Book Image

Sage ACT! 2011 Dashboard and Report Cookbook

Book Image

Sage ACT! 2011 Dashboard and Report Cookbook

Overview of this book

Sage ACT! is the top selling CRM software application, and it helps businesses to centralize contact information, organize their calendars and notes, and ultimately maximize contact relationships to optimize business efficiency and profitability. In ACT! 2011, a variety of new dashboards and reports are available for producing graphical representations of client information and for measuring the success of your sales force. This cookbook is full of practical and immediately applicable recipes that will take you from being an ACT! report and dashboard novice to a report-writing pro in no time. The recipes will show you how to create custom dashboards and reports, as well as utilize the new templates available in recent ACT! versions. You will learn to use ACT!'s Report Editor and Dashboard Designer so that you will be able to easily view important information about your business and your sales force. The recipes begin by covering the most basic elements of the ACT! reports and continue to include several recipes that will guide you through creating brand-new reports. If you have an ACT! database, you need to be able to access it quickly and logically; this book will help you do just that.

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Sage ACT! 2011 Dashboard and Report Cookbook
Feb, 2011 | 216 pages
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Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Sage ACT! 2011 Dashboard and Report Cookbook
Sage ACT! 2011 Dashboard and Report Cookbook
Credits
Credits
About the Authors
About the Authors
About the Reviewer
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Exploring the ACT! Reports
Exploring the ACT! Reports
Introduction
Using the ACT! Reports menu
Using the Reports view
Running a report from the Report view
Choosing a Report Output Option
Editing Reports in the Reports view
Keeping a list of Favorite reports
Finding the default location of the ACT! Reports
2
Filtering Data in Reports
Filtering Data in Reports
Introduction
Filtering based on a contact field lookup
Filtering Contact reports
Filtering based on a contact activity lookup
Filtering Notes and History in reports
Filtering activities in reports
Filtering Groups reports
Filtering Company reports
Filtering Opportunity reports
Presetting filters for most used option
3
Creating a Quick Report
Creating a Quick Report
Introduction
Setting preferences for the quick reports
Selecting and organizing the columns for a contact list quick report
Printing the contact list quick report
Printing the History tab quick report
Printing the contact detail view quick report
Exporting the Opportunities List View to Excel
4
Working with the Report Editor
Working with the Report Editor
Introduction
Converting ACT! 6 custom reports
Choosing a template type and setting defaults
Adding fields to template and basic formatting
Naming field objects and individual field formatting
Positioning fields and labels
Adding a custom field and creating a basic script
Adding sections for sorting and grouping
Using sections for sub-totaling and totaling
5
Subreports and Scripting Techniques
Subreports and Scripting Techniques
Introduction
Formatting a List Type report
Adding subreports to a report
Adding fields to the secondary contacts subreport
Adding fields to the history subreport
Scripting basics by example
Reverse engineering a set of complex scripts
6
Labels and Envelopes
Labels and Envelopes
Introduction
Editing a standard envelope
Adding a logo to an envelope
Creating a custom envelope
Creating an xx64 label template
7
Working with the ACT! Dashboards
Working with the ACT! Dashboards
Introduction
Getting familiar with the Dashboard layouts
Accessing information from Dashboards
Copying Dashboard information to other products
Printing Dashboards
Making Dashboards the default startup preference
8
Filtering Dashboards
Filtering Dashboards
Introduction
Filtering the Contacts Dashboards
Filtering the Activity Dashboards
Filtering the Opportunity Dashboards
Filtering the Admin Dashboard
Changing the Dashboard Data
9
Editing Existing Dashboards
Editing Existing Dashboards
Introduction
Cloning an existing Dashboard
Changing the Dashboard display type
Changing the Dashboard default filters
Changing the Dashboard headers and footers
Changing the Dashboard legends
Changing the Dashboard totals
Changing the Dashboard scales and limits
Setting a Dashboard target
Modifying the closed sales to date component
Changing the Dashboard data charts
10
Working with the Dashboard Designer
Working with the Dashboard Designer
Introduction
Creating a new Dashboard
Adding or removing columns and rows
Creating wider components
Adding components to the Dashboard
Adding data charts to the Dashboard
Changing the order of the Dashboard components

Finding the default location of the ACT! Reports

Running an ACT! Report is easy because you're given a number of options for finding reports. You can run a report from the Report menu that appears in the menu bar of every ACT! view, or you can choose a report from the Report view. Either of these methods is actually a shortcut for running a report template located within the supplementary folders area of your database.

It's a good idea to know the exact location on your computer that stores the actual report templates. For example, you might need to move some of your reports to a new computer, or save a report that someone else developed for you.

How to do it...

  1. 1. Click ACT!'s Help menu, and then click About ACT!. The About ACT! dialog box appears.

  2. 2. Click the Database Information button. The Database Information dialog box appears.

  3. 3. Scroll down the list in the Database Settings Information section to the Supplemental File Location entry. The location of the reports will appear in the Current Value section.

How it works...

When you create an ACT! database, a set of supplementary folders is created as well. These folders house the various files associated with your database such as your layouts, attachments, and reports.

There's more...

If the field structure of two databases is the same, you can share reports between the databases by copying the report files of one database and pasting them into the reports folder of the other database.

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