Swiftpage Releases Act! Version 17

Swiftpage has updated its Act! software line with version 17, which simplifies the process for small businesses to set up integrated workflows that marry sales automation and nurture marketing processes.

Allen Duet, chief technology officer at Swiftpage, says the biggest change in version 17 is the ability to seamlessly transition between marketing and sales operations. "Our focus was firmly on making the integration as seamless as possible," he says.

The company, Duet adds, really ramped up its recommendations engine in the new version. "As people use the system, they'll find a lot of capabilities to give them better, more defined data."

Act! v17 provides users with the following new features and user-requested enhancements:

• Enhanced emarketing functionality that fuses marketing and sales efforts through automated scheduling of key follow-up activities derived from the contact's interaction history
• The ability to create Web forms to capture leads from Web pages, newsletters, emails, etc., and follow up with email campaigns, all from within Act!
• Intelligent lead scoring and Smart Task automation to help users nurture leads and convert customers
• Contact Timeline, which allows users to prepare for and personalize customer interactions
• The ability to attach photographs from mobile devices and/or integrate documents from business tools used every day, such as Dropbox, SharePoint, Google Docs, and iCloud, directly into the contact record
• New integrations with Microsoft Outlook that let users sync Act! Contacts and Calendars to Outlook
• The ability to create read-only licenses, at no extra charge, for team members who only need to access and review data without inputting new information or making changes
• Automated silent install, which lets users configure remote databases for Act! Premium for Web and enhancements to Global Preferences

Duet says many of the upgrades in version 17 were spawned by the company's active social community of users. "We've really enhanced it quite a bit with additional integrations and new features," he says. "Our active users were a catalyst for this."

Act! 17 is available now in English. Versions in other languages are planned for release in the coming months.

Act! Business Care subscribers will receive v17 at no additional charge. Business Care subscribers also receive an Act! emarketing discount of $15 per month in addition to existing benefits, including discounts on Handheld Contact2 and Act! Anytime Learning video training.

Further, every license of v17 includes a subscription to Act! emarketing at no additional charge. Team subscriptions to Act! emarketing are now available.

Swiftpage in July launched a cloud version of its Act! software. Act! Cloud is the company's contact and interaction management service that, unlike previous versions of Act!, is an entirely cloud-based, subscription-only service optimized for use on tablets and smartphones.

The previous Act! release, version 16, "went a long way" toward Swiftpage's goal of a fully integrated product suite, Duet says, but version 17 completes that evolution.

Swiftpage acquired Act! line, along with the Saleslogix product line, from Sage Software in February 2013. The company has since sold off Saleslogix to Infor.

Duet says Swiftpage is solidly behind the Act! line, calling it the flagship of the company's portfolio. "We are all-in on the Act! brand and product," he says. "Act! is pretty much all we do now."

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