Faster Searches and Reports in ADAPTcrm

If you use MSSQL Server 2005 for the ADAPTcrm database, you can take advantage of improved performance of search in accounts, contacts and service tickets as well as improved reporting speed in the same modules.

Use Remote Desktop to login and use ADAPTcrm

ADAPTcrm now supports remote desktop connections via the Internet using Microsoft Terminal Services. By definition, this will also extend remote connections from supported Windows Mobile devices.

Now your remote users can connect directly into the main ADAPTcrm database and have access to all features - just as if they were working at their desk.

Of course, for mobile users NOT able to connect this way, the offline laptop alternative is available.

Import Outlook contacts into ADAPTcrm

Until now, you could NOT import Outlook contacts into ADAPTcrm without a tedious export from Outlook and import into ADAPTcrm - a process that had lots of problems.

Now you can setup each user of ADAPTcrm to allow importing contacts into ADAPTcrm from their desktop Outlook. The process also takes care of firstname,lastname parsing and reversal if needed and will allow pointing the new contact to an existing ADAPTcrm account.

Print one-up labels from accounts or contacts

ADAPTcrm will now allow you to print ONE label from the account or contact record:

1. choose the address you want to print a label for

2. click the 3rd icon from the left and the chosen address will be displayed in a preview screen to allow you to make changes

3. click OK and the printer dialog will open up for you to choose the label printer

That's it.

Take your SmartCRM data with you on your phone, PDA or Pocket PC

This only works if your phone, PDA or Pocket PC supports Outlook synchronization.

Here are the steps:

1. Make sure all contacts, appointments and tasks in SmartCRM have been written to Outlook. (This happens automatically with the correct user settings)

2. Using ActiveSync, sync up your desktop Outlook to your mobile Outlook

3. On the road, access your contacts, appoinments and tasks. Make any changes or add new ones.

4. Back in the office, re-sync your mobile Outlook to your desktop Outlook.

5. Log into SmartCRM and the CRM data will update from Outlook.

No more lost phone numbers, addresses or important followup appointments.

Email attachements can be a word or excel template

When attaching a file to email messages, ADAPTcrm gives you the option of a file or a template. Using a template, the "merge" will occur automatically with the data of the current record and you will have a ready-made attachement in your email.

Just make sure your recepient can open Word or Excel files on their computer, either using the commercial products or the available readers from Microsoft.

Of course, when attaching a file, the file can be any file type that can be opened in Windows, including .doc, .xls, .pdf, .ppt, etc

HTML editing avaialble in some note fields

ADAPTcrm gives you the option of creating email messages or activity/history notes using either plain text or HTML text. With HTML, you have the same choices as Outlook gives you over the control of font, font size, bold, italic, etc - even including images.

Lookup fields available when creating emails

ADAPTcrm supports the use of account, contact, opportunity, service ticket and service contract data fields (including all user-defined fields) when creating an email.

In the subject and/or the message entry fields, type CTRL-F to choose from many available database fields to include in your email.

This features allows dynamic email templates to be created and filled in with the proper data at the time of sending the email.

Create a quote in a different currency

SmartCRM supports multiple currencies with:

1. a country table with currency exchange rates (which can be imported from an online source on a daily basis, if needed)

2. a table showing all currency imports by date (so you can refer to an earlier one)

3. an item price table where each item can have additional prices by currency

4. the ability to assign a currency to an account and opportunity

When adding items to a sales opportunity, simply select the item and the price matching the account currency will be displayed. And when all line items have been entered you will have a total in the new currency.

Now you can launch a quote templace in either Word or Excel and the correct currency will be displayed. Be sure to name your quote with the intended currency in case you need to submit multiple quotes in different currencies.

A calculator in every field (numeric, that is)

ADAPTcrm has a built in calculator function for:

addition +
subtraction -
multiplication *
division /

For example:

You have a numeric field of price and want to calculate the new price for a quantity

Original value in the field is 9.49

To multiply this by 4, click on the field and type in 4*

Hit the TAB key and your result will show in the SAME field.

The only limitation is doing only ONE calculation at a time. and that you operation cannot use more decimal place than allowed in the original field - the result will be NO change in the answer.

But it works great to get a quick calculation.

XML imports

XML has become a standard for moving data from one system to another.
ADAPTcrm supports XML imports into Accounts using an XML schema file.

This allows child records to be imported also, such as appointments, activities, etc.

ADAPTcrm Enterprise Edition scales to millions of records

We have recently done a test database with 20,000 account, 200,000 contacts and related appointments and tasks - for a total of over 2.9 million records in SQL 2005. No problem! All you need is lots of RAM on the SQL Server machine. If you want even more scalability, you can install ADAPTcrm Enterprise Edition on a 3-tier setup to isolate the CRM application to its own server. Link the SQL and CRM servers with GigaBit Enthernet and you set to go!

One-up label printing coming soon

ADAPTcrm will allow one label to be printed on demand from either the account or contact screen. This will require setting up the label printer on your computer as a valid Windows printer. After choosing anyone of the addresses available you will be able to click an icon and print the label. That's a real time saver.

Who is available for a service ticket?

ADAPTcrm does not directly show availability for a service ticket followup, but you can work around this by making an appointment for the service call and then using the "invite attendees" button to see all other users and their availability on this date and time. Then you can go back to the appointment screen and assign the appoinment to whoever is available.

Multiple instances of ADAPTcrm

On the SAME workstation, you can open multiple instances of ADAPTcrm using the SAME login. This allows one user to operate in more than one screen at a time.

One good use of this is to have one instance running the Executive Sales chart display at all times.

Remember to log out of ALL open instances at the end of the work period.

Context Menus for Accounts and Contacts Save Time

Using the "right-click" on any account or contact record will display the context menu and save you keystrokes to perform the following:

For Accounts:

New Opportunity
New Service Ticket
New Service Contract

Appointment
--View Appointment
--New Appointment

Task
--View Task
--New Task

Print Account
Document Attachment


For Contacts:

Appointment
--View Appointment
--New Appointment

Task
--View Task
--New Task

Merge Contact
Print Contact
Document Attachment

Campaing response now includes email search

Revised New Campaign dialog box includes Target Market and Manual Response Capture sections so that a user can set up a direct marketing campaign with primary and optional secondary sources while creating the record.

You can create multiple Email filters that will look for a phrase in the email subject and/or email message - if a match is found, the email will be counted as a response.

Re-designed Dashboard assignment

Redesigned Dashboard setup consolidates configuration options into a single-screen graphical interface that simplifies creating, managing, and assigning dashboards.

Speeding up reports

Enterprise Edition only:

When creating (or modifying) an Accounts report based on an advanced filter (with either the Internal Report Writer or Excel Spreadsheet writer), users can Use SQL Optimization to speed record search.

Account Process enhancement

Primary Contact option sends email inserted in a process to the primary sales contact of an account. If an account has no primary contact, ADAPTcrm sends the email to the account’s email address.

Competitor Dashboard enhancement

From the 4. Competition tab of the Sales Preferences window, administrators can add links to Web sites and shared folders into the Competitors dashboard view, including links to Web sites corresponding to competing companies’ NASDAQ stock symbol.

Assigning tasks assigned to another user

It really gets complicated when you assign a task to someone else and they in turn assigne to yet another person

Administrators can restrict the privilege, Reassign tasks assigned by another user, to prevent users without the corresponding right from delegating tasks received from others.

Easier than even to assign user privileges

ADAPTcrm now uses a redesigned Privileges Setup dialog box that displays privileges in a tree structure that lists Categories on the left side and the corresponding Privileges and Status on the right side. This results in much faster and intuitive method of assigning privileges.

More privacy settings for appointments and tasks

In both the Appointment List (under Calendar) and the Task List, you can tag records and activate the Move/Re-assign Action - at the end of the Move/Re-assign Items action, a list appears if any appointments that met the criteria were not changed. Appointments that meet criteria for rescheduling or reassignment may not be changed if marked as Private, if editable only by the organizer (when different from the user), or if the user does not have the required rights to perform the action.

Mass Processes cover more areas

ADAPTcrm can now run Mass Processes on a variety of record types, including accounts, campaigns, contacts, defects, opportunities, service contracts, and service tickets.

When you choose one of these areas, the Process selection list will only show the Processes you have set up for that module.

Examples of how this is useful in your business:

1. email or fax all open opportunities with a "reduction in price" message

2. email or fax all accounts with a specific defect ticket history about a product recall

3. email or fax all service contract owners about an upcoming change in the renewal fee

Send selected contacts from CRM to Outlook

You can now tag contact records in CRM and send them all to Outlook by using the Write to Oulook selection on the Action menu.

Once in Outlook, you can go offline, make changes to the contact information, then have ADAPTcrm update its contact records next time you log in.

Of course, appointments and tasks can also be synchronized in the same way.

Unlimited email addresses per account/contact

You can set up unlimited email address entries in account or contact records.

You can send email to any of them by clicking on the Email button, chosing the email address and clicking on Send.

Email will be sent out using Outlook, Lotus Notes, or your internal SMTP server.

Speeding up mass emails

When setting up a process to do mass emails (or email a large number of tagged records) you can speed up the email by using your internal SMTP server instead of Outlook.

If you prefer Outlook, you can still speed up the process by running the email process on the Automation Server with Outlook installed on it.

Speed up views and reports in Enterprise Edition

(Enterprise Edition only)

Users of both the Professional Edition and Enterprise Edition can create regular public or private views and reports.

The Enterprise Edition adds the capability to optimize record searches in views based on advanced query expressions. When creating (or modifying) an accounts view based on an advanced filter, users can Use SQL Optimization to speed record search.

At this time, for reports, only Accounts records can be optimized.

Optimized SQL Quick Search

(Enterprise Edition only)

Quick Search provides an optimized search for records based mainly on indexed fields, although some nonindexed fields are included. Quick Search is available for accounts, contacts, opportunities, items owned, service contracts and service tickets. This powerful feature is ready to use without any special setup.

However, administrators can customize settings for quick searches to modify the display of system fields and add user-defined fields (UDFs) as search criteria. Setup is available from within the Quick Search dialog box.

The Quick Search function is available under File menu or by pressing CTRL-F2

Audit trail can save the day!

ADAPTcrm creates an audit trail for all activity in accounts, contacts, campaigns, opportunities, service tickets, and defects.

You can view in each of the above areas, but opening up the Summary folder and choosing the audit tab.

This is useful in jogging your memory about a past change that is being questions by the customer or by administration.

You can track items and orders without any accounting integration

ADAPTcrm can track items and assign them to sales opportunities with customer-specific pricing rules without the need to integrate to a back-office system.

Simply set up the items (with or without kits), set up you pricing tables (including default currency) and create sales opportunities with these items. When the sale is "won" you can enter the "items owned" by the account to facilitate creating service tickets against the item in the future.

Why use multiple databases?

Your ADAPTcrm license allows you to create as many stand-alone databases as you need. All databases will share the same system information - only account and contact data is isolated. Some uses for this include:

1. copy your live database to a training database for new employees and assign a unique right so only the training database is available to them until further notice.

2. copy your live database over to an archive database by year to keep the current database as small as possible. Then purge the current database of older information. Anyone needing to see older data can choose the correct archive database - unlimited data storage.

3. you have a subsidiary company in a different country - so all the international settings can apply to this database and you can perform business analysis seperately from the main database.

Choose your licenses carefully

ADAPTcrm is unique in that it allows you to purchase user licenses as named- or shared- users. This can be helpful to optimally configure your user licenses according to the usage schedule required by your work force.

For example:

1. all installations should have at least ONE named license for the CRM administrator.

2. department managers are usually assigned a named license to make sure they can login at anytime/

3. remote users using SQL Replication must also be assigned named licenses.

4. the shared licenses are useful when your workforce is mobile and not always logged in. For example, you have 12 users who login a few times a day. If you assign them shared licenses, you only need 4 licenses to assure that ANY 4 of the 12 can login at the same time.

Incoming calls automatically display accounts or contacts

If your workstation running ADAPTcrm is also connected to a VOIP internet-phone system, any incoming calls to your desk can automatically search ADAPTcrm and pull up the account and/or contact associated with the calling number. This popup window will show over any other screen you may be using at the time. You have the choice to:

1. pull up the account or contact information and answer the call

2. just answer the call, if no AADAPTcrm notification is displayed.

This is very helpful in sales and service cases to carry on an informed conversation.

Let ADAPTcrm fill in your addresses

That's an easy one - just skip down to the postal code field and type in the postal code (5 digit US zip code only 0- no Zip+4 (yet)

The city, state, county and country field will automatically fill in correctly. Of course you can override any entry.

For Non-US countries you can set up the postal codes in System Preferences>Regional Settings>Country button.

For example, if you use Canadian addresses. up can specify the postal codes and provinces in the country file. Then you can add the postal codes to the postal code file and if your postal code entry matches an exsiting one, then the city and province information will be filled in.

The US postal file can be updated regularly through the Import function using either the AIS Zip+4 national format or a .csv file format.

Use MapPoint to locate accounts and customers

ADAPTcrm integrates into Microsoft MapPoint 2006 North American Edition as follows:

1. in accounts or contacts list, tag any number of accounts or contacts

2. click on Actions menu and select Map

3. all tagged accounts or contacts will be displayed on a US Map, along with the matching records listed in the left hand side legend

4. rest the cursor on any mapped point to display a popup with the account or contact information.

5. double-click any mapped point to see all available information about the account or contact

6. you can save the display for later reference or to email to soneone else

List searching made easy

ADAPTcrm gives you many ways finding data in a long list:

1. sort any column in ascending or descending order to group items together (dates, locations, etc). Instead of scrolling to the end of the list, just sort is in descending order.

2. start typing in any field and let ADAPTcrm find the closest match for you.

3. Use the Find button to find records with search methods:

a. "starts with" - type in the characters to match

b. "contains" - type any characters that are contained in the search field

c. "sounds like" - type in your search the way it sound phonetically

d. "spelled like" - type in the best spelling you know

There is no reason not to find what you need within 5-10 seconds in ADAPTcrm