To run a practical contact management system that suits the needs of your business you need to choose software that compliments what you do.

It must be easy to setup, easy to use, and easy to show your staff how to use. Most of all the total cost of ownership must be balanced against the benefits the software will deliver to your organisation.

And that is the purpose of this brochure.

This document will show you the core functions of an affordable 'Off the Shelf' Contact Management program. Using this information, you can determine which functions apply in your office. You will also understand what other software and hardware expense you should include in the budget. Here are the basics:

1. Contact Management is all about lists. Clients, prospects, business contacts, centres of influence, suppliers/services, staff, and personal contacts. You need to write, call, and see these people to do business and then keep a record of what you said, did, wrote, and sold them.

2. Data needs to be held somewhere in a form that you can sort, search, and edit easily. You need to be able to customise how much information you keep, where you see it and how you use it.

3. Integration with other office software like your word processor, fax and email software is essential. The interface to these programs should be seamless and two way. (Having to 'Open' another program is unnecessary today if the links have been created efficiently).

4. Mail merge should be as simple as this: Answer 4 questions and it's done.

• Who is it going to?
• Which letter template?
• Which method? (Print, Email, Fax)
• What is to be recorded in History

5. PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) are another business tool that must interface to a Contact Manager. Most PDAs come with software that enables basic links to desktop software but make sure your Contact Manager can be linked to your PDA.

6. Schedule/Calendar functions can be handled inside your Contact Manager, but make sure these activities are linked directly to the person's record. Appearing in the diary is not enough; when you view someone's record you must be able to see upcoming appointments and To Do items for them.

7. History items should be automatically generated. Letters sent, meetings held, calls made should all flow directly to history when completed. File notes belong here also, along with extra details for meetings etc.

8. Sharing information is important in every business even if it's just you and a personal assistant, or an enterprise of hundreds. You must be able to give others access where appropriate to calendars, data, history, and delegate tasks without changing programs, or user log on. This also means you need security to limit access and track who did what.

WHAT ELSE DO I NEED TO KNOW?
You'll probably find that there are published 'System Requirements' on the box or elsewhere in the documentation.

BEWARE - these requirements are absolute minimums! In other words the program will work with this level of resources. However, you may find the software will run like a dog, hang your system, or just frustrate the hell out of you.

Most current versions of Contact Manager Software will have been written to work with Windows XP. This operating system itself needs twice as much memory to run as did Windows 98. Similarly more memory is needed for the software; we recommend you have at least 256Mb. Ask for our other publication on Hardware Requirements for Contact Management Systems

ITS SECURITY is an issue that could cripple your business! What happens to your business if all your data and records are wiped out? Fire, theft, disgruntled staff, or that ever present threat of computer virus partly or completely destroys your electronic records. Here are two basics MUST HAVES:

CURRENT ANTI VIRUS SOFTWARE. Some feel this is like corporate blackmail. Pay up anyway! $100 + $30 a year after that, is peanuts compared to losing even one hour of your time trying to recover. Use a well known program and make sure it provides weekly updates of virus definitions automatically.

DAILY DATED BACKUP OF DATA. Why dated? Even with diligent effort it sometimes happens that errors, malice or other issues can be a progressive problem. Overwriting backups only leaves you with yesterday, and if that's corrupted… Backup your Contact Manager and accounting data to CDRW. It's fast, easy to restore, and you can check it works.