The new Google integration lets you synchronize your ACT! and Google contacts. The integration includes the ability to:
- Create new Google Contacts from ACT!
- Create new ACT! Contacts from Google
- Control which ACT! Contacts are synced to Google
- Keep both sets of contacts up to date regardless of where they were created or changed
If there are contacts that exist in both ACT! and Google, there is the potential for duplicated contact records. Ideally, you'll start without any contacts in your Google address book to avoid possible duplication. Fortunately, both ACT! and Google include the ability to find and merge duplicate contact records. However, until you are comfortable that the preference settings you select for synchronizing contacts will work correctly, it's not a bad idea to create a backup of your ACT! data.
- Click the Tools menu, select Preferences, and then click the E-mail & Google sync tab.
- Click the Google Synchronization Preferences... button.
- Click the Synchronize Contacts tab and select the Enable Contact Synchronization with Google check box. The following figure shows you the Synchronize Contacts tab:
- (Optional) The name of your database should appear at the top of the dialog window. To select a different ACT! database, click Change to navigate to and select a different database.
- (Optional) Click the Add Google Contacts to Sage ACT! and synchronize changes checkbox if you want to be able to add new contacts in Google and have them appear in ACT!.
- (Optional) Click the Schedule Automatic Synchronization button to set your synchronization scheduling preferences.
- Click the Define Sync Sets button. The Manage Google Contact Sync Sets dialog box appears like the one in the following figure:
- Click Create New Sync Set. Alternatively, you can select one of the existing sync sets and then click Edit Sync Set. The Manage Google Contact Sync Sets wizard opens.
- Enter a name for the sync set or optionally modify the existing one and click Next to continue.
- In the Google Contact Sync Set Users dialog window, choose the users who will use this sync set by selecting their names from the Users to select from: panel and clicking the single right-pointing arrow to move the name to the panel on the right. The following screenshot shows you what this looks like:
- Click Next to continue.
- Indicate the number of contacts you will be synchronizing and click Next to continue. You have two options here:
- Synchronize all available contacts: synchronizes all of your Contacts. You can then skip to step 18 below.
- Define Sync Set criteria: allows you to create a query to determine which contact records will synchronize with Google.
- Click Edit Criteria or Create Criteria in the Manage Contact Sync Sets dialog window to open the Sync Set Criteria window.
- Define the contact records that will be included in the sync set by selecting the following criteria:
- Type: Your only choice here is to choose Contact.
- Field Name: Select one of the contact fields from the Field Name drop-down list.
- Operator: Indicate whether you're looking for a specific word, a field that contains a part of a word, or even a range of figures or dates. You can search for fields that contain some data, or for fields that are blank and don't contain any data.
- Value: Select one of the available items that correspond to the selected Field Name item.
- Click Add to list to include the criterion.
- (Optional) Click the Preview button to see the number of contacts that match your query criteria.
- Click OK to add the query to the Sync Set and to close the Sync Set Criteria dialog window. The following figure gives you an example of a completed Sync Set Criteria window:
- Click Finish to close the Manage Contact Sync Sets wizard and then Close to close the Manage Contact Sync Sets dialog window.
- Place a checkmark next to the sync sets that you want to include in your ACT!/Google synchronization.
- Click OK to close the Google Synchronization Preferences dialog window.
- (Optional) Click Yes in the Sage ACT! Google Sync dialog window to synchronize your ACT! contacts to Google. An indicator will appear measuring your progress and a confirmation screen will appear when your contacts have finished synching.
- Click OK to close the Preferences dialog window.
Don't be alarmed if you don't see your changes immediately—you might need to refresh ACT! by clicking the ACT! View menu and choosing Refresh.
Your ACT! and Google contacts will now synchronize according to the criteria you selected. You'll want to take a moment to peruse both your ACT! and Google databases to make sure you got the expected results. If something doesn't look correct, restore your backup and tweak the above instructions until your contacts are synchronizing correctly.
In addition to creating new sync sets, the Manage Contact Sync Set dialog box allows you to edit and/or delete existing sync sets. You'll also notice that ACT! comes with several 'out of the box' sync sets that you can use 'as is' or modify to better suit your needs. Keep in mind, however, that the sync sets only apply to ACT! contacts and not to your Google contacts.
When you build your query in the Sync Set Criteria dialog window, you might want to make use of the And/Or column to help you group your criteria to indicate the relationship between each set of criteria. For example, if you want to synchronize contacts from three different ID/Status categories, you'll want to use the or criterion to indicate that you want to include anyone who is either a customer, vendor, or employee.
Along the same lines, you might want to include parentheses so that specific lines of your queries are grouped together. This is a particularly important step if your query contains both 'and' and 'or' criteria.