ASCON Tutorial - Quickstart guide to Acute Softwares Contacts Manager

Try this simple tutorial to see how easy it is to get ASCON up and running with your contact information

1. Downloading, and Installing ASCON
2. Starting ASCON and navigating the screen
3. Importing Data from your Email program
4. Viewing and editing your contacts Data
5. generating reports and sending emails

You can also jump straight to the Advanced Tutorial

Last revised 9th-Dec-2002 (C) Acute Software 2002

Downloading, and Installing ASCON

Click the link below to download the evaluation version of ASCON.
http://www.acutesoftware.com.au/ascon30.zip

Save this ZIP file to your hard drive and double click it to open the file.

Extract the files and run the SETUP.EXE program to install the software to your hard drive (default directory is C:\Program Files\acute\ASCON )

2. Starting ASCON and navigating the screen

To start ASCON, go to your start menu --> Programs --> Acute Software and click the 'Acute Softwares Contacts Manager' icon.

You will see the following screen:

The ASCON Screen

Description of Main screen layout

ASCON
Group List this shows the list of groups. The default selection is 'All Contacts'	Field List this is the list of fields which is displayed in the list of contacts below	Contact Details The right hand side of the screen shows the details for a contact when selected from the list Only the fields which have data in them are displayed, meaning that this screen is not cluttered with lots of empty fields.
List of Contacts this is the main list of contacts Click a name in this list to view the details in the Right Hand side Window ------- >

3. Importing Data from your Email program

ASCON imports data in CSV format - all email and contacts manager programs should allow you to export your current database into this format.

Start your email program, and choose 'Export' from the file menu

Choose to export all fields from all contacts/email addresses

Save the exported CSV file to your ASCON directory

Start ASCON and make a new blank database (File -- > New)

Choose Import Data from the File menu, and choose the file you just exported. Click OK

The list of imported contacts will appear in ASCON.

If you get a message saying unknown field name, you can edit the CSV file with a text editor to rename the unknown field to one of the fields in ASCON (ie - the CSV field may be called 'Country of Birth' , so you could rename this header to 'HomeCountry'

4. Viewing and editing your contacts Data

Click an item from the 'Groups' list to only list the contacts which are members of that group. (i.e. try 'Email Addresses' )

You can add or remove fields to be shown on the screen (and in reports) simply by ticking and unticking them from the fields list

Click on a contact in the list to display the details on the right hand side of the screen.

To edit a contact's details, you can click the edit button, choose Edit from the the menu, or simply double click the contact in the list.

There are several tabs in the edit screen (shown left - click for larger image) organised into the following headings :- Phone, Work, Groups, Internet, Money, History and Personal

Make any changes in the text boxes and then click 'Save and Close' to keep these changes, or 'Cancel' to abort any changes made.

5. Generating reports and sending emails

There are several reports you can generate against the Example database from the History menu and the Money menu (as well as standard searches, or simply choosing a group of contacts.

Once you have generated a report or a search, the list of matching contacts is displayed in the contacts list and a new item [search results] appears in the groups list.
You then use the reports menu to save or print the report.

To email a contact, you select the contact in the list and click the 'Email' button - this will send the email using your existing email software