Help File for ASCON - Acute Softwares Contacts Manager

  Introduction
        Features
        Getting Started
  Using ASCON
        Viewing Contacts
        Adding Contacts
        Searching for Data
  Advanced Features
        Using Groups
        Reports
        Contact History
  Appendix
        Licensing
        Troubleshooting

Shortcut Keys ( ^ means press [Control] key )

Key Description Key Description

F1 Help ^N Add new contact

^G Edit list of groups ^D Delete current contact

^W Visit contacts website ^P Print current contact

^M Email contact ^F Find List of Contacts

^H Show History ^O Open Database

^A Add History note ^S Save Database

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Introduction
So what does the Contacts Manager do?
Acute Software’s Contacts Manager looks after all your contact information and gives a history of when you spoke, emailed, or visited them.

It is aimed at small businesses and for people who work from home.

How will it benefit me?
You will get maximum benefits from the Contacts manager in a number of ways:

Keeps an independent list of all contacts (instead of separate lists for email addresses, phone books, customer lists, ICQ contacts, website addresses, etc.

Keeps TRACK of when you contacted the people so that you always have the history of communications with them. This is not an email program, it does not store all emails, but it records the subject, date, and who you contacted in a single place so you can look it up if needed.

Powerful reports tailored to small businesses which enables them to find out who hasn’t paid their bill, which customers haven’t ordered in ‘x’ months, etc.

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Features

Unlimited number of Contacts Databases

Over 60 fields per contact

Unlimited Contact History records against contacts

Easy to use and get started (minimal training required)

Useful reports right out of the box

Advanced Search

Current contacts list

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Getting Started
When the contacts manager first starts you are shown a list of all contacts.

Simply click a contact in the list to open their details in the right hand side of the screen.

You can also choose to quickly add a contact from here (for example, if someone new rings on the phone, quickly add their details from here), simply type the name of the contact and choose the Add new contact option box from the quick start screen and press enter.

Double click a contact name to edit the details

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Using ASCON

Viewing Contacts

The top left list shows the list of groups - it is currently set to 'ALL GROUPS' which means that all contacts in this database will be displayed.

Parts of the Screen

ASCON
Group Name this shows the list of groups. The default selection is 'All Contacts'	Field Names 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 ------- >

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Adding Contacts
When you choose Add Contact from the menu, or click the 'add' button a screen appears for you to enter the contacts details.

None of the fields are compulsary, and you can enter as little or as much information as you like on a contact.
PARTS OF THE SCREEN
Summary of Name Details

The top of main screen area directly under the toolbar contains the contacts name and which name to display.
DisplayName
Dear (Salutation, eg: Mr, Miss, Mrs, Ms, Dr)
First Name
Middle Name
Last Name

Phone Details Tab

This tab contains the information on the phone numbers of the contact.
Type of Contact : person, company, automatic phone service, website
Best way to Contact =phone, email, visit
Work Phone
Home Phone
Mobile Phone
Pager
Other
Home Fax
Work Fax

Work Details Tab

This tab contains the information on the work details and addresses of the contact.

Name of Company
Department
Title (job position title)
Customer #
Reference #
Salary
Building name
Street Address
Suberb
Postcode State
Country
Delivery Notes
Notes

Groups Details Tab

This tab contains the information on the groups that the contact belongs to.
The left hand side of this tab contains a list of all the groups in the groups.txt file. The groups which the current contact belongs to are ticked. To add/remove the groups that a contact belongs to, you simply tick and untick the boxes.

The right hand side of the group’s tab shows the other contacts in the selected Group. Double clicking on a contact name here shows their details in the main form.

You can add and delete from the list of groups by clicking the edit groups button.

Internet Details Tab

This tab contains the information on the Internet details of the contact.

Work Email
Home Email
Work URL = website address of company which contact works for
Home URL = contacts personal website address
Login Name = this is the login ID of the contact at the works LAN
Network =the UNC pathname of the Network which the user logs into
ICQ =the contacts ICQ number
Chatroom Nicknames =aliases that the contact goes under (can be nicknames)

Money Details Tab

This tab contains the information on the money details of the contact.
This area is to track the sales process from an initial inquiry to your business, through the quote stage and finally when they purchase and pay for your product / service.

All stages can either be a simple ‘tick the box’, or you can record further details by pressing Ctrl-A to add a note about it (eg: John rang about the cost of 10 widgets’ ).

There is also a balance remaining figure which shows the contacts current dollar value. This can be used for anything you like. For your suppliers it can show how much you owe them, for customers it can show how much they owe you owe.

You can view a list of all contacts which have an amount in the ‘Balance Remaining’ field, from the Money menu.

Tracking the Sales process
Has been contacted
Has asked you for a quote
Has Ordered / Signed
Has Paid for the Product
Has been sent the product / or you have done the service
Is happy with your product / service
Has been asked for referrals
Has found a Problem with the product.

History Details Tab

This tab contains the information on history of the contact. You can add unlimited notes about a contact by clicking ‘Add Note’ and these are stored in a diary database format specified in the ASCON.INI file. If you have Acute Software’s diary installed you can also use this to browse notes on a daily/weekly or monthly basis.

Referred by = type the name of the person who referred the contact to you, or how they found your business. This is very useful for measuring the effectiveness of your advertising
First Contact =the date and details of your first meeting
Last Contact = the date and details of when you last had any contact
First Contact = the date and details of your Next meeting

Personal Details Tab

This tab contains the information on the personal details of the contact.
Spouses Name
Children’s Names
Date of Birth
Interests
Comments
Home Building Name (eg: Twin Towers Apartment complex)
Home Street Address
Home Suberb
Home Postcode
Home State
Home Country (if you want you can use this field as their birth country, if you think it is unlikely for a person to have a work address and home address in different countries)
Home Delivery Notes

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Searching for Data
There are a number of ways to view contacts details

Browse through the main window, click the field headings to sort by that field

Use the alphabet buttons on the side of the screen to quickly jump to names beginning with that letter

Find in list (Double click any contact in the startup list at any time)

Generate a report based on your criteria

Click Find and type any text that is part of the contacts details - the SEARCH RESULTS item is added to the group list and the list of matches are shown here.

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Advanced Features

ASCON has several advanced features for tracking sales and managing types of contacts in a quick simple format

Using Groups
Groups are a simple way to manage lots of contacts. There are some pre-defined groups such as friends, customers, government agencies, etc. but you can define your own groups with the Groups Menu.

You can email all the contacts in a group as if they were one person [registered version only]. This is useful for sending email newsletters to people

A contact can belong to any number of groups and any group can contain an unlimited number of contacts.
You need to think about how you will be naming you groups before you begin the process of entering all your contacts details.
Some group suggestions are:

a separate group for friends for each person in the families

a group for general friends of the family

list of people who don’t pay on time

list of bills to pay (mortgages, Electricity , Phone company,etc)

A separate group for the customers who buy types of products (this would only be practicable if you only have a small (less than 20) number of products/services you sell.

A group for a newsletter mailing list (not all of your customers want junk mail, and you will lose your reputation and [especially with email newsletters] ISP connection if you continue to send unsolicited email to people who don’t want it.

You could even have a group of for each month/quarter of the year if you know the buying patterns of your customers this way you can work with a smaller list of contacts.

A group for your favorite Websites and other resources
In fact there are no limits to what you can use the groups feature for!

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Reports
Tracking Sales Progresses

The money menu in the Contacts manger shows a number of reports, which can be displayed to show the status of payments to/from contacts. Note, that these reports only work if you use the contacts manager to record details of when customers order and pay you.

Get a List of Leads This gets a list of the contacts who have been in touch with you but haven’t asked for a quote. These contacts may be able to be converted to Potential sales by calling them and offering more information or sending them news about any special offers you have coming up.

Potential Sales This gets a list of the contacts who have asked for a price but they haven’t bought the product. Get on the phone/email and contact them to see why they haven’t bought .. is your price too high? Are they just procrastinating?

Jobs in Progress Its time to do some work! This gets a list of the contacts who have ordered your product, but haven’t got it yet this is a list of the jobs you need to do.

Who hasn’t paid! This gets a list of the contacts who have been sent a product, or you have done the work for them, but they haven’t paid yet. You’ll want to keep an eye on this list or you could go out of business quickly

Other Reports

The history menu (registered version only) in the Contacts manger shows a number of reports, which can be displayed to show the list of contacts that you haven’t contacted over certain periods. Note, that these reports only work if you use the contacts manager to record details of when customers contact you.

These reports are useful to get a list of leads who may require repeat orders, or following up on a previous sale (maybe there is an upgraded version they can buy?)

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Contact History
Select the contact (either from the List or find in the main screen), and choose ‘Add History’ from the History menu.
Choose the type of ‘history’ it is : eg Phone call, email, visit to shop, etc [you can customize this list]
Enter any notes about the history and click ‘ok’

To view a contacts history, click the ‘View History’ button.

Note any problems here can be resolved by checking that the dataPath entry in the diary section of the ascon.ini file is pointing to a valid directory.

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Appendix

Licensing
If you are not a registered user, you are required to purchase the full version after the evaluation period. Visit our website for details on purchasing at http://www.acutesoftware.com.au/order.html

Sites Licenses are available - please email for details

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Troubleshooting
If you have a problem, you can check our website on http://www.acutesoftware.com.au/cont_support.html

to see if there are any patches or known problems, or you can email me direct at djmurray@acutesoftware.com.au and I will answer within a few days.

If you are a registered user and get a message saying your LIC is corrupted, you can get around this temporarily by deleting both the ASCON.LIC and the ASCON.INI files. This will get you going temporarily until you can contact us for more details.

Installation

To install the software, double click the SETUP.EXE file (either on the CD, or in the ZIP file you downloaded from the Internet) which copies all necessary files to your hard disk and creates a blank database for you.
It is recommended to use the default application directory (C:\Program Files\acute\ASCON\) as other Acute Software products such as the Diary and Jobs to Do Manager can also use these datafiles.

When the SETUP program has finished, start the program from the Start Menu.
If you are installing the shareware version from the Internet, you will have 30 days to evaluate the product before you are required to register it.

What Files are installed

ASCON.EXE - this is the main program, used to add, edit, view and browse the data
MergeContacts.EXE - program to import CSV files and merge multiple databases into one.
EMAIL.EXE (registered customers only) - an email-sending program, which enables you to send bulk emails to groups of contacts
help-ascon.html - this help file
_WELCOME.HTML - a basic introduction to the ASCON program
whatsnew.html - details of what has changed since the last version.
When you run Ascon for the first time the following files are created:
Groups.txt = list of groups
History.txt = list of words used to describe the type of meeting (eg phone, visit, email, )
Example.lis = an example contacts database
Ascon.ini = the configuration file for the program
Ascon.lic = the license file

Thank you for supporting Australian developed Shareware