Review from the Author

Don't be fooled by the "Dummies" title - Wiley Publishing has a very successful formula that they've developed for this series. As much as I'd like to think that you're going to read this book from cover to cover, alas, it's meant to be a reference book that you can pick up and instantly find the answer to your most pressing questions. I've covered the most commonly used of the ACT! features and included many of the "gotchas" that I've encountered over my many years of ACT! consulting. I've given you easy, step by step instructions that don't require you to work with "pretend" contacts. Most importantly, I've tried to infuse the book with a sense of humor because to me learning a software program should be fun and non-threatening.

Karen Fredricks
Author, ACT! 6 for Dummies
Author, ACT! 2005 for Dummies

For the Beginner, For Someone Upgrading

You would think that maintaining a list of your customers would be easy. You keep a stack of calling cards, you write down a few special phone numbers in a small address books. But you don't have much space to write down that Alison's little boy is named Kevin, that he turned five on the 23th of last month, or that Alison told you to call her back on the 5th of next month for a big order. And sending out an e-mail to those of your customers who will be interested to know that your Model 14 just came out in a new color is a bit of a chore.

Act automated this process by essentially building a nifty contact oriented front end to a database. It is so nifty that more than 4 million people use it. It is so nifty that these 4 million people have continued to make suggestions on how to improve it and that each new version contains more features that just might be what you need.

As with all the For Dummies books, this is a good introductory book. It gets the absolute beginner started using the system. It describes all the features in the package (and gives you some extra tips on using them) so that you can see how to do that new task that you just thought up.