List of problem with ACT!2009 + Outlook 2007

List of problem with ACT!2009 + Outlook 2007

List of ACT!2009 and Outlook 2007 known problem (so far) as per 20090221

1. After performing lookup by example in ACT, the information shown in the fields are from the previous contact. This can be quite confusing for user. Until now, there is no solution for this issue. The only thing we can do is, pressing "F5", to refresh the page, after performing any lookup.

2. Several fields are not shown in import/export wizard in ACT. I consider this issue as the worst one. I was facing a lot of trouble when trying to import some contacts from other database. Too many missing data, which really makes the import/export process is useless. True, we can always use the quick export to excel, but the number of the fields is then limited to what is supported by excel. No good.
Click here to get more information about the problem (but not the solution).

3. Again in ACT. If you happened to have date or annual event field type in your layout, be very careful. Usually, after I make any change to the date field, I click outside, such as the layout background, so when I use the scroll wheel in my mouse, the date will not get changed. Surprisingly, the date still get changed. So, either use the scroll bar, or click on text field then use the scroll wheel.

4. When performing mail merge to a lot of contacts, for example a thousand, outlook crashes. Not good. Solution? Use different email client that can handle big number of emails.

5. I created a simple vba script to perform mail merge from outlook. I was hoping that using vba script, I could perform the mail merge without outlook crashing, and the email would be attached in history. Emails went through just fine, but this time ACT.Outlook.Service.exe crashed.

ACT + Outlook 2007 + PST over the LAN = Huge Mess

ACT + Outlook 2007 + PST over the LAN = Huge Mess

I had some problems with ACT!2009 and Outlook 2007. From Outlook, I kept getting pop-up error message saying that the pst file was locked, probably used in some other terminal. ACT!2009 kept giving me pop-up error message saying something like Act! Value cannot be null. Parameter name:pUnk. What an error message, and who is this pUnk guy, anyway.

So, initially the pst file was stored in the server, so different user can take care the incoming file at a time. True, that Exchange server should be used in this particular case, but somehow they don't want to use it, with many different reason, which I don't agree. The user insisted that they want to have convenience of not having to switch back and forth using different computer. Therefore, pst file stored in server.

When outlook showed error saying that the pst file was locked and being used in other terminal, one thing I had in my mind was, probably that's true. So, I made sure no one else is using it. Still, the error occurred many times.
The error message from ACT was really gave me no clue on what's going on.

After spending a lot of time searching here and there, I came across the following information: Personal folder files are unsupported over a LAN or over a WAN link, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297019

My intuition told me that this must have something to do with the problems we were having. Well, it turned out to be that storing pst file in the server and accessed over the network is a terrible idea.

Once I convinced users that since they don't have Exchange server and pst file is not designed to be used over network, they agree to move the pst files locally. Problem solved.