May 2009 - Posts

• Coming back from vacation: What did I miss?

  As much as I love to work, there is nothing I love more than going on vacation. There is so many good places to explore, things to do, and most importantly, so much great food to eat. But the worst thing about going on vacation, other than the jet lag, is coming back to work. Personally, it always takes me a few days to get back into a "work groove". I seem to do everything a little bit slower and things that were once familiar are not so familiar anymore. And if you use email as much as I do, there's usually about at least 200 emails per week that I'm gone that I need to go through and figure out if I need to reply. One time, I even forgot the passwords to my computer. One thing I like to do when I get back is figure out what the progress is on some of my Customer Service Cases or Opportunities. For example, I want to see if a customer has called when I wasn't there, a user defined field got updated by a manager, or if a colleague of mine has helped me resolve a case. So here's how to do it: Go to Search > All fields. Click Add and select "Last Modified Date" from the Basic Fields folder. Click OK. Select a date range. Usually I set it to the day after I left for vacation to the day I came back. This will pull up a list of entries that have been updated. Depending on what the controlling window is, these entries could be like Companies/Contacts/Individuals, Opportunities, or Customer Service cases. From here there is lots you can do like run a report or do a notes search for notes created within the date range for these companies. And as a bonus, you can add the field "Modified By" to your column setup to see who was the last person to modify the entry. This will give you a good idea of what you missed at the office over the last few days. Your facebook page will give your co-workers a good idea of what they missed over the last few days. Posted May 28 2009, 02:51 PM by wleung with no comments Filed under: Last Modified Date, Address Book

• Getting rid of unwanted duplicates

  Checking for duplicates By default, Maximizer doesn't check for duplicate entries when creating new records. That's a good thing. Sometimes you have 2 companies called "ABC Wine Shop" or 2 people named Joe Smith. So rather than having people name their records strange things like ABC Wine Shop A or Debbie 2, you can just enter the name of the record without thinking about a clever name. You can turn on duplicate checking when adding Address Book entries by going to the Address Book tab in the File > Preferences in the Administrator. Here, you can set up rules that Maximizer will use to check whether or not a record is the same as another record. There is more information about this in the User's Guide. What I really wanted to talk about today was the ability to group duplicates together and what you can do with them afterwards. So let's say you have a list of contacts, and you've accidentally created two of the same Company. Let's use ABC Wine Shop for example. You and your partner have been entering notes for ABC Wine Shop, but you in the original ABC Wine Shop entry and your partner in a new one that she created when she couldn't find the original ABC Wine Shop. So you have 2 entries for the same company. So here is what I would do: Create an Address Book list with the duplicate entries. You want to make sure that all of the entries for the specific company are displayed in the Address Book window. If you were to do a general audit of your Address Book and pull up all duplicates, simply do an all companies search and pull up your entire address book. Once you have a list, select the Name column and go to Search > Check 'Name' for duplicates. This will work for any field in your column view, like phone numbers. Once you have a duplicate, figure out which one is the "correct one". This could be the one with the most up-to-date data or the one with the correct address. You decide. Drag the duplicate entry (source) into the correct entry (target).  This will bring up the following window: There are the 3 options and what they do, from the F1 help. Relate the Source Entry to the Target Entry Select this option to relate the selected entry to the currently active Address Book entry. The related entry will appear in the Related Entries window list of the target entry. (All notes, user-defined fields and documents associated with the related entry are associated with the Address Book entry, once the relationship has been established.) Combine the Source Entry and the Target Entry into a Single Entry Select this option to copy information such as Contacts, notes, documents, and opportunities associated with a selected Address Book entry to another. Note that both the Source and Target entries remain in the Address Book when you use this option. Move the Source Entry to the Target Entry Select this option to copy information such as Contacts, notes, documents, and opportunities associated with an Address Book entry to another. When you select this option you are given a choice to delete the source record. What we want to select is the "Move the Source Entry to the Target Entry" option as this will delete the source record. This handy tip will let you clean up your Address Book. As you can tell with my blog about completing hotlist tasks, I'm all about keeping my database nice and tidy. It's always easier to find things when your Address Book is in order. Now, if I could only figure out how to keep my car nice and tidy... Posted May 08 2009, 11:46 AM by wleung with 6 comment(s)

• Mapping your way through life

  Mapping applications on the web are one of the greatest things ever invented. Enter a location and you can get aerial views, directions, transit, traffic, etc. I used to use MapQuest, but I found I like the versatility of Google Maps. Plus, I can see my car parked in the back of my house. One interesting website I found was googlelsightseeing.com. It has a lot of different interesting things like oddly shaped buildings, crazy landscapes, and "the Whitehouse" In Maximizer, you can map directions to your prospects' location by going to Web > Draw a Map,  using Google Maps or another mapping application. Maximizer will fill in the address information.  You can do one of three things with the address: Map the address only Map a travel route from the current address (which you would fill in) or Map a travel rout from the selected to current address (which you have to fill in). You can also Map directions using MaxMobile or Maximizer Wireless Access on your mobile device. Mapping locations goes beyond finding your way from point A to point B. Once you have the location, you can find the nearest Starbucks for a coffee, restaurant for wining and dining, or the nearest bus stop for a quick get-away. Posted May 01 2009, 03:01 PM by wleung with no comments