Rating: 
Summary: Too Many Compatibility Issues
Review: I've been using ACT! for several years and have been happy until I started using it on multiple machines. I am having all kinds of compatibility issues, especially with customization of layouts. Changes made on one machine don't integrate with the others, data fields get rearranged, renamed, or disappear altogether, and often data is completely lost. I can't get synchronization to work at all. I am looking for a new database program with fewer bugs and issues. Any recommendations?-Jason Lips
jasonlips00@yahoo.com
Rating: 
Summary: No free support, little improvement in years
Review: I've been using ACT! since 1990 so have a huge investment in ACT! data and customization and would be therefore be very reluctant to discontinue its use. However, I'm disappointed with how little the product has improved in these many years. The thing I protest most adamantly is the lack of phone or email support. There's no way to communicate with ACT! support without paying a very high rate. It's not a way to create a good feeling of relationship with customers, and it's frustrating to have only expensive support available.
Rating:
Summary: Nightmare
Review: If you want to store contact information, using the old pen and paper is better than ACT! We have an ACT database storing roughly 3,000 contacts. It is EXTREMELY slow. Integration with Outlook 2000 or 2003 (havent tried xp) is just about inoperable. I recommend that if you have to the tools and knowledge to create your own contact database, do it. It can then be tailored exactly to how the user needs it.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: My third upgrade and I am ready to find a new program. It still has poor interfaces to Word and email. Still does not allow for easy input of personal data and is very restrictive on which fields may be sorted upon. Basically, it is a well marketed, inferior database, with non-existent "customer support". I've used it for seven years now and the database I was using in the early 90's was more sophisticated (I still have it but the company is out of business). I am looking for a good client database again.
Rating:
Summary: Complete Junk - SAVE YOUR MONEY
Review: One word for the latest ACT - TRASH.
Email stinks, mailmerge is week. Can't even sort contacts by creation date. Slow. Poor integration to Palm OS.
What a JOKE. I have been using ACT for 10 years which is about the last time they really did anything with this product.
Oh and forget technical support. There is NONE.
Rating:
Summary: ACT 6.0 Service Trap, beware of hidden fees!
Review: Pure Crap! Be aware that Amazon offers a great price, but the product comes with zero support. Upon receiving ACT, I intstalled it and tried to sync the database with others in our office. With no success after following the on-screen and manual directions, I called Best Software to ask for help. There first question was "Where did you purchase the product?" When I told their rep that I purchased it from Amazon, she scolded me for not purchasing direct from the company. She then told me that ACT purchased through Amazon has no support and it would cost $199.00 to sign up for a one year support contract. This is the first time I have ever purchased software from a company and had them refuse to answer a simple question in the first week of trying to use their product. Over all, a very poor experience and I am sure we will not waist our time purchasing another product from Best Software. Simply calling a company "Best" does not insure that they will live up to their billing.
Rating:
Summary: ACT 6.0 Service Trap, beware of hidden fees!
Review: Pure Crap! Be aware that Amazon offers a great price, but the product comes with zero support. Upon receiving ACT, I intstalled it and tried to sync the database with others in our office. With no success after following the on-screen and manual directions, I called Best Software to ask for help. There first question was "Where did you purchase the product?" When I told their rep that I purchased it from Amazon, she scolded me for not purchasing direct from the company. She then told me that ACT purchased through Amazon has no support and it would cost $199.00 to sign up for a one year support contract. This is the first time I have ever purchased software from a company and had them refuse to answer a simple question in the first week of trying to use their product. Over all, a very poor experience and I am sure we will not waist our time purchasing another product from Best Software. Simply calling a company "Best" does not insure that they will live up to their billing.
Rating: 
Summary: An ACT! Certified Consultant (ACC) Speaks
Review: Since ACT! enjoys a low Amazon.com sales figure (i.e. they sell a ton of copies) and users joke it's a religion, I'd like to address these compliants. First of all, ACT! was designed for sales people, business owners, etc. who need to reach out into the community. Outlook was designed by Microsoft using the concept of ACT! but adapting it for internal communication. Coporate IT Nightmare: A corrupted database needs to be addresssed. Upgrades never fix that and if the backup is corrupted, you can restore repeatedly without solving the problem. The "nightmare" I've seen is when a sales or executive team wants to hold onto ACT! but Corp. IT has an agenda to standardize everyone on Outlook. You can bring in an ACC, but more than once, I've been hired by a sales team and fired by IT, even though I could have solved the problem that day. 5.0 to 6.0: It's a bug fix and enhanced upgrade from 5.0, not a new product. If it doesn't work all of sudden, perhaps you have other problems. Both 5.0 & 6.0 work great with Outlook Express and most users use DSL. Notes dissapearing: ACT! is a multi-user product. If one user accidentally clicks to only see his or her notes, the other users notes will appear to disappear. Single to multi-user deployment: I could fix these problems in a couple of hours. Suggestion: There are key points when you would want to bring in a software expert, such as an ACC. 1). When you are having problems 2). When you start using software for the first time, 3). When you are changing your use dramatically, such as going from single to multi user 4). When you want to ramp up your use. ACT! is the best contact manager available and it's inexpensive. Please do yourself a favor and bring in an ACC if you need help or want to get up to speed ASAP.
Rating: 
Summary: insufficient email capability
Review: There are many useful features in ACT, but the current email client is not one of them. Version 6.0 of the software does not support an ISP with outbound authentication - and I learned this the hard way. When I switched my internet provider from dialup to a new DSL account, I lost the ability to send emails from within the ACT email client. The workaround using Microsoft Outlook is incredibly cumbersome. This email glitch seriously undercuts an otherwise good software.
Rating:
Summary: DB w/ useless GUI
Review: There are too many bells and whistles on this thing, because it tries to be all things to all people, for all possisble uses, and ends up being merely adequate to mediocre for a particular use. ACCESS does all the same stuff, comes with OFFICE (making it ultimately cheaper), and, you can customize ACCESS and create a GUI for it to suit your own needs, without paying $200-$300. If you learn VB, you can probably make a GUI that looks just like ACT!. Ah! you say you don't have the time to create your own GUI? Then you don't have the time to learn to use the multiude of features on this fancified database correctly, most of which won't accomodate what you actually want to do anyway. The problem with all these bells and whistles is that in the end, they result in losing real flexibility to adapt to what an end user might actually want or need, and end up putting in a lot of useless features and fields you probably don't want. OH, btw, should you want to jump to a particular record, you end up going thru the entire table, record-by-record from (your choice) the front or the back end, unless you know what you want to look up by specific field content, and then, you better spell it correctly! For the kind of money they charge, they should do a better job.
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