Power of 3 Consulting Blog

Recording History

Many of our customers use the ACT! calendar and scheduling features, so they understand the value of clearing those activities and recording the details of a call or meeting, which then appear on the History tab in ACT! But other customer either don’t or can’t use the ACT! calendar, and use the Outlook calendar instead. In fact, we talk to virtually every one of our clients about integrating the ACT! & Outlook calendars. There isn’t a simple answer, it really depends on what information you want to send to and from Outlook and how your ACT! database is setup. If you do primarily use Outlook, there is a quick way to enter the details of your customer & prospect interactions into ACT! so that the information can be viewed, shared and reported on from ACT!

For most of our clients tracking that all-important history of your interaction & communication with your ACT! contacts is an important requirement. And even if your company relies on Outlook for calendaring, you can use the powerful Record History function in ACT! to enter the details of your meetings and calls with ACT! contacts.

How To Record History:

1. To Record History on a contact record, first find the contact by looking up the contact.
   
2. Click on the History tab and then either click on the Record History icon, or anywhere in the white space on the tab, right-click and select Record History.
3. Set the Type to either Call, Meeting, To-do or one of your custom activities if you have those defined. In the Regarding field enter the main topic of the interaction, such as “Proposal Review”.
4. Click in the Details: area and add all the detailed notes from the interaction. Note here that if you do use ACT! activities, you can click on the Follow-up button at the bottom of the dialog box and schedule the next follow-up activity for this contact, so that any key next steps don’t fall through the cracks.
5. Click OK and you should now be viewing the your recorded history on the History tab.
   

This is a screen shot of the Record History Dialog Box in ACT!

Stacy Roach
ACT! Certified Consultant & Trainer
stacy@po3inc.com
866.362.4263