Using Excel for Contact Management

[cheetahlip]

Anyone ever design a spreadsheet or a Access database to use for contact management, sort of like ACT!, Goldmine, or Maximizer? Just curious.....I'm looking for a substitute for ACT!....

Thanks!!

 

[mark.wagner]

well, yeah, but you're going to get much more functionality and "bang for your buck" with a packaged product. it would take a lot, and I mean a LOT of time to even begin to have all of the features of a shrink-wrapped product. There are several good ones on the market, just keep looking.

in my opinion

 

[Greg Truby]

FWIW there is a Contact Management template that ships with Access (2002 or better for sure, don't know about earlier versions). You might play with that. Outlook 2003 also shipped with something like that, but our IS disabled it when they installed Office 2003 here, so I've not played with it. To repeat what Mark already said, if you wanna go cheap, be prepared to have a cheap contact-management system. Also, "cheap" in the short term may not be cheap in the long term.

 

[cheetahlip]

Contact Management

Unfortunately my company is ALL about cheap!! I have Access 2000, and Outlook isn't even installed on our machines because we use Lotus Notes.

All I need is something to put a contact name in and then have the ability to enter an ongoing series of notes about meetings and phones calls with said person. So I don't necessarily need all the funcionality of a sales management program, I just need a very simple database type thing.....thought one of the experts on this board would already have something designed that I could just plug-in and use!

 

[tusharm]

Re: Contact Management

I have not used Lotus Notes, but I assume it supports the ability to (a) add an appointment and include notes from that discussion and (b) the ability to search the Notes database based on the name of a person or company. If so, can't you use Notes for your simple contact system?

Unfortunately my company is ALL about cheap!! I have Access 2000, and Outlook isn't even installed on our machines because we use Lotus Notes.

All I need is something to put a contact name in and then have the ability to enter an ongoing series of notes about meetings and phones calls with said person. So I don't necessarily need all the funcionality of a sales management program, I just need a very simple database type thing.....thought one of the experts on this board would already have something designed that I could just plug-in and use!

 

[cheetahlip]

tusharm -

Yeah Notes can do it I think, trouble is the interface sucks and to do what I want to do I'd have to add every one of my contacts into my Notes address book, which I don't want to do because it will clutter up my address book with a bunch of people I don't e-mail. I think the only real solution to my problem is to keep using the good old fashioned Rolodex....pitiful, we can put a man on the moon but we can't make a simple contact management program.....

 

[Greg Truby]

So you looked in Access 2000 to see if there was a Contacts Management template and there isn't one? Or there is, and you tried it but it doesn't fit your needs? Because the template in 2002 is more or less what you're asking for.

 

[cheetahlip]

Greg,

We're using Access 97 and the contact management template sucks so bad.....there isn't even a word in the English language for how UN-friendly the interface is....

They're upgrading us to Office 2003 here in the next few months, maybe I'll be able to access that template then....

What I'm looking for is so simple it's just silly....all I need is like the old Windows cardfile with the ability to write notes in, and see them easily.....that's it.....not brain surgery!!

 

[tusharm]

I doubt if anyone will spend dozens of hours -- easily stretching into the hundreds -- writing a system for *one* person for free.

Have you searched google for a contact management system that meets your requirements? How about ebay?

Have you considered using a XL worksheet? Put the names and dates in two columns and use the adjacent column(s) for notes.

Or, use Word. Type in a name, a date, and all the text you want!

 

[Greg Truby]

Tushar pretty much just said what I was gonna. If it's that simple, just use Excel. If you put it all on one worksheet, the Autocomplete will do a pretty good job for you as far as keep contact names consistent. And AutoFilter will allow you to filter on contact or date or both. Indeed you could filter for contact and then *keyword* on comments. If that's all you need, then I agree with Tushar -- I'd just use Excel as-is.