ENEWS > SUMMER 2007 > YOUR BUSINESS POWERED BY ACT!

YOUR BUSINESS POWERED BY ACT!
Add any Report or Word Processing
File to a Menu or Toolbar

ACT! comes with over 40 built-in reports that can give you great insight to your business. However, many organizations require a customized report on a regular basis, making it time consuming to find and run these reports since they don’t exist on the main toolbars or menus.

One great way to make easy access to common reports is to add it to a menu or toolbar. This article describes the method to add your favorite report or word processing to a menu or toolbar for easy access.

Create a Custom Command
First we must create the report as a Custom Command so that we have something to add to a menu or toolbar. Start by accessing the Custom Commands function by selecting the Tools from the top level menus and then Customize> Menus & Toolbars...

Once you have the Customize menus and Toolbars open, click on the Custom Commands Tab.

Select the New button to activate the Command name field.  For this exercise let’s name the Command name “Opportunities by Product,” and then fill out the optional tooltip field for the popup label.

Next, select browse to select the file location of the report or word processing template we want to add, we’ll select Opportunities by Product.rpt file for our purposes here. 

Tip: Be sure to browse for all files in the file selector so that you can view reports in the Open file dialog. 

Add an icon or use the default ACT! icon and then select the Add Command button.

Drag-and-drop the Report to a Menu or Toolbar
Next, we need to add the report to the Report menu for easy access. Star by selecting the Commands tab and highlight the Custom Commands from the Categories list view. You should see the report command we created above.

Select the report and, using the mouse, drag-and-drop to the menu or toolbar to which you wish to add it.
 

The black bar indicates the entry point so all you’ll need to do is drop the report in the desired location.

That’s all that required to add your favorite report or word processing template to any ACT! menu or toolbar. 

Brandon Balsley
Product Management, ACT!
Sage Software, Small Business Division