Contact Management Software?

[deRusett]

Does anyone like the contact management software they use? Be it Black Berry’s phone app, Lotus notes, Outlook, Thunder Bird or whatever else is out there?

Personally I use my BlackBerry with Both Lotus Notes, and Outlook and I hate all of the them for contact management.

I would Love to see the ability to:
Create Company Contacts:
Example , I enter contact ABC Company, fill out all the details, location, phone number , notes, Categories, etc. NOW I want to populate that company with Employee’s with a hierarchy structure opition. So I can enter Owners, name, Managers Name, Sales guys, Counter guys, office guys, janitor, bum that sits on the curb outside . so when I view ABC Company I see every contact with in it, and I can select “favourites” to be viewed first when I view that company,
NOW if ABC Company is a Multi branch location I want to open ABC Company, and see
Head Office, Branch 1, Branch 2, Branch 3, etc, and opening each of those would give me the details above.

Catagories:
I would use Categories like Outlook does, but give me a quick button to access the category types: top 10 used maybe get hot keys? It is SO convoluted entering contacts and trying to create sort patterns, I want all contact flagged by say what kind of Car they drive, Contacts by what type of Phone they Carry, Contacts by industry, I currently use 46 Contact Labels in Outlook, mind you some would be eliminated if I had the Create Company Contact abilities.

View Locations
I want to View Contacts on a Map and create Geographic distinctions, viewing all contacts in a City like Toronto, or New York would be 100’s Maybe I want to view contacts from North Western Corner of Toronto, I can create that distinction on a Map View contacts with in this Shape : Draw points WXYZ, make for easier trip planning if you are going to go see multiple contacts in a single day, and just want to be able to plot it out, I know this is very sales specific, but I am a sales rep so :P, I would pay extra for this to be available offline. I suppose it could be useful it trying to plan a carpool as well, seeing who lives close to whom, but I want it for trip planning

Email Groups:
I want to be able to assign e-mail groups to my contacts, as I enter a contact name I can assign them to as many e-mail groups I want, or after the fact add them, be it “Jokes group” “Dirty Joke Group” “Sales guys 1” “Sales Guys 2” etc

Just as an example I have 1 Company in my contact list
They have 9 Branches + 1 Head office, Each Branch has at least 4 Contacts for me, simple break down being Manager, Outside Sales, Inside Sales, Stock Room, my Outlook (I use outlook because even though it isn’t great it is head and shoulders above Lotus notes. ) has 60 contacts for this company, For my Voice Dial on BlackBerry I have each Branch listed as its own contact so I can say the Branch name, then for each Contact I have them listed, I want to send e-mails to all the Branch Managers I use Categories to find them quickly, Same with Inside sales, or outside sales, but this greatly adds to my categories usage everyone has rainbows behind their names.

This is just a morning Rant, but Seriously am I the only one who would want something like this more maybe?

Come on ominous somebody, make this, and then make it so when it syncs to my blackberry I get all the proper contact information and can use my voice dial

[Cryptic Prophet]

Hey deRusett,

Just curious if you have come across anything useful since posting this. I have been searching high and low for some similar contact related apps or software geared for my Storm, and come up blank....

ttyl

[vinndy]

Originally Posted by Cryptic Prophet

Hey deRusett,

Just curious if you have come across anything useful since posting this. I have been searching high and low for some similar contact related apps or software geared for my Storm, and come up blank....

ttyl

x2, i am searching but can't find the right program...

[deRusett]

Nope not yet

I look about once a week and try and peice together things like Google Maps and Contacts and such, but it is a PAIN, with over 400 Regular contacts, and a multiple of that in supporting contacts, I don't want to manually do it all.

[matthewradio]

At least your not stuck with ACT 2000 still. I mean come on can we please use something I can sync with my bb

[deRusett]

Originally Posted by matthewradio

At least your not stuck with ACT 2000 still. I mean come on can we please use something I can sync with my bb

I would take ACT2000 over lotus notes any day!

[chipk]

Previous Act user for years, and previous Palm user, but I cannot imagine that there isn't a market for such a product, a serious contact manager with BB support and (dare I say it) wireless syncing!!

Also very frustrated that I have yet to find something even close to fulfilling my needs.

This is beginning to sound like an opportunity..??!?!

[deRusett]

There are a few ones I found,

I'll try and bring the links here, though NONE of them worked for my needs.


RIM should build contact management INTO their phones

[gfacc]

I'm looking for something similar but haven't been able to find anything suitable either.

RIM first recommended ECL, which is a pretty pathetic recommendation based on what we asked for.

Then they recommended Wallace Wireless (WIC Messenger), which might
actually be a bit overkill. I haven't had time to look it over entirely yet.

If anyone has any other recommendations I would love to see them. I'm surprised there aren't more decent contact management solutions out there.

[Nikko10]

For a much better contact management software, I think you should try SugarCRM or Zoho Projects. They've got more features than the others. Though I'd prefer Zoho from the two since it also has project management functionality.

[stuffing]

add me to the list of people looking for good contact management.

[DocDRM]

online CRM BigContacts is pretty good and getting better all the time - I'm getting to know it and learning how to customize. VERY Customizable. Working out the bugs in a Beta Version of Sync via Funambol.

Online CRM so accessible via phone - they have a mobile login for smartphone users which I use, but I also use their full web-site on my 9810 when I'm on wifi - enough screen real estate to make it very friendly for most things (iPhone App is avail - wish they would get a BB App!!!!). VERY responsive and helpful Customer Service - even when I flamed them over a BAD BAD beta sync.

Doesn't meet all of OP's needs but most/or at least workarounds to be close to meeting.

For example: hierarchy. I created fields "Works for:" and "Works with:" to address a similar need.

Check them out. search for BigContacts. tell them Doc from Lokring Gulf Coast sent you!

[deRusett]

Originally Posted by DocDRM

online CRM BigContacts is pretty good and getting better all the time - I'm getting to know it and learning how to customize. VERY Customizable. Working out the bugs in a Beta Version of Sync via Funambol.

Online CRM so accessible via phone - they have a mobile login for smartphone users which I use, but I also use their full web-site on my 9810 when I'm on wifi - enough screen real estate to make it very friendly for most things (iPhone App is avail - wish they would get a BB App!!!!). VERY responsive and helpful Customer Service - even when I flamed them over a BAD BAD beta sync.

Doesn't meet all of OP's needs but most/or at least workarounds to be close to meeting.

For example: hierarchy. I created fields "Works for:" and "Works with:" to address a similar need.

Check them out. search for BigContacts. tell them Doc from Lokring Gulf Coast sent you!

Does this populate your addressbook on your phone?

[DocDRM]

re populate address book:

Sync is in Beta right now - my first try didn't go well, but I'm going to try again over the Thanksgiving weekend : it kept hanging up, and not knowing better I cancelled and restarted 3 or 4 times. Should have had 900 contacts phone and CRM, ended up with about 3000 on each! BigContacts de-dupe tool cleaned up MOST not all on the CRM, BB Protect saved me on my phone. Plus there was a field mapping error into the phone, BC customer support is working on it.

Mobile interface lets you search for contacts in several ways, then dial from there.

Check 'em out - they have a populated database on their site you can play with, and they do a free trial.

Really need to plan your interface ahead of time. I came into a small operation and they knew they were going to use BC, but no one had the "logic"/"programming" mindset to set it up so it went unused for 6 months before I came on-board. I'm no programmer/designer, but have created database/spreadsheet interfaces for myself/small organizations so I am taking it on. My problem is I'm new to the co/job and don't know what i don't know if you know what I mean!! I have about 3-4000 more contacts to import but I am avoiding it until I get the interface and fields layed out correctly. Then there is getting the other users on-board and trained to use the fields as intended/in a uniform manner. It's not complicated at all, no radio buttons or toggles, but drop down boxes available for some choices is about as complicated as the fields get.

[dosto]

I've been wrestling with this as well. Currently I am using Zoho CRM and they have a BB app (although it's not that great). I recently switched from Salesforce.com to Zoho, due mainly to price; I think Salesforce has a BB app, but for me it seemed cost prohibitive. I'd love to find an online CRM/contact manager that synced seamlessly (and reliably) with BB.