ACT vs Goldmine a testimony
Posted: Friday, March 31, 2006
by Shirley Coop
Accounting Software Review
I supported ACT! versions 2 - 6 at my company for 10 years. We had much success with it and had about 35 internal users, 20 synchronizing remote laptops and a database of about 75,000 contacts.
There came a time when the company wanted to switch to an SQL-based contact management program in order to closely integrate with in-house-developed SQL applications. ACT had not yet developed their SQL version, so the company switched to Goldmine. To get Goldmine going, my company spent about $15,000 for the software and licenses plus about $5,000 for consulting services and about $3,000 for annual Goldmine maintenance fees. The installation and database conversion took about 6 months to complete and was filled with constant frustration and confusion on the part of users and managers.
We found that Goldmine was not at all easy to use, like ACT! was, and did not meet our basic needs. For example, we used ACT's Contact List often throughout the day. Goldmine did not have one. We frequently used ACT's Lookups and would then drill down or add to them or sort them. Goldmine's lookup had only a binary query feature that was complicated and confusing. There was no Lookup By Example. Duplicate contact checking didn't quite work. Importing and Exporting of contacts was complicated and time consuming. Synchronization was difficult to set up and maintain. Database customization was limited. Display and report layouts could be changed only with difficulty. Most changes that we did ourselves in ACT! required the help of expensive consultants in Goldmine.
Because ACT! is more popular, people that we hired often had experience with ACT! but not Goldmine, so the learning curve was more time consuming for new people. As time went by, most of our time was spent just struggling with Goldmine and trying to learn its quirks rather than getting good productivity from it. Users could not be creative with Goldmine and expand its use in their jobs. Every time they tried, Goldmine would create errors and block their progress resulting in frustration, limited usage and corrupted data. We found our investment in Goldmine not paying off.
Goldmine allows only one database to exist at a time. This totally destroyed our nightly backup policy that we developed in ACT!. Previously, for example, if we accidentally deleted a contact from ACT!, we would open a backup copy and export the contact into the current ACT! database. You cannot do that in Goldmine because it does not allow you to export a contact from one Goldmine database to another. Not even a test database could exist, so testing of features had to be done on the live database-- very carefully.
If you want a feature-rich, expansive, easy-to-use, customizable, SQL- and .NET-based contact management program that is reasonably priced, I recommend that you take a look at the latest versions of ACT! at www.bizsoftresource.com. If you do want some help with installation, training and customization, the people at JCS Computer Corp (www.jcscomputer.com) can help with that.
/Dick D, Michigan
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Top-level comments on this article: (6 total)Good review. It provides an insight into the deployment and everyday use of Act/Goldmine from a users perspective. This kind of information is often missed in magazine reviews and supplier websites. We need more reviews like this....
Jennifer, 1. Goldmine, basic goldmine automatically grabs the last word of the contact name to populate the last name but can be EASILY amended (2 mins) to ignore any title (read your manual), Search lists are activating by CLICKING ON THE FIELD to create an instant index (read your manual). We routinely deploy 2 day implementations - 6 months usually indicates lack of internal organization. (sigh).
Uncannily amazing, the internet. This one article would have seriously swayed my thoughts about Goldmine had it not been for a comment posted only an hour before I read it, when the original article was over a year old. I would like to thank "b. ontask" for adding a little professional perspective to the users perspective. As someone that will be responsible for any implementation we do, it's good to hear both sides. I probably will not have outside help for an install, but will RTFM.
searching by first name -last name and a host of other identifiers is easily done in goldmine!
After using both Goldmine and ACT I must say as a user my vote goes to ACT.
Well put!
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