal.dll” used for legacy conversions, the programs collide, and the e-mail integration breaks. Over the next couple weeks (after 6/28/2017), Swiftpage will publish updates for Act! v19 and v18. v17 and earlier are no longer supported. So, the short term solution listed above is the way to get around it for legacy versions. Or you can use a plugin like this.

As of 8/21/2017, Swiftpage has published updates for this going to version 18.2. Follow their documentation to install the updates.

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Outlook Integrate R1 – Value Doesn’t Fall within Expected Range

Mondo — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 15:33:35 +0000

After installing Outlook Integrate R¹, disable the native ACT! Outlook Addin. This will also solve the error “Value does not fall within the expected range” when Outlook restarts.

1) Click File -> Manage Add-ins (screen shot)

2) Disable the “Act! Outlook Addin”

3) Restart Outlook

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Enable Outlook Integrate R1

Mondo — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 23:10:55 +0000

One reason, Outlook IntegrateR1 doesn’t record history to Outlook is the address book connection doesn’t activate. In Outlook 2013, it’s doesn’t wait long for any plugins. If Outlook senses a delay, it will turn it off so the inbox appears no matter what.

One trick is force the add-ins to always start.

Click “File” in Outlook

Click Manage Addins

Click “Always Enable this addin”

Sometimes, (Not Always). This plugin needs to be enabled as well.

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Act! and Microsoft Office Compatibility

Mondo — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 14:05:12 +0000

Since Act! is not owned by Microsoft, their decisions on upgrading software remain independent of each other. Historically, Act! will not release any patches or updates until Office has been published. Also, Act! doesn’t retrofit earlier versions of Act! to be compliant with the latest version of Office. Read this knowledge base article for the latest compatibilities, and this article for their obsolescence policies for support.

Before you go down the troubleshooting path, you should follow these guidelines first, no matter the version of Act! and Office:

You need the full desktop version of Outlook installed.
You need to install Office before installing Act!. If you upgraded Office on the desktop, then it’s a best practice to uninstall and reinstall Act!.

If you’re still stuck, follow this guide. Or, we offer fee-based support to fix Act! and MS Office integration issues.

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Microsoft Office 2010 & ACT Integration

Mondo — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 21:46:53 +0000

Be warned ! Microsoft Office 2010 32 bit edition only works with ACT! 2011. If you have an earlier version of ACT!, you have to either upgrade ACT! or downgrade Microsoft Office to 2007 or 2003.

Also please note Microsoft Office has to be installed before ACT! does. This allows ACT! to “see” that Microsoft Office exists and will add the necessary connections.

Here is the article from Sage.

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