Most ACT! users have a love/hate relationship with the Welcome Page. It seems like for every ACT! user who loves the helpful links found on the Welcome Page, there's another user who wants to simply "cut to the chase" and start using their database.
If you've outgrown the functionality of the Welcome Page, or you just want to plunge headfirst into your contact when you fire up ACT!, then there are a number of options available to you for changing the default startup option.
The startup options for an ACT! database are found in the Preferences. In order to get to the Preferences, you must have an ACT! database open.
- From the Tools menu, click Preferences.
- Click the Startup tab. You can see an example of the Startup tab in the following screenshot:
- Select a view from the Startup view list in the Log On settings section of the Startup tab. Your choices include Welcome, Contacts, Contact List, and Dashboard.
- Click OK.
The Startup view preference is machine specific and not user or database specific. All of your ACT! preferences are located in a single preference file that lurks deep in the heart of your computer. This single file contains the preference settings for all of the ACT! databases located on your computer. That means if you change the default startup preference to open the Contact List, then all ACT! databases that you open from that same machine will also open up to the Contact List view. Conversely, if you access your ACT! database from a different computer, then it will open up to the view previously specified on that computer.
Although opening ACT! to the Contact Detail view is a popular startup choice for most ACT! users, you can also specify that your database open to either the Contact List or Dashboard view.