Keeping tabs on clients - Software Review - Contact Software International's 1st ACT! personal information management system - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, March, 1992 by Jack Nimersheim

AT A GLANCE: Compact version of ACT!, a top-rated high-end contact-management package. Ideal for those with notebooks or smaller hard-disk drives.

DOCUMENTATION: Well indexed and organized. Concise on-line help.

ERROR HANDLING: No problems encountered in my testing.

EASE OF USE: Once learned, all modules are straightforward and simple to use.

SUPPORT: Good. Solved problems with ease, but took three days of leaving messages (and missing calls returned after business hours) to ge through. Identified myself as a reviewer only at end of call to facilitate getting patch program sent overnight. Support free; toll call.

VERSION REVIEWED: 1.0

LIST PRICE: $80

STREET PRICE RANGE: $69-$79

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: 640k IBM compatible; hard-disk drive; CGA, EGA, VGA, Hercules; modem required for autodial; DOS 3.1 or higher

PUBLISHER: Contact Software International, 1625 W. Crosby Rd. #132, Carrollton, TX 75006; (214) 418-1866, (800) 365-0606

READER SERVICE: For more information, circle Reader Service number 66

Timing is everything. For a baseball player to send a ball out of the park, his bat must be in exactly the right place at precisely the right time. Hitting a home run in business requires similar skills. That's where a good contact-management program comes in.

Every day, thousands of people rely on ACT! to manage their business contacts. For some of us, however, that program's $395 list price is a bit more than we can afford to invest, regardless of the potential returns. Its wealth of features may be more than we need, anayway. Thanks to the recent release of 1st ACT!--an entry-level version--you no longer need to buy nmore of a contact-management database than necessary.

1st ACT! combines three modules--a contact database, report generator, and word processor--into a single, tightly integrated package. Each module is impressive. 1st ACT!'s database, for example, can handle as many records as your hard-disk drive will hold. A lookup feature makes it easy to locate information about a specific contact, even in a large database file.

1st ACT! is much more than a database program, however. Its word processor lets you create documents that, in turn, can be transformed into personalized form letters, using information stored in a contact file. 1st ACT! includes preprogrammed report forms for generating mailing labels or, alternately, index cards designed to insert into a Rolodex or other rotary filing system. If your PC includes a modem, you can use 1st ACT!'s autodial feature to automatically call phone numbers recorded in a contact database.

All of these capabilities might convince you that 1st ACT! is a difficult program to learn. Nothing could be further from the truth. Easy-to-access pull-down menus and clear, concise on-line help messages make finding and using all of 1st ACT!'s features an exercise in simplicity.

Separately, any one of 1st ACT!'s modules would be a bargain, given the program's $80 list price. Combined, they turn 1st ACT! into a must-have for anyone who runs a small business or works out of a home office. It's also ideal if you need a contact manager on the road--it works great on a notebook and takes up much less hard-disk-drive space than its high-end sibling.