Is Access the best product for me ?

[colinth1]

Hi, I want to creat a database in work which will allow me and a colleague to
keep control of contact to sales prospects, ie who was called and when, when
the next contact is etc. i want to be able to run reports of, for example,
all the people to be contacted this week, all the prospects in certain areas
etc.

i'm not overly familar with access, is it the best product to use for this
and how difficult is it to create the database. my general It skills are
pretty good. thanks

 

[Mark A. Sam]

Access would be an excellent product to use for contact management, but not
with "pretty good IT skills". You would really need an experienced
programmer to make a contact manage that is easy to use rather than
cumbersome. Rather than waste time tryign to do it yourself or spend a
fortune, I think you would be better off purchasing an off the shelf program
like ACT (if it is still on the market). I'm sure there are others also.

God Bless,

Mark A. Sam

 

[BruceM]

Have you looked at Outlook for your purposes? It's a pretty good
information management program.

 

[Jeff Boyce]

Take your description one step further...

Can you spell out the specifications/requirements of what you want A system
to do? For example, how bullet-proof (oops, I meant "user-proof") does it
need to be? The less folks know about how Access works, the more they need
protection in the application.

And will you only want to enter data, or will you need to create "slice 'n
dice" reports?

If you were to describe the process and processing as a paper-based
system..., this gives you a pretty clear idea of what you need/want to
accomplish. Then start looking for a tool.

--
Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Office/Access MVP


Microsoft IT Academy Program Mentor
http://microsoftitacademy.com/

Microsoft Registered Partner
https://partner.microsoft.com/

 

[Tony Toews]

Hi, I want to creat a database in work which will allow me and a colleague to
keep control of contact to sales prospects, ie who was called and when, when
the next contact is etc. i want to be able to run reports of, for example,
all the people to be contacted this week, all the prospects in certain areas
etc.

I would agree with Sam. There are lots of Contact Managers out there.
I'd suggest looking at those first before getting going with Access.

Outlook, if you're on an Exchange Server, would also make a good
contact manager.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
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