Multi-User Importing Instructions from an Existing ACT! Database

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1 Multi-User Importing Instructions from an Existing ACT! Database Thank you for purchasing an Act4Advisors Network License. These instructions are designed to help you import data from an existing ACT! database into the Act4Advisors database. If done incorrectly, certain information from your existing shared ACT! database will not come across to Act4Advisors. As a result of possible complications, Allied Financial Software, Inc will perform the data conversion for you. The normal charge for most ACT! databases is $250. Contact us for more information. This document includes instructions pertinent to a correct data conversion. Networking ACT! is not discussed and is provided in our document for networking Act4Advisors. Be sure to consult your ACT! documentation AND the ACT! web site for more information on networking ACT! You must be the database administrator to continue. Check your ACT! documentation on this feature. Import Preliminary Steps: Re-index and Compress A successful import often depends on how "clean" the databases are before importing. Regular maintenance keeps your database running efficiently. Compressing a database deletes empty spaces from deleted records and re-indexing updates the indices for fields. When you perform database maintenance, you can also delete notes, histories, attachments, transaction logs, cleared activities, and sales that you no longer need. Be careful that you do not check these unless you are certain you want them removed from the database. Tip: It is good practice to back up your database before you perform maintenance so that you can retrieve any data you might delete during maintenance. To compress and re-index your database 1 Make sure your database is locked (no one else is logged into the database). From the File menu, point to Administration, and then click Database Maintenance. 2 (Optional) In the Periodic Maintenance tab of the Database Maintenance dialog box, select Compress Database to remove space occupied by deleted records. Tip: For very large databases that do not require compression, you may just re-index the database, which is considerably faster than compressing and re-indexing. 3 If you want ACT! to display a reminder to perform database maintenance, select Remind Me Again, and then select the number of days between reminders. 4 Click the Re-index button.

2 KNOW YOUR DATA! Before you continue, it is imperative that you know how you have data organized in your existing ACT! database. For example: Are you entering the contact s home address in the main ACT! address fields? If so, you will have to map these fields to the home address fields in Act4Advisors. What about the phone number? Is this the home phone or work phone? Have you created any customized fields? Does Act4Advisors have the same fields to map to? Should you add fields in Act4Advisors to accommodate these fields or can you use an alternate field in Act4Advisors? To make the importing and mapping process easier, print the screens of your existing layouts and keep them handy. The print screen button on your keyboard will typically copy the screens to your clipboard. You can then paste them into a MS Word document and then print them. Review the screens in Act4Advisors. Make notes of where fields will typically match up. This preparation will save you headaches during import. Getting Started: Open Your Old Database and Locate the Current Users To successfully keep everyone's calendar entries, notes and histories coded correctly in Act4Advisors, you will have to establish the existing users in your current database as users in the Act4Advisors database. You must export the actual user records and establish these contacts as users within the Advisor database BEFORE you import the remaining contacts. Side note: Keep in mind the Act4Advisors software is licensed based on users in the database. Do not include more users than you have licenses for! Open ACT! and your old database. To verify the name and location of this database, click on Help on the menu and then, About ACT! You should see the Database Location and the file name. Another way to check the database name is to look at the top left corner of the active window within ACT! If the "inside" window in ACT! is maximized, the top left corner of your ACT! window will say, ACT! [database name - Contacts] where "database name" is the name of the database and Contacts is the area in ACT! you are in. For example, if you are in the Act4Advisors database and you are looking at a single contact record, you will see ACT! [Advisor - Contacts] in the contact view. The actual file name for Act4Advisors database is Advisor.dbf. TIP: You can access the most recently opened databases by clicking on File on the menu. Look to the bottom of this menu and ACT! will list the 4 most recent databases or documents opened. This is helpful to you if you don't know where your database is. Typically #1 or #2 Locating the users in the database is not easy to do in ACT! unless you have planned ahead. The user records in the database are the My Records for the respective employees who log onto ACT!. The login name can be completely different from their actual name within the contact record itself. To make this easier, have each user login into the old database and Lookup, My Record. They should then change their ID/Status field to USER and then close ACT!. Now, the Administrator should log in and perform a lookup on ID/Status using USER. These are the users within the database. Exporting the Existing Users Records to Act4Advisors Since you have created a Lookup in ACT! of the current users, you can now export these contacts to the Advisor database. Click on File, Data Exchange, Export. File Type should be ACT! 3x,4x,2000 or 5.x. Browse to where you have loaded the Advisor database and select the Advisor.dbf file. (The ".dbf" extension may not be visible to you based on your Windows settings but Advisor should be.)

3 Click on the Next button. Choose Contact Records Only. Click on the Options button. On the right side of the screen choose Do Not Add for Notes/Histories AND Do Not Add Activities. Click OK Click on the Next button. Choose Current Lookup. Click on the Next button

4 This next screen allows you to MAP your data fields represented on the left with the possible Act4Advisors fields on the right. Note the fields on the right are blank until you click in the appropriate box to bring down the list of possible choices in the Act4Advisors database. Go through each field you have concerned with on the left and map it to a field on the right. You can only map one field to one other field. You cannot map one field to more than one field. When you have completed the mapping process, SAVE YOUR MAP with the Save Map button. Name the file and note where it is located. This map file will be needed later. Here are some tips: Address, Address 2, City, State, ZIP, Country in a typical ACT! database are the addresses on the main ACT! screen. If you used the main address fields in your old ACT! database as HOME addresses, you will want to map these to Home Address, Home Address 2, Home City, Home State, Home ZIP and Home Country. The work address fields in Act4Advisors are Addrs, Addrs2, City, State, ZIP, Country The Phone field in Act4Advisors is used as the work phone. Home Phone is listed as Home Phone. If you were using the Phone field as the home phone, you will have to map it appropriately. The Social Security number fields in Act4Advisors are listed as Contact SS# and Spouse SS# respectively. The Children s Social s are listed as Child 1 SS#, Child 2 SS#, etc. Social Security number fields accommodate exactly 10 characters. If you are importing data that includes hyphens in the data, you must either remove the hyphens before importing or increase the Social Security fields in Act4Advisor before importing. Otherwise, your SS# will truncate the last two digits. Keep in mind, Act4Advisors uses a mask that displays the hyphens appropriately without actually including Hyphens in the data. BE SURE TO SAVE YOUR MAP FILE TO REUSE LATER!!!!! When you have completed the mapping and saved the map file, click on the Finish button. This will send the Users contact records to the Act4Advisors database. Assigning Users in Act4Advisors Open the Advisor database by clicking on File, Open OR see if the Advisor database is a choice at the bottom of the menu, ie. #2 Advisor After opening the Advisor database, click on File, Administration, Define Users. Click on the Add User button at the bottom left corner. Type the login name for the first user and set their Security Level. Click on Add User button again and repeat this process for each user.

5 Click on OK. You must now assign a contact record to each user. Highlight the user and click on Assign Now Click on the Select Button and choose the contact record for the user from the list. DO NOT TYPE THEIR NAME, ADDRESS AND PHONE IN UNLESS THEY NEW USERS! Click OK and repeat the process for each user. The purpose of the exercise is to establish a link between the old database and the new database. Without following these steps, your notes and activities will not be assigned correctly.

6 Import the Remaining Contacts Now that the database users are entered correctly, you can now import the remaining data. To do this, Click on File, Data Exchange, Import. As with the Export, browse and choose your old ACT! database and click on the Next button. Choose Contact and Group Records and Click on the Options Button Be sure to Add Notes/Histories and Activities. Uncheck Confirm each match and Check Include other users public activities Click on OK and the Next Button Click on the Load Map button and browse to find your map file. You may have to scroll to the right to see it. Scroll down through your data one more time to verify that all of your data is mapped correctly. Click on the Next button and then the Finish button. The software will then begin the importing process. If duplicates are found, you may be prompted to Add, Merge or Skip. We recommend choosing Add. You can always clean up duplicates later. When Things Go Wrong If, after you imported the data you find that some data is missing or incorrectly imported, you can either: 1. Rename your Act4Advisors folder, load a new Act4Advisors database and start over 2. Delete all of the contacts in the database, compress and re-index and start over 3. Re-import the data but tell be sure to change your import settings using the Options button as shown above. On the left side, change the Contacts records: Replace with Source contact. You should also turn off duplicate checking in the Act4Advisors database. Check your ACT! documentation on how to do this. Allied Financial Software, Inc.