When you purchase act software you expect it to work flawlessly, but sometimes it doesn’t.
One of the key selling points of act is that it works with Microsoft Office; Word, Excel and Outlook. Most of my clients use Microsoft Outlook with act to send and receive email. I have clients that use Microsoft Office 2003, 2007, 2010 and 2013. In addition to that, newer versions of Microsoft Office include standalone software or click to run software. I’m not going to bore you with the details and differences of each except to say these differences can have an impact on how successfully act interacts with each version. In addition to Microsoft Office, there are many versions of act that people use. This only complicates the matter.
Before you complain that all of these things should work together flawlessly please consider the following: imagine if you had to make a product that worked on every model of car regardless of the year it was produced. That would be daunting. The point of this post is not to defend the industry when it says software is supposed to work together. I’m merely pointing out that if you look at software as a challenge it will make it easy to see through the haze of compatibility issues.
I have seen issues with act and other software that is dependent on the operating system of the computer you use. For example, I am personally having an issue with act 17.1, Microsoft Outlook in Windows 8.1. So what do you do when you run into a problem?
How do you solve act technical issues?
Using software such as act is like owning a car, sometimes it breaks down. If you are working with an act certified consultant I would start by submitting an email to that consultant with the specific error message you are receiving. Our experience and technical insights can save you a lot of time when it comes to solving the issue. Many issues are simple fixes; some are more complex. I am not here to say that you could solve the issue, but what may take you a day could take us minutes.
Do it yourself
If you are technical person and have time on your hands, act has a knowledge base with information about many common technical issues. You can find that knowledge base here: http://kb.swiftpage.com/. Type in the air message you are receiving and hopefully you will find a simple fix.
Everything was working fine
One of the most frustrating types of technical issues is when it appears out of the blue. My experience has been that sometimes Windows updates can create problems that were not there yesterday. Earlier, I had suggested how difficult it would be to create a product for a car when you had to take into consideration making that product work on all makes and models, and all years of vehicles. The next time you have any type of software issue please try to keep it all in perspective and I think you will have a better experience trying to resolve the issue. Most act consultants do not like having to fix these types of issues because we have so much that we want to help you with that leads to a better and more positive experience. Having said that, we are here when you need us.