Tips & Tricks

Designing a Custom Act! Layout

To modify an existing or create a new layout, display the Design Layouts screen.

1. Display the layout that most closely matches what you want. It's easier to modify an existing layout than to start from scratch.
2. Choose Tools, Design Layouts and select the layout type (Contact, Group, or Company).

The most recently selected layout displays in Layout Designer view. Opportunity views cannot be modified.
The Layout Designer window has its own Toolbar for controlling Field & Test Properties as well as Layout properties. The Splitter bar divides the top Detail panel from the Tab Panels below. The Toolbox at the left contains the tools for placing objects (fields, pictures, boxes, lines, text, etc.) on the layout. Notice the difference between a Field Label and a Field.

You can't edit any of the System Tabs (Notes, History, Activities, Opportunities, Groups/Companies, Secondary Contacts, or Documents). You can, however, choose to hide any of them from the end user or change the order of their display. You can edit, remove, or add to the User Defined Tabs.

Microsoft® Word

• LAST EDIT - To move back to the last place you made a change, press Shift-F5. Each time you press Shift-F5 it will move the cursor back to the previous change up to four changes.
• SHOW/HIDE - Instead of clicking Show/Hide in the Standard Toolbar, press Ctrl-Shift-8 to turn Show/Hide on or off.

Microsoft® Excel

• AUTOSUM - Instead of clicking Autosum in the Standard Toolbar, press Alt=(the equal sign).
• Today's Date - Instead of typing today's date, press Ctl;(semicolon).

Using Act!

• To set up appointments in Act! using specific criteria. Sometimes appointments are scheduled only for contacts working in one company in a particular city. You have the option of using the "Narrow Lookup" feature.
  • Use Lookup Command to find a set of contacts (Eg: Company in this case)
  • From the Lookup Menu, choose another Lookup command that you can use to narrow your current set of Contacts
  • In the Lookup dialog box, enter the value to be found (Eg: City in this case)
  • Select the Narrow Lookup Option
  Please note that these options are not available for some Lookup commands.
  
  
• To clear outdated activities in Act!
  • Choose the View menu, and click Task List
  • Select the first activity that you want to clear
  • If all the activities you want cleared are continuous, hold down the Shift key and select the last activity you want to clear. All activities in between the two you selected are also selected.
  • If the activities you want to clear are not continuous, hold down the Ctrl key and select each additional activity that you want cleared.
  • After selecting the activities to be cleared, right-click one of the selected activities, and choose Clear Multiple Activities from the shortcut menu.