Membership data meets Outlook
This is my Outlook address book: 
This is my Outlook address book four minutes later:
Any Questions?
Couple of points of clarification:
- Yes, the time stamps are real. It took about a minute to sync, and three minutes for me to save the first capture and reload the snipping tool
- Columns are resized and whited out to protect the innocent
- Note the size of the slider bar. 1600 member names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses imported in about a minute
- Windows 7 compatible (XP and Vista as well).
- All the normal view options in Outlook are available
So, what is this? It’s an Outlook(2007) plug-in that goes to AccessACS, grabs your data, and imports it. It creates an additional contact folder much like hotmail.com does if you use the Outlook connector. The official post from ACS Technologies is here.
Notice the miniature icon in the tool bar? That is your sync button. Everything is “One-way” so no one can change records in their Outlook and mess up your data. You cannot (at least I could not) create a distribution list from this contact list. You can add categories and filter that way, but the next time you synch, they will be overwritten. To interact with a group, your best bet is still the web login. However, you now have your member database in Outlook. Which is where our people work. This makes it SO easy to look up a member address, email, telephone, etc.
AND it is linked to an indvidual’s AccessACS login. So, this can go out to the whole staff (technically your members too, but you will have to support them).
The beauty? A member changes their personal info, church office does an upload, you sync your Outlook. All addresses are the same. There is now no reason for staff to maintain email addresses of members in their Outlook “silo”. Beauty.
No logging into ACSW or even into AccessACS or your self-branded version of it. In our case www.pinkpres.me.
I as well as members of our staff have been using the beta “look-up only” version for about a year. In fact, it was that original beta version that finally got our technologically challenged Sr. Pastor to handle his own email. No more printing it out and him dictating a response. This tool alone probably saved a dozen trees and at least one secretary from a nervous breakdown.
Member data within Outlook really is that handy. I personally had three instances yesterday where I had to respond to an email but needed to include a third and fourth party in the conversation. This tool made everything possible from right where I was.
Too bad it doesn’t work on the calendar…
But wait, there’s more!
Piece of Cupcake…G-1 Style
Couldn’t wait any longer so I manually updated my G-1 from firmware version 1.1 to ver. 1.5(Cupcake). In case you were wondering, there was nothing in between.
I could have done it a week ago and even thought about it. Chickened out as I was afraid to brick my phone before the ACS Convention (more updates on this later). That would have been embarrassing. At any rate, I couldn’t wait for the OTA update. Now that I have it, I wish I had done it earlier. Here’s why:
- Video Record. The new firmware adds video record with super simple upload to youtube. Since it is a G-1 and you are REQUIRED to have GMAIL, once you set up a youtube account, they link so there is no sign in process. You are already signed in. You do get a handy little icon to tell you when the upload is done. This would have come in very handy last week.
- On-screen keyboard in both portrait and landscape. I know you iphoners are thinking “What’s the big deal?”. The big deal is now I have onscreen PLUS slide out. My initial reaction is the G-1 onscreen is a lot easier than the iPones I have tried. A LOT easier.
- Battery life seems to be much better. Will know by the end of the week, but initial reaction is that it is.
- The compass app works better. Previously it seemed to hang-up.
- GPS fix is faster.
- All of the user interfaces are much nicer. Especially the GMAIL. This one is a major improvement.
You can find the whole list of new features here. Those above are just the ones that applied to me.
The camera still needs work. Loads faster and has a very handy upload to Picasa with ability to choose which folder the picture ends up in-but the picture quality is still not great. It’s a 3mp lens, so maybe the next software update will help it out.
Now, if they could only make it render flash…
AccessACS, G-1 and mapping
Here’s how I stumbled on to this one:
One of our senior staff members is on an extended health leave. Since I live “in that general direction” I offered to drop off some food. I had been to their house once when they first moved in but that was four years ago. I thought it best to look up their address.
So I hit the icon on my G-1 that opens AccessACS. It works much like making a desktop version of Facebook with Chrome. Browser app outside the browser kind of thing. Tap the login button, roll over the search field to search by last name, type a portion of the last name and up comes the whole family.
In the process, I rolled over their address with the thumbwheel by accident.
It highlighted.
Huh. Might as well click and see what happens.
Up pops Google maps with a pin on their house.
From there it is as simple as tapping the address, selecting “directons to this address” and “route”.
All while driving a stick in stop and go traffic. (Bad, I know).
Here’s what I know and what I don’t know:
1. If you happen to have a G-1 and open the web version of AccessACS (not the .mobi app) and are logged in as an Administrator, Staff, or Lay Leader, when you look up someone’s address you can select that address either via thumbwheel or a well placed finger tip. It works just like a selecting a phone number will automatically dial if you click on it, or an email address, etc. Popping up the map function in the same manner as the dialer function was quite the surprise.
2. It’s pretty handy if you are the type of person who makes member house calls.
3. You can do it while driving, but I don’t recommend it. (insert insurance disclaimer here). I only say that to illustrate that it is very easy.
4. I don’t know if it works on an iphone, Windows mobile, or Blackberry. I would be interested in hearing from someone who has one of these. One ACS staffer gave it an unsuccessful run on his iphone, but I did not verify his login creds.
5. I DO know if your credentials are set to “Member”, the addresses will show, but not as links you can select.
Being able to search a member address from a phone is cool. Being able to search a member address and map to it from current GPS location: Awesome.
