ContaxCRM has now been reviewed by the judges in the CRM Idol 2011 Competition. The review was a fair one, and overall I was quite pleased with it, despite the obvious differences in opinions between myself and the judges, particularly to do with the ‘cloud’ and security / encryption

http://www.crmidol.com/reviews/arten-science

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Tags: CrM Idol 2011, ContaXCRM, CrM, Review

ContaxCRM has been reviewed by the judges in the CRM Idol 2011 Competition and a comment was made about the inability to create a new contact from an incoming email. This was on our ‘todo’ already list and this was an additional prompt, so I have implemented this as you can see in the images below:

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Tags: CrM Idol 2011, ContaXCRM, CrM, Review, Email Processing

The New Feature of the upcoming ContaxCRM 2.5 that I am going to mention today is:

All Contact History Search

All Contact History Search is available as part of the Information Search Centre which at the moment only also contains Contacts and Companies.

Very simply All Contact History Search allows you to input a word or part of a word or phrase and use that to search the complete history database extremely quickly. The results can be Encrypted / Decrypted, Viewed using EZ View or even read to you by your computer

Steven Cholerton
Arten Science
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Tags: ContaXCRM, New Feature, Arten Science, CrM

Have a story related to an Arten Science product that could be featured on our blog ?

If you have an interesting use of an Arten Science application or an interesting, amusing or educational story to tell and would like to be featured on our blog along with the chance to win a free license for any Arten Science product and a $15 (or equivalent) Amazon voucher for those we publish, please contact us:

story@artenscience.com

Steven Cholerton
Arten Science
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Tags: ContaXCRM, CrM, Arten Science, Blog, Story, Amazon Voucher

The New Feature of the upcoming ContaxCRM 2.5 that I am going to mention today is:

Snippets

Yeh, wow ... Ok, ok - I never said it was going to rock the world, however it is a small and very simple but actually very useful feature that allows you to setup any number of blocks of text identified by an appropriate name. The key to making this useful is making it easy to use.

The first area of ContaxCRM that benefits from Snippets is the Compose Email facility. See the image below:

Snippets are setup within ooSooMpro which is part of the ContaxCRM Suite. See the image below:

Steven Cholerton
Arten Science
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Tags: ContaXCRM, CrM, Arten Science

ContaxCRM has had a new feature added earlier today. This is a simple feature that allows Contact History and Notes to be searched using a ‘part match’ text input. This is extremely fast and easy to use.

The History list is then filtered to display only those entries matching your search string.

For example searching for: eve

Will find: STEVE steve Eve EVE Everything Ever ... And so on.

Steven Cholerton
Arten Science
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ContaxCRM has been receiving a *lot* of coding attention just lately which means I have had very little time to blog about the changes. One small change I have made today is a simple button to print the Address Label for the current contact. There is even a little slider that lets you change the font size

To be honest nobody has ever requested this feature but as I will find it very useful I’m sure the same will apply to many other customers new and old



Steven Cholerton
Arten Science
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Tags: ContaXCRM, Contact Relationship Management, CrM, Arten Science

We have recently received the final design for the ContaxCRM Suite CD. We think it looks fantastic


Steven Cholerton
Arten Science
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Tags: Contact Relationship Management, CrM, ContaXCRM, Cd Design

The Multi-User edition of ContaxCRM uses MySQL as it’s database. MySQL is easy to setup and free as well as being reliable and well supported. This is how you setup MySQL for ContaxCRM in six easy steps.

Step 1

After downloading, Install MySQL by following the prompts and accepting the defaults. Do the same with the MySQL GUI Tools. Run MySQL Administrator.


Step 2

Create a new Catalog called ContaxCRM.



Step 3

Setup a ContaxCRM User Account and Password. You will receive the password from Arten Science.



Step 4

Attach the ContaxCRM Schema permissions to the ContaxCRM User Account and Save the changes.



Step 5

Run the ContaxCRM/MySQL setup tool from Arten Science and click all four of the right hand buttons in the order top to bottom. When prompted for a SQLite database, point at your demo or tutorial database probably located in your ContaxCRM folder.



Step 6

That took all of maybe 10 minutes, now setup the ContaxCRM clients, you’ve almost finished so put the kettle on ready

Steven Cholerton
Arten Science
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Tags: CrM, Cross Platform, ContaXCRM, Contact Relationship Management, mySQL, Configure

Watch the movie below to see how Contact Notes are entered in ContaxCRM, and how you can even use drag and drop to automatically insert notes against a contact.

Tags: CrM, Cross Platform, ContaXCRM, Contact Relationship Management

Development of ContaxCRM continues at a pace. Version 1.9.9 of ContaxCRM is now available. The new features and enhancements are detailed below.

1.9.9

• Further User Interface Tweaks. Attempting to balance Ease of Use, Simplicity and High Functionality, without Clutter
• The Default Charts have changed
• Mac Only: iCal Calendar Entries are now visible in the Tasks List in ContaxCRM for the appropriate Contact.
• When adding a new Contact the Detail / Primary tabs are now selected and the cursor is put into the title field
• Expanded View window is now sensitive to the size of the calling window and displays appropriately
• Tab Name Change: Primary is now Main
• Tab Name Change: Address is now Addr
• Tab Name Change: Secondary is now More, also this tab is now positioned next to Main
• History record count now shown
• Assorted Tweaks and Fixes

Tags: CrM, Cross Platform, ContaXCRM, Contact Relationship Management

Development of ContaxCRM has progressed in leaps and bounds recently, so I thought I would share the feature list on this blog.


ContaxCRM Features


System Features and Requirements

Supplied as a Universal Binary for Mac OSX including Snow Leopard
Tested on OSX 10.4 +
Windows Version works on XP, Vista, 2003 and 7
Easy to use, Modern, Fast, Clean Interface
Requires No Installation
No Modifications made to your computer outside of the ContaxCRM folder
To 'uninstall' - Just delete the ContaxCRM folder
Requires no additional Runtime installation
Can be run from a USB drive
Online Help System
One Click Support
Single User with inbuilt SQLite, or Multi-User with MySQL
Sync the Database with iDisk, DropBox or Similar


Functionality

Contact Records
Store detailed information about your Contacts
User Defined Contact Status
Visit a Contacts Website by Clicking the Button next to their Web Address
Mark your Contacts as Customers, Suppliers, Personal, Prospect, Member or Network
Mark a Contact as Inactive, effectively Hidden, but not Deleted
Visit a Contacts Blog by Clicking the Button next to their Blog
•A Contact can be a Supplier as well as a Customer
TLRS - Traffic Light Rating System - Red, Amber, Green
Store up to five 'Tagged' Phone Numbers
Store up to five 'Tagged' Email Addresses
Contact Template Facility
Import Data from a Tab Delimited File
Import Data from Apple Address Book
User defined Contact Categories and Classifications
Specify the allowed method of communication, Phone, Email, SMS, Post

Audio Output
Contact Information and Notes can be output as an Audio File for later review, Mac OSX Only.

Document Management
Document Storage and Management, accessible from the Contact
Documents entered and stored in the Vault with ooSooMpro supplied with ContaxCRM

Email Integration
Email a Contact by Clicking the Icon next to their Email Address, the eMail is Written to Contact History
•Automatically Capture Incoming Email and Apply to Contact

Twitter Integration
Update your Twitter Status from within ContaxCRM
Send Twitter @Reply Messages to Contacts, Recorded in the Contact Notes

iCal Integration
Insert iCal Entries from within ContaxCRM, Linked to Contacts and Recorded in their Notes

Searching
Fast Searching, Sorting and Filtering of Contact information
•Contacts can have User Defined Tags applied

Notes and History
Notes Drop Zone: Drag and Drop Text Documents into Contact Notes, Recorded as History
History of Inserts, Imports and Edits
Enter your own Notes against a Contact with an Event Type:
Event Types: General, Email Sent, Email Received, Outgoing Call, Incoming Call, Visit or Order Received

Tasks
Outstanding Tasks For a Contact, Always Shown in ContaxCRM and within ooSooM

Live Mapping
Geographical Mapping Information showing Physical Proximity between businesses
Icon on Google Map coloured appropriately according to your TLRS
Appropriate Icon for Contact Types shown on inbuilt Google Map

Graphs and Charts
Real-time Charting

Connections and Relationships
User defined Connections / Relationships
Unique 'Connections' Feature - Show the Relationships and Links between You and your Contacts and your Contacts and Each Other.

MySQL Multi-User Server Edition
Multi-User MySQL edition features Users screen with Full Security Features

General
Full Screen Toggle
Extensive use of Keyboard Shortcuts

Open
You can use any generally available SQL Query tool to create your own Reports and exports if you wish.
ContaxCRM does not 'Lock you in'
•Export Capability

Capabilities in Conjunction with other Arten Science Products
Each Contact can be Encrypted using your R10Cipher license.
R10BatchMail can use your ContaxCRM data for bulk email marketing and communication
•R10Cipher can directly use your ContaxCRM database to populate it's Key Management Database
Specify the allowed method of communication - R10BatchMail will not include contacts if 'Mail' is not selected.

Support
Online Manual
Tutorial Movies
Support Forum
Email Support
Telephone Support can be provided at additional cost

Additional Functionality and Features Coming Soon
Additional ContaxCRM Modules: Sales and Purchase Orders, Products, Sales Invoicing
De-duplicate and Merge Facility
iPhone and iPad Version


Marked Features • Available Only in Version 2.0.0 Available July 2010

Steven Cholerton
Arten Science
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Tags: CrM, Cross Platform, ContaXCRM, Contact Relationship Management

Development of ContaxCRM continues at a pace. Version 1.9.8 of ContaxCRM is now available. The new features and enhancements are detailed below.

Audio Output of Contact Information and Contact Notes

This new feature is currently Mac OSX only. It is designed to help in one of two situations. In the first situation you are due at a meeting with a customer and don’t have time to read through all their history and notes to fully brief yourself before you go.

The solution is there at the click of a button. ContaxCRM will output all the information you need, date and time stamp it, and save it as an Audio File in your Downloads folder. You can then copy it to your phone, memory stick, iPod etc. for listening to in the Car, on the Train etc.

The second situation is that you just can’t be bothered or you are sick of looking at the screen and you need to get up to date with one of your contacts. The same applies, an Audio File is created which you can then double click to listen to as you lean back and put your feet up ...

Speech technology on the Mac is very good now and the voice I have selected, ‘Alex’, is the best of the bunch and will be perfectly adequate for this requirement.

I consider this a very unique and useful feature. I have to do it on Windows next ... The screenshots below may give you more indication what I am talking about.








Subtle but Important Changes

• The 'Notes' field has been renamed 'Information'
• The 'History Events' have been renamed 'Notes'

Tags: CrM, Cross Platform, ContaXCRM, Contact Relationship Management

Today we have finished revising the prices for ContaxCRM, and made the Single and Multi-User pricing simpler and fairer. You can see the new prices below:



The Multi User Server Edition Includes the Following Applications:

• ContaxCRM
• ooSooM Pro
• R10Cipher IV
• cuteCipher
• R10BatchMail
• MySQL Setup Tools

Tags: Contact Relationship Management, ContaXCRM, CrM, Pricing

Version 1.9.7 of ContaxCRM is now available. This version features the following enhancements:

• Add an iCal Event from ContaxCRM (Mac OSX Only)
• Alt-I Shortcut Key for New iCal Event
• iCal Event Saved to ContaxCRM History
• Double Click Arten Science Logo on Main Window, Launches the Arten Science Website
• Email footer text option added to the Compose Email window
• CSV Address Book Export Script
• Capture Incoming Email for ContaxCRM Script
• Alt-H Shortcut - Insert History Event
• History Event Drop Zone: Drag and Drop Text Documents into Contact History
• Outstanding Tasks shown on Main Screen
• ooSooM tab replaced by separate Tasks and Documents tabs

ContaxCRM Keyboard Shortcuts:


Steven Cholerton
Arten Science
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Tags: ContaXCRM, CrM, Keyboard Shortcuts

Version 1.9.4 of ContaxCRM is now available. This version features the following enhancements:

• A new Type, Member
• User Definable Status’s. See the screenshot below:

Tags: CrM, Cross Platform, ContaXCRM

Version 1.9.3 of ContaxCRM is now available. This version features the following enhancements:

• 'Order Received' Option Added to History Event Types
• Enhancements to the TLRS Display
• Full Screen Mode now available
• Update your Twitter Status from within ContaxCRM
• Send @Reply Messages to Contacts, Recorded to History
• Consistent Window Effects
• User Interface Improvements
• Bug in the Compose Email window if Subject had more than one word - Fixed

Version 1.9.2 of ContaxCRM is now available. This version features the following enhancements:

Only Active Contacts are shown in the Contacts List

In-active Contacts can be viewed from the Data Tools window

History Event Types:

• General
• Email Sent
• Email Received
• Incoming Call
• Outgoing Call
• Visit

Tags: CrM, Cross Platform, ContaXCRM

Version 1.9.1 of ContaxCRM is now available. This version features several ‘behind the scenes’ updates and optimisations as well as the following:

• Contacts now listed in their rated Colour, ie: Red, Green or Amber
• Contacts list can now be sorted by their rated colour

Version 1.8.2 of ContaxCRM is now available. This version features many ‘behind the scenes’ updates and optimisations as well as the following:

• Some Preferences Options are now System Options
• Some Menu Option locations have changed
• User and User Security Screen has been added
• Email Sent from ContaxCRM is Recorded to History
• Trial Version Now Only Allows 20 Launches

Version 1.7.5 of ContaxCRM is now available. This version features several ‘behind the scenes’ updates and optimisations as well as the following:

• New 'Sticky' flag on All Database Tables
• User Interface Consistency Improvements
• Contact Tabs Enhanced
• New Facebook field
• New LinkedIn field
• Four Additional Email Address Fields
• More Data Integrity Tools

We released 1.5.5 of ContaX today. This is probably the last release prior to the MySQL Multi-User version which is due soon (I said this last time, but I was mistaken ).

1.5.5 has the following small but useful update:

Attached Vault documents from ooSooM are now shown against the appropriate contact within ContaX and can be opened in their original application by double clicking them.

You can see this in the annotated screenshot below:

This is a small but useful feature that gives added value to the document management features of the ContaX CRM solution.

Steven Cholerton
Arten Science
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Tags: CrM, ContaX, Software News, Software Release

We released 1.5.2 of ContaX today. This is probably the last release prior to the MySQL Multi-User version which is due soon.

1.5.2 has the following updates:

• User Interface Improvements and Chart Expand Capability
• Database Layer Re-written with added MySQL Compatibility
• General Performance Increase
• Preferences Window Updated