Striking Gold With Management Programs
In case you haven’t noticed, the Internet is coming to dominate the personal computer industry. Just about every type of software I can think of--from games to spreadsheets--now includes features designed to take advantage of the communications power of the Net. For now at least, “connectivity” is becoming the most highly touted feature of many programs.
Internet Sidekick (Windows 95, $69) from Starfish Software (https:// www.starfishsoftware.com) and GoldMine 3.2 (Windows, $199) from GoldMine Software (https://www .goldminesw.com) are good examples. New versions of these popular information-management programs have been upgraded so users can take advantage of the Internet to coordinate schedules, plan meetings and update their contact lists.
Sidekick, which was introduced in 1984, has always included a phone and address directory, a personal calendar and a scheduling function as well as a note-taking module and calculator. GoldMine has the same general features as well as sophisticated contact management tools that allow salespeople and other professionals to keep a running history of conversations, business deals and other details about the people in their databases.
Both programs, along with similar “personal information managers” such as Lotus Organizer and Day Timer Organizer, have long enabled users who work for the same organization to coordinate schedules and plan meetings via a local area network (LAN). But with the addition of Internet connectivity, collaboration is no longer limited to the folks who happen to be connected by cables running through the walls of their common office space. We now have a global area network.
With a LAN-based personal organizer or contact management system, any person in the organization could propose a meeting time and have the software automatically find a time when the parities will be available. That’s great, but meetings aren’t necessarily limited to people who happen to work in the same office. I’m part of the growing army of the self-employed who work at home so--except for the times I sit down with my wife, kids or pets--all of my meetings are with people who work outside my rather humble facility.
With Internet Sidekick, a user can schedule a meeting with anyone with an e-mail address, even if the other person doesn’t use Sidekick. You go into the activities area of the program, schedule a meeting and “invite” participants by copying their names from the program’s Rolodex-like card file to a meeting planning area.
You then click “send/receive” and, if you’re connected to the Internet, the program sends an e-mail message to each person invited to the meeting. Invitees who have Internet Sidekick can press the send/receive button on their copy and have the program scan their e-mail for invitations. If it finds an invitation, it gives the person a chance to accept the meeting, decline or propose up to three alternate times.
Any party can send the others a report of available time that is automatically generated from that individual’s personal calendar. Even though the entire process is taking place over e-mail, no one has to read or pay any attention to e-mail messages. The program does all that for you.
If you are inviting someone who doesn’t own Sidekick, the program sends a regular e-mail message to that person. To accept or decline, all the invitee does is place an “X” in an appropriate place and send the message back. Sidekick reads that message and acts accordingly.
The program eliminates playing phone tag--which can be a real time and frustration saver, especially when trying to schedule a meeting with several people.
GoldMine 3.2, which also runs under Windows 95, has all the basic PIM functions and some very impressive extras. Billed as a “contact manager,” it is a combination time manager, task manager and people manager. You can even use it to send and receive e-mail.
When a message comes in, the program tries to match the sender with a name in your database. If it doesn’t find one, it prompts you to add that person so you can keep track of his or her mail, phone calls and other contacts. The whole idea is to keep all your contacts in one place. GoldMine doesn’t care whether you communicate by e-mail, fax, phone, pager or psychic intermediary. It gives you one database to keep track of all your contacts and all the ways you can reach them.
Like other contact managers, the database lets you keep track of previous phone calls, sales and other pertinent data about each person on your list. The Time Manager portion of the program lets you keep track of when you have to do what, so you don’t miss important phone calls or appointments. There is also a task manager you can use to delegate tasks to others--assuming, of course, that you have someone to delegate them to.
What makes this program unique is the way it lets users share information over the Internet. Any two owners of GoldMine 3.2 can synchronize all or part of their calendars or contact lists. If a sales manager in Cincinnati wants to send a list of potential customers to a salesperson in Los Angeles, that would automatically be entered to the salesperson’s GoldMine database, ready to “mine.” You can also use the Internet to schedule appointments or--as with Sidekick--show another user your available time.
Another neat Internet trick GoldMine makes possible is transferring data from a Web site to a contact list. The product comes with a script that a company can use to post an inquiry form on its site. As soon as someone fills out the form, it can be sent via e-mail to a GoldMine user, who can capture the information directly into the contact list.
At $199, GoldMine is considerably more expensive than Internet SideKick, but if you need this type of sophisticated contact management, it’s a worthwhile investment. You can download a free 60-day evaluation copy from the company’s Web site.
Lawrence J. Magid can be reached via e-mail at magid@latimes.com. His World Wide Web page is at https://www.larrysworld.com
