- Click the Lookup menu from the Contact Detail or List view. The following screenshot shows you the menu options:
- Choose one of the criterions listed on the Lookup menu to create a basic lookup. You'll notice that all the options at the top of the menu refer to contact fields, and the items on the bottom of the menu refer to Group, Company, and Opportunity fields.
- (Optional) Click Show more options in the Lookup Contacts dialog window if the dialog window doesn't have two rows of options like the one you see in the following figure:
- (Optional) Select an option from the Search for: drop-down box if you want to search for a Group, Company, or Opportunity field.
- (Optional) Click the drop-down arrow and select a field if the field you're searching for does not already appear in the Field box.
- Select a search operator from the second drop-down box. As you can see in the following screenshot, there are a number of options. A few of the more common ones include:
- Starts with: This operator will only return contacts that have the exact same value in the beginning of the given field; for example, if the Company name is "The Miami Herald" and you fill in the value as "Miami Herald", you will not come up with any matches.
- Contains: This operator will return contacts that contain the value searched anywhere in the given field; for example, if the Company name is "The Miami Herald" and you fill in the value as "Miami Herald", you will come up with a match.
- Contains Data: This operator will find only those contacts that have data in a given field; for example, you might be looking for all contacts that have an email address.
- Does Not Contain Data: This operator will return a list of contacts that don't have any data in the given field; for example, you might be looking for all contacts that don't have an email address.
- Fill in the value you're searching for in the third box. If the field you selected in steps 2 or 5 has an associated drop-down list then you'll be able to select from those items in this drop-down.
- Select an option from the For the current lookup drop-down box:
- Replace Lookup: Creates a brand-new lookup based on your criteria and overwrites the current lookup.
- Add to Lookup: Adds the contacts to a current lookup based on your criteria. For example, if you create a lookup for your contacts based in Chicago, select this option to add your New York contacts to the set of Chicago contacts.
- Narrow Lookup: Refines a lookup based on a second criterion. For example, if you create a lookup of all your customers, you could select this option to narrow the lookup to only those customers based in London.
- (Optional) Check one or both of the check boxes in the For the current lookup area:
- Include Private: Includes Private records in your search.
- Include Users: Includes users of the database in your search.
- Click OK.
If only one contact record matches your search criteria, that record will display in the Contact Detail view. However, if several contact records match your criteria, the Contact List appears with a list of all your matching results. In either case, the record counter now reflects the number of contacts that match your search criteria.
By default, ACT! automatically searches by the beginning of your string unless you change the operator. You'll also want to remember that with ACT!, less typing often produces the best match. For example, typing "Tech" for the company name returns Tech Benders and Technology Consultants. However, typing "Technology" returns only Technology Consultants.
- If you like to right-click to access a contextual menu, you might prefer to simply right-click the field for which you want to create a lookup and then click Lookup. That will open up the Lookup Contacts dialog window with the name of the field already in the Field box.
- ACT! has view specific menus. That means that the menus change slightly as you move around in ACT! to reflect the tasks that are most specific to that view. You'll notice, for example, that the Lookup menu that you access in the Groups Detail View varies slightly from the menu you see in the Contacts, Companies, or Opportunities Detail views.
Many ACT! users like to return to viewing all contacts once they've finished working with a lookup. To do that click the Lookup menu and choose All Contacts. However, you might find it just as easy to remain in your existing lookup until you need to search for another contact record.
Sometimes you might experience an interruption while you're working with a lookup that necessitates leaving the current lookup. For example, you might be working with a list of your best customers in Paris when one of your hot prospects calls. It's easy to return to that previous lookup by returning to the Lookup menu and choosing Previous. There you'll see a listing of your last nine lookups if you need to return to one of them.
You might think of the ACT! group as a useful bookmark that will hold your place—or at least your contacts—within your database. Once you create a lookup you might need to revisit it again at frequent intervals. Later in this chapter you'll learn how to save advanced queries but for now you might find it useful to know how to move all the contacts in your current lookup into a group.
Once you've created a lookup, simply click the Lookup menu, choose Groups, and then select Save Lookup as a Group. You'll be taken to the Groups Detail view where you need to assign a name to your new group. As soon as you do the Group will automatically populate with the contacts in your current group. And, best of all, the group will be a dynamic one, which means it is based on your query criteria and will update automatically when additional contacts meet those criteria.