Which Sales Rep is Using ACT! ?

One of the earlier posts included a comment from someone who wanted to know if there was a way to track which sales reps had logged into ACT! by Sage and how long they had used it. However, I’m pretty sure that who is logged on and how much time they spend is probably now what the manager really wanted to know (at least I hope not). One sales rep could spend hours looking at ACT! and never get anything done. Yet another sales rep can look up a name and phone number in their Treo (that was synced to their ACT! database), make a call, and close a deal without ever actually opening ACT on the desktop.

One of the things that I love about ACT! is that it is so flexible that it can support many different ways of working. Everyone has their own way of getting the job done. There are those that like to plan their entire day the night before (and ACT! will help them do that). There are those that come in without having made any plans at all and just start calling (they can “Record History” without ever having scheduled anything if that is the way they like to work). There are successful people in both work styles, but most of us work somewhere in between… scheduling some of our work and making spur of the moment contact decisions.

I think what this manager really wanted to ensure (regardless of the work style of his reps) was that they were recording the results of their contacts with clients and prospects. Now you CAN track that in ACT!.

Use the Edit Date field to create a lookup of all records that have been edited during the time period you are interested in. Then in Contact List view, add the “Last Edited By” field to the column display (right-click in the view and select “Customize Columns”). Now click on the column header to sort by the “Last Edited By” field. Ta-Dah! There is your basic list of who has been working their clients. Run the Notes/History Report on the current lookup to get a better idea of what has been going on.