ContactMD


For anyone that needs to record and manage extensive information on contacts, addresses, mailing lists, . . . and much more!








Concept

Keeping a definitive record of all your contacts and addresses is essential for anyone and any business or organisation.

Scope

It is important to have contact and address information easily accessible and easy to capture. To build up a comprehensive list takes time and effort - during this process you start to gather more information about the people such as other email addresses, other people associated, birthdays, diary events, . . . the ContactMD takes this all into account and records extensive information in an efficient way.

The ContactMD is ideal for individuals, societies, associations, businesses, organisations, . . .

The ContactMD can be used as a basic contact and address system, or an extensive management tool.



Full specifications


  • Scope: this product is a fully relational database that captures the wide variety of information that goes into managing contact and address information.
  • Contact details: this component stores contact and address information (name, organisation, title, street and postal address, area, city, state/province, country, phone, fax, cell phone, email, Internet, etc.). Related to a Contact is:
    • biographical - personal details such as ID numbers, birthdays, ...
    • associated people - other people associated with the person, business or organisation
    • related addresses - relate contacts to each other and record the relationship between them
    • other addresses - any additional addresses
    • other contact numbers - any additional contact numbers
    • other online addresses - any additional online addresses such as email and Internet addresses
    • filter codes - lets you group contacts and create multiple mailing lists
    • name lists - used for creating name tags
    • hyperlinks and images - links to images, spreadsheets, etc. Very useful if you are recording pictures of people, buildings, etc.
    • events - keep a diary record of events such as meetings
    • keywords - links to the Thesaurus to track any keywords that identify the address
  • Switchboard: although the Switchboard is not new to the Contact MD, it is now given new importance. The Switchboard appears after you have entered your username / password and guides you to the main features and functionality. Over the last couple of years Logos Flow has been observing how user interact with the various database products. For new users, it is normally about adding, editing and easily finding information they have captured. For experienced users, it is about quickly locating information and performing various tasks such as networking, updating, printing, etc. The Switchboard has been upgraded to accommodate these requirements:
    • Start: lets you immediately capture a new record and shows the number of records captured in the main sections. You can click to access the data or use the Quick Search feature to locate information according to the criteria you enter.
    • Backups: the importance cannot be over-stated and there is now a detailed guide to backing up your data.
    • Support: access the continuously updated online support directly.
    • Networking: much easier access to network your database if you are using one. This feature used to be called 'Update Data Source' which was not so easy to locate - now it is easily available.
    • Website: access the Logos Flow website.
  • Groups: this component lets you compile lists of addresses, whether email or postal, via a user-friendly interface. Groups can be everyone receiving a newsletter, invitation, press release, product information, etc. You simply select names from the address list to build up your group. There is no limit to the number of groups, and no limit to the number of groups a person can belong to. Whenever you need to create a list of email or postal addresses, you select the group and use the bulk messaging option.
  • Filter codes: this component does exactly what Groups does but just in a different way. Each addresses can be assigned a variety of filter codes that are used to group addresses together, i.e. the code 'NL' might indicate that someone receives your newsletter. Note: each address can have more than one filter code (belong to more than one group). You can print labels or bulk email to the various groups that match a particular filter code.
  • Bulk messaging: this feature is used to create bulk email or postal address lists. You can create these lists using either the Groups or Filter codes option. Lists can also be created by filtering your database according to any criteria, for example: create a list of addresses of a particular town or city. You can also select those without an email address and print labels to send via the post.
  • Biographical: this component stores information about the person (date of birth, place of birth, age, ID number, current and historical employment details, education history, profile, etc.). Related to biographical info is:
    • other numbers - these can be any numbers: passport, banks accounts, car registration, policy numbers, membership numbers, etc.
  • Associated people: this component is used to store all names of people associated with a contact. This could be people associated with a company, organisation, etc., or it could be members of a family. For example: if you have an organisation's address recorded and you would like to associate 20 employees - you simply associate these to the one address. This way you do not have to create 20 extra address entries. Other features include:
    • Quick look-up list to view all people associated. You can also jump directly to a person from this new list.
    • To move an associated person is very simply now - you can look-up a person or organisation from the main Contact component. Ideal, if someone is moving from one organisation to another, you simply look-up the new organisation from the list to move them. All their related information is automatically transferred.
    • Each associated person can have their own addresses, contact numbers, and online addresses. You can also search across all associated people and open the main contact and address information related.
  • Activities are courses, conferences, lectures, training programmes, social events, etc. Apart from recording details of an activity, you can add dates, fees / costs due, special notes, etc. You can also track costs - whether paid or unpaid - across one activity and see a running total. All the people related to an activity can be selected for printing / exporting purposes, i.e. you need to create mailing labels for everyone attending a particular activity.
  • Related addresses: this feature lets you related contacts to each other and describe the relationship; i.e. work together, husband, etc. Relating contacts is now simply a matter of looking up on a list.
  • Other addresses: this component stores information about other addresses (type, street and postal address, area, city, state/province and country) such as home and old addresses. You can record as many other addresses as necessary.
  • Other contact numbers: record any additional contact numbers (telephone, fax, mobile phone, etc.)
  • Other online addresses: record any additional online addresses (email, Internet, FTP, etc.).
  • Name list: this is a useful component that creates name lists useful for printing labels, or tags, for various functions, events, conferences, etc.
  • Email list: if you only need to create a list of email addresses, with no other details (i.e. name, etc.), then you use this feature. You can still group the email addresses using Groups (see above).
  • Hyperlinks and images: the hyperlinks feature is found throughout the database which offer linking to images, documents, spreadsheets, the Internet, audio files, etc. This truly turns your database into the nerve centre of managing your stock as literally any file can be linked. Also the files are stored outside the database, which means you can link to DVDs, CDs, external hard drives or folder on your computer / server. This means your database is never cluttered with large files. Regarding images:
    • if a link is made to an image it can be viewed as a thumbnail, clipped, zoomed, opened in your image editing program ... all from within the database
    • set the orientation is the image: portrait or landscape
    • select the main image (i.e. for reports and your website / intranet)
    • if you have setup an image bank and use the Item ID to guide your file naming, you can instantly create links to your images
    • check the path and file is correct from within the database
  • Hyperlink thumbnails: this feature creates a thumbnail of images linked to an object - as you move through the collection the thumbnail is automatically refreshed.
  • Messages: this feature is used to send email messages from within the database. You can also compile CC and BCC lists and attach files to your messages.
  • Notes: there are a number of areas where you can keep general notes.
  • Reports: either print or export contact and address information to a variety of formats. Print lists, tables, labels, envelopes and even cards with images.
  • Exporting: a number of exporting options are available, whether you need to generate a document to be sent as an email attachment, or export the entire database to a spreadsheet ... and more.
  • Quick view: a useful feature that lets you scroll up and down a list of contacts and instantly open the all the main address information related.
  • Merging: prefer to create your own reports? Although there are a variety of print and export options, these are limited in what is displayed and how it is displayed. With the merging feature, you can choose not only what to display but how it is displayed. Merging functions with any product with merging options, for example: Microsoft® Word. Utilising this feature is not difficult but you will need to know how to merge with data.

Documentation and Management

Computerisation has dramatically changed this and most collections are either computerised or in the process of becoming so. Click here to read more about how to go about this.

Collections

Some information about types of collections, computerising, documenting, accessing, and more . . . click here


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