Club Mgmt: ACT! Contact Mgr - Users?

[Mr Epee]

I'm fulfilling a long overdue threat to convert our club current/past/prospective member data over to ACT!

This is a great/powerful program, but can be a bit of a pain to set-up in the initial stages (like most any database software)... has anyone else used this program ... and if so is there a template for club membership usage?

Shot in the dark, but it might save me some time.

[Fencergrl]

I'm familiar with a number of different databases. However, ACT! Isn’t one I’ve used. They are all very similar I find, and they all seemed to be geared towards being “Sales” databases.

Depending on what you need to do, chances are your needs will be well below the capability of the software. Having said that, you might find customizing for your needs a little frustrating (I personally enjoy it... but I'm weird that way).

If you want nothing more than an electronic rolodex to store contact info and print labels/ letters occasionally. You could do this with an Excel spreadsheet.

If you want to mass e-mailings, track when to it’s time to pay membership dues for each member and provide you with pop-up reminders… a database is more suitable for these functions. There’s even some that will automatically fax or e-mail the notice at the prescribed time.

My advice to to spend a lot of time thinking about what you want and how you might want to do the data sorts. By age? Weapon type? Competitive vs Recreational? This will all come into play as you customize the database and set-up your categories.

If you offer automatic registration for tournaments/ club membership (which I recommend to reduce data entry). Design your on-line form to link with the fields in your database.

[Mr Epee]

I'm familiar with a number of different databases. However, ACT! Isn’t one I’ve used. They are all very similar I find, and they all seemed to be geared towards being “Sales” databases.

Yes, most are pretty similar ACT! just happens to be the one that I had used previously, so it seemed like the best option for me.

If you want nothing more than an electronic rolodex to store contact info and print labels/ letters occasionally. You could do this with an Excel spreadsheet.

This combined with an jumble of post-its/paper scraps is what I've been using.

If you want to mass e-mailings, track when to it’s time to pay membership dues for each member and provide you with pop-up reminders… a database is more suitable for these functions. There’s even some that will automatically fax or e-mail the notice at the prescribed time.

Yep, this is what I'm planning. Mostly, I want to be able to track folks who call/write looking for information, and then reel them in with a number of auto generated follow-up mailers. Although I'll probably be focusing more on traditional mail - not email. Email creeps me out sometimes. But it's cheap.

My advice to to spend a lot of time thinking about what you want and how you might want to do the data sorts. By age? Weapon type? Competitive vs Recreational? This will all come into play as you customize the database and set-up your categories.

Yep, that's where I'm currently slogging through... the philosophy of databasing is a fairly interesting subject. The general set-up doesn't seem to be particularly interested in tracking things like parents, step-parents, emergency contact, daddy's contact at work, etc... and how much of that is critical anyways... somethings can be added later, somethings are fixed for ever once they're entered.

It's something of a minefield, but I'm slogging through.

If you offer automatic registration for tournaments/ club membership (which I recommend to reduce data entry). Design your on-line form to link with the fields in your database.

That's an excellent idea, but currently beyond my ability.

[Fencergrl]

That's an excellent idea, but currently beyond my ability.

Check around your club... chances are someone will be able to help you out.

As far as emergency contact info etc...

Sometimes you can link people within the same "company" together in a database in an organizational tree. Use could use the same linking. In this day in age parents don't always have the same address etc... so this could be useful way of organizing it.

Failing that, sometimes there's an area for notes. Lastly, a link to a word form with that data.

As far as reeling in new customers... Suggested catagories:
1) Prospects (currently working these leads)
2) old leads (tried, and didn't bite)
3) existing members
4) New members.
5) Old Members

Indicate the marketing type and letter template used. This way you can track your results and determine what is most effective.

[restlesscheese]

A little off topic, but does anybody know any good free or open source database software? (other than Open Office) I'm going to start assistant coaching at my old high school in the fall, and I think it would be a great idea to get a database of all the kids' info going... contact info, payment of dues, etc... the whole handwritten list thing doesn't work too well.

Good luck with your database, Mr. Epee, sorry I couldn't help.

[jBirch]

A little off topic, but does anybody know any good free or open source database software? (other than Open Office) I'm going to start assistant coaching at my old high school in the fall, and I think it would be a great idea to get a database of all the kids' info going... contact info, payment of dues, etc... the whole handwritten list thing doesn't work too well.

Good luck with your database, Mr. Epee, sorry I couldn't help.

MySQL...but then you have to know SQL to make it work.

James.

[Hollywood Troy]

ACT is really a great program and it'll be able to do all that stuff you want. For emergency contact and all, I would use the field that adds additional contacts to a company- like if there is a purchasing manager, assistant buyer, etc...Set up the fencer as the main company and the emergency contact as the buyer. You can change what all the fields are called, but if I remember right that's the default. You could use sales history for tournament history...add value for your club membership and quickly be able to see how everyone is doing. That would be really cool as the years go on. Think about looking up bouts from ten years ago, etc. One cool thing is that so many people have ACT that any future program that is made would have to work with it. There are ACT trainers available, but I think they are rather expensive. The best thing to remember is that you only have to use as much as the program as you want. For example, you could just use it as a data base and nothing else. Then, add the calender. Then add a mailing list, etc. I would think of what you'd ideally want (think what you'd keep records of on paper) then use the help to configure it. You can do a search and find user groups for ACT and find others that needed the same thing. Hope that helps!

[Feltan]

MySQL...but then you have to know SQL to make it work.

James.

Just Google "open source database" and you will get a list longer than your arm of available free databases.

James is correct, the most popular is MySQL. An other one, Cloudscape, is my favorite.

Don't be intimidated by SQL at the user level. It would take me five minutes to teach my ten year old how to write a select or join statement. Any reasonably powerful database user will need some minimal SQL knowledge, just like a typist needs to know the alphabet.

If you want a simpler database, scounge up a copy of Microsoft Access. You can get by without knowing any SQL for a long time using that product, but it has very limited power.

Regards,
Feltan