Easy Contacts CRM Enterprise Edition 6.5e released. On August 3, 2009, version 6.5e of our high-end, multi-level, multi-relational, customizable contact management solution was released. Numerous enhancements have been made to this version which will not only increase your productivity but also increase your presence on the World Wide Web.
While most of the enhancements in the new version have been made to the Easy Contacts CRM Professional and Easy Contacts CRM Enterprise editions, some improvements have also been made to the Easy Contacts CRM Small Business Edition as well.
Major improvements have been made in two areas.
First, the program has been significantly updated internally. These changes allow the program to work under Windows Vista and later Windows operating systems. The areas that have been updated are:
1) New
installation program that is Windows Vista 32 bit version aware.
2) The Help system has been totally redone so as to work with
Windows Vista and later versions of Windows
3) When sending e-mails, you can now specify an outbound login
username and password, if required by your ISP.
4) Some minor improvements have been made to some screen displays.
Second, new major feature enhancements have been made to the Campaign Manager, the DB Internet Toolkit add-on and the MBS Scheduler.
Here is a brief summary of the major enhancements. More details can be found in the on-line help or read me files associated with the applicable programs.
Campaign Manager Improvements:
1) You can now specify a campaign involving a date in the database. For example, if a customer has signed up for a seminar and the seminar date is in a field in the contact record, you can specify this date field when creating a new campaign. If you enter a negative number as the time interval, the specified event will occur before the seminar. Entering a time interval of zero will cause the specified event to occur on the seminar date. A positive number will cause the event to occur after the seminar date.
2) If you specify a date field in the database, you can also indicate whether this is an annual or monthly event. For example, a birthday, anniversary, or other event that you want to recognize on an annual basis. Likewise, a negative number in the time interval column will cause the event to occur before the next anniversary or birthday; a time interval of zero will cause the event to occur on the anniversary or birthday; and a positive number will cause the event to occur after the anniversary or birthday. Monthly events work in a similar fashion.
3) You can now specify an .HTM file as an email cover page for an Email Event.
4) You can now enter and store a custom cover page note or message that will be associated with an email or fax event. The message can also be personalized by adding data merge fields from you database. This allows you to have only one email cover page document and one fax cover page document. Instead of personalizing each cover page document you want to send, you can now personalize only the message, store it in the event record and keep the same cover page document to use over and over with other events and also as a cover page for sending individual or mass broadcast emails and faxes. You never have to update the cover page document itself again, ever.
5) A database update event has been added as a separate event. Previously, you could update some data fields as part of an event. Now, you can also specify an update event that is not specifically tied to another event.
6) You can now specify an alternate email address field for email events or an alternate fax phone number field for fax events. This allows you to send an email or fax to an interested third party which can also include information from the original contact record.
7) Online help is now available within the program so you don’t have to run to the manual to learn how to set up a certain feature.
8) For Fax and Email events, you can now specify the user id of an event operator. When sending a fax or email, usually the user id of the person sending the fax or email is associated with the fax or email. By specifying an event user id, you now have a way of indicating that any fax or email events were initiated by the Campaign Manager User ID as opposed to a particular user.
9) You can now process campaigns with the improved MBS Scheduler program.
DB Internet Toolkit Improvements: While this is an add-on for folks that want to download information from forms that users complete on their web site, the improvements are included here because of the closer integration with the Main Program as well as the Campaign Manager and MBS Scheduler. You may also be interested in learning about these changes.
1) You can now define multiple DB Internet Toolkit projects per user. Previously, only one project could be defined per user. This opens up an entirely new capability enabling you to easily setup multiple projects for downloading and merging into your database from a variety of web forms.
2) You can now easily open, edit and delete DB Internet Toolkit projects.
3) You can now easily upload Web Form documents to your Web Site via the built-in FTP feature.
4) You can now specify a default HTML Web Form Editor which you can use to create and edit HTML Web Forms from the Setup – Customize HTML Document menu item.
5) You can now specify a default web form document to be used when creating new projects. A copy is made of this file and associated with the new project so that it can be customized with this project details without causing any changes to the original document.
6) You can also create a new project by copying the details of an existing project, thereby saving you time creating the new project as well as standardizing details between projects.
7) You can now specify an alternate email address to get the email records from. You have the choice of either associating the regular or default email address or a completely different email address with the project.
8) When merging the downloaded records into your database, you can now specify in addition to the KEY_ID or ALT_ID, either the EMAIL1 address field or the EMAIL1+ALT_ID fields. These key values determine whether the downloaded record is added to the database as a new record or the record is updated or merged with an existing record. You must map downloaded email data fields to the database fields in order for this feature to work.
9) You can now specify an Auto Respond Event defined in the Campaign Manager in response to an email. For example, you can now automatically reply with a predefined message when an email is received regarding the subject line of this project.
10) You can now also specify an Email Notification Event defined in the Campaign Manager when the email is received. This allows you to send an email to the alternate email address field stored in the event record allowing a third party to be notified by email when the email is received. The desired notification email address needs to be a hidden field defined on your web form and mapped to the alternate email address field for this option to work.
11) Now all hidden fields on the html Web Form will be displayed on the Field Mapping Screen. You can elect to map these fields to fields in your database or not.
12) When you make changes to your HTML Web Form by adding or removing input or hidden fields, these changes will be reflected in the Field Mapping screen. However, for the project to be updated, you have to load or open the project associated with the form and make the required edits after you’ve finished editing the HTML document in order for any changes to be reflected in the project.
13) The Project ID and Description fields have been added to the HTML/Database Field Mapping Screen.
14) Online help is now available within the program so you don’t have to run to the manual to learn how to set up a certain feature.
15) If you only want to have one email address for importing records from any Web Form, you can now specify the keyword *ALL* in the matching subject line in the project. When emails are downloaded, all emails addressed to the specified email address will be downloaded regardless of the value of the matching subject line defined in the project.
The MBS Scheduler Program:
1) A new REPEAT keyword has been added to cause the tasks in a particular script to be performed over and over until the script is stopped manually by the user. Previously, the tasks in the schedule were performed only once. Then the script ended.
2) A new START keyword has been added that allows the processing of the script to wait until the specified START TIME has been reached. When the start time has been reached the tasks in the script will begin to be processed.
3) A new PAUSE keyword has been added that allows the repeat option to be paused at the specified time. It is used with the new REPEAT keyword to keep the tasks from being performed continuously over and over forever. The task list will be paused at the specified time and resumed at the START time on the next day.
4) A new STOP keyword has been added to allow the processing of a script to be ended at the specified time. This is also to be used in conjunction with the REPEAT keyword and allows the Scheduler program to end once the specified STOP time has been reached.
5) These changes make it possible to perform any task on an ongoing basis, while enabling ways to stop the tasks from being performed when certain times have been reached. For example, the MBS Scheduler could cause the Campaign Manager to process campaigns and to cause the Email Broadcast server to send faxes on a continuous basis throughout the day. It could also cause the DB Internet Toolkit projects to process new database records from clients and prospects and auto respond automatically at night or at anytime the MBS Scheduler is running.
6) The MBS Scheduler can run another MBS Scheduler Script, if needed, as part of a series of tasks that need to be performed, for example: backup or rebuild the database between processing scheduler tasks.
Enhancements to the Small Business Edition: The scripting feature available to users of the Professional Edition has now been added to the product. Previously, this feature was available only in the Professional or Enterprise versions of the Easy Contacts CRM program.
Please also note:
1) Faxing: Due to changes in the way Windows Vista loads device drivers, the Fax Print Capture driver needed to send faxes does not work in this version under Windows Vista. The device driver will fail to load during the installation process. However, the fax driver will still load under Windows XP and the faxing feature will work normally.
2) E-mail: The send e-mail function within Easy Contacts CRM Enterprise and Quick Connect have been completely modified in order to allow you to login to an outbound e-mail server with a username and password. Outbound e-mail capabilities should still work properly even if your e-mail server does not require a username and password.
However, with the new version, outbound e-mail capabilities will no longer work under versions of Windows earlier than Windows XP.
Easy Contacts CRM Enterprise Edition 6.5d released. On October 18, 2004, version 6.5d of our high-end, multi-level, multi-relational, customizable contact management solution was released. This new version concentrates on adding new convenience features to make users more productive: getting more done in less time, so they can concentrate their energies on more important things. A new QuickBooks Account Link option is also available.
Here is a brief listing of the new features included in this new version.
- Ability to synchronize a level 1 Easy Contacts CRM database with your Outlook 2000 and greater Contacts Folder. Easy Contacts CRM records at level 2 and level 3 cannot be synchronized. Does not synchronize deleted contact records. Then sync to your Palm/CE portable device to carry your important contact data with you.
- Ability to synchronize Easy Contacts CRM appointments/todo's with Outlook calendar/to-do folder. Appointments/to-do's linked to level 1 contact records and activities not linked to contact records can be synchronized, including deleted appointment/activity records. Then sync to your Palm/CE portable device to carry your important appointments and todo's with you.
- Ability to send Internet e-mails to Microsoft Outlook. Individual e-mails go to the outbox folder. Broadcast e-mails go to the draft folder. To send them, move them to the outbox folder.
- Ability to add panels/tabs to your screens and place fields on them in the screen designer. Great for organizing the information in your database and maximizing screen real estate.
- Ability to rollover incomplete todo's from prior days to the current day.
- Ability to define/view relationships between records. For example: link all referral records to person making the referral, etc.
- Ability to attach documents, such as Word documents or Excel spreadsheets to a contact record. Then view those documents from within Easy Contacts CRM Enterprise while at that contact record.
- Ability to view multiple calendars via Group Mode in day view.
- Ability to copy fields from one Easy Contacts CRM Enterprise table (like the level 1 table) and paste them into another Easy Contacts CRM Enterprise table (like a level 2 table) for example.
- Ability to auto-fill contact fields. If an entry exists in an associated listbox and user keys in matching characters, entry will be completed automatically (with ability to override it).
- Modifications to the Speed Key feature to allow multiple WAIT commands. Allows you to create a longer sequence of command sequences.
New! A New QuickBooks
Accounting Interface
is also available as an option. If you own or are considering
setting your company up on Intuit's QuickBooks or QuickBooks
Pro accounting software, consider this new option. You'll
save time, money and improve customer service with these important
features:
- Update your Easy Contacts CRM Enterprise Edition customer database with QuickBooks customer data.
- Update your QuickBooks customer database with Easy Contacts CRM Enterprise Edition customer data.
- Update your QuickBooks invoice or sales order, sales and payment information from orders taken in Easy Contacts CRM Enterprise Edition.
- Update your Easy Contacts CRM Enterprise Edition inventory database with QuickBooks inventory data.
- As a result, you can increase sales to your existing customers.
- Increase productivity (not to mention accuracy) when adding new customers (as you can effortlessly transfer the new customer/order information to QuickBooks).
MergeMAGIC V6.1 released. In August of 2000, MergeMAGIC for Easy Contacts CRM Enterprise Edition (full version) joins the other MBS Software product library. Even if you own another merging tool, you'll want to get your own copy of MergeMAGIC.
DB Internet ToolKit V2.0 released. In August of 2000, DB Internet ToolKit joins the other MBS Software product library. This product allows you to import data from forms on your website into your Easy Contacts CRM Enterprise Edition databases. Import from input boxes, text areas, combo boxes, checkboxes and hidden fields right into your databases. Works with MergeMAGIC to format the data or as a stand alone.
MagicACT! V2.0 released. In March of 1998, MagicACT! became available to help ACT! users export their databases to other platforms. The files that are exported can then be imported into a variety of contact management software, including GoldMine, TeleMAGIC, Easy Contacts CRM Enterprise Edition and other database management programs.
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