Contact Management for Mac
September 12th, 2006
I have thoroughly enjoyed the transition of switching from a Windows environment. I have grown into an Apple enthusiast and evangelist. The OS is more intuitive, less prone to crashes (never), better looking, and just more fun to use. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to a Windows machine.
However, I am less than thrilled with the contact management solutions I have come across thus far. I started off using Mac Mail, iCal, and Address Book, but didn’t like having to flip between the apps to manage each. I was looking for an all-in-one application.
I had purposely held off on using the Entourage application. I had never liked MSFT Outlook when I used Windows, and was reluctant to try a MSFT offering on my clean Mac. But, I had already installed Word and Excel, so I figured I’d give it a shot. While Entourage has it’s perks (I really like the Project Management feature), overall the entire application is clunky and unresponsive. It is the only application on my PowerBook that I have to wait for. After downloading mail, I have to wait 30 seconds before I can click anything in the mail. Completely unacceptable.
So now I am looking for an alternative. I have looked around a bit, but haven’t yet found what I am looking for. Basically, Outlook for a Mac that doesn’t suck. So not the real Outlook, which does suck, but something that has email, address book, and calendar functionality. Otherwise, it’s back to Mac defaults, because I give up on MSFT.
PS - I am also looking for a new web based calendar, so compatability would be nice.
September 13th, 2006 at 8:22 am
PowerBook!? Dude, you gotta go Intel for the best Mac experience. They just released the 64 bit chips and one just arrived in the office. Dang its fast.
I’m in the same boat. Unfortunately I’m on Entourage now and hating it but its the best solution I can find. If Thunderbird would ever get the calendar fully integrated I’d move.
September 28th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
I had exactly the same experience - moved from Windows, love Mac, hate the clunky Entourage but needed to link contacts with communications with events.
For the past couple months I have been using OD4Contact by Objective Decision (http://www.objective-decision.com/). This was pretty good, with nice touches like bluetooth phone integration to log your calls, but had no event management.
However, they have just come out with a replacement product, Contactizer 3 Pro, which adds event management. Bit too early to tell if it meets all my needs, and no doubt there will be a few initial bug fixes required, but they offer a 30-day trial download so worth taking a look…
January 16th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
I’m also in the same boat. I’m actually looking for a non-web-based app that will work for both PC and Mac, alas, have found none. But, if you just need it to work on Mac, Daylite looks pretty cool. I would probably go for it, but my co-workers are dependent upon PC’s…
http://www.marketcircle.com/daylite/
March 17th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
I´m a “Macero” in Spain with in the same situation. I used to use Act!, but they only support Windows now. For software supporting Mac/PC, Filemaker Pro is a good option and is pretty powerful. There a lots of templates available for working-up your own database. For CRM, there is 7Office which requires FP installation, as well. Saludos, Gary
July 6th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Has anyone tried Now Up-to-Date/Contact 5? The company will soon launch a replacement called Nighthawk, which looks really interesting.
I too was an ACT! user but after switching to Mac a few years ago….have my database on one computer while I work on another….just isn’t productive.
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I know this is an old thread, but I’m searching for the same thing, only for small business, not personal, use. Any new recommends? Is Nighthawk worth waiting for? Is the new version of Entourage going to be much better? One thing Entourage does not do now is sync categories. What do you think of Daylite or Contactizer Pro? I want something that will be around and supported for a long time.
October 15th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Same boat. I’d like something that integrates with the iPhone as well. I’ve been looking for a little while and have not seen anything that does everything. Seems like they all have unique features. Filemaker Pro 9 seemed like a great solution, but I don’t have time to learn a DB program right now.
October 15th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
Calum,
Thank you for the information on Contactizer. I finished doing what I needed to in Mac’s “Address Book” and realized that I would need something with more options. I downloaded the free trial of Contactizer and it seems to be working very well (on a 3.5 year old non-intel mac as well). I like the layout and its intuitive to use.
As far as syncing to the iPhone goes. This works too. I added a test contact in Contactizer and then opened Address Book. The contact was already there, so all I had to do was plug in my iPhone and all the data moved over seamlessly.
So far so good. I will stop my search and stay with this program unless I run into something. Thanks again to this blog for helping me find a solution.
M.M.
October 25th, 2007 at 6:11 am
I switched to Mac two years ago and tried Daylite. Personally think this is a horrible program - not intuitive, complicated, etc. I’ve been looking for new program for a year and have my sights on nighthawk. However, they keep pushing back the release date. Hoping that it will be released as soon as Apple releases Leopard. If there are any other options, let us know!
November 4th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
I also need a good contact management system. I want it to integrate with Apple’s applications and ideally it will integrate with a web-based mailing list service. Any suggestions?
November 28th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
I have two years experience with now contact and now up to date. These are great programs on the mac but the reason I got it was to share a contact data base with my pc co-workers. The PC calendar is OK but the PC contact management program is terrible. I have spent many hours trying to get it to share date with my mac using a mac server and it just doesn’t work. And the company can’t make it work either. I doubt Nighthawk will solve these problems.
November 29th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Maybe we will get lucky and Apple will come up with a plan to get a contact management software together that integrates its entire suite. I hear that ATT is going to allow the iphone to be sold into business accounts in the very near future.
December 7th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I, too, have not found a contact management system for Mac that syncs with my Palm Treo and that also allows the range of display options that Outlook allows for on my PC — which I continue to own exclusively for the ability to sync my Treo’s contact. If I ever find something that allows that, I’ll sell my Dell for a buck. Well, maybe a bit more than a buck, but it will be out of my house before I can unplug it.
December 8th, 2007 at 8:54 am
I, too, am a former ACT! user, now come over from the dark side to Mac and am looking for a replacement program. I don’t want to run Windows on my Mac, so ACT! isn’t an option. I’ve checked Now Up To Date, but it doesn’t fully integrate with email. Daylite3 has peculiarities in the display of the calendar that are deal killers and it doesn’t fully integrate with email either.
While looking into switching to Mac I was struck by the lack of understanding of both Mac users and Apple store people of the need for a fully integrated contact management program - even knowledge of what it is. Given the growth of people switching from PC to Mac, this has to be a good opportunity for a software company.
Whoever finds a fully integrated answer, please let us all know.
January 14th, 2008 at 6:59 am
We’re looking into the same challenges. You may want to consider a hosted solution like Salesforce.com - that’s what i’m going to start looking at. You get a lot of CRM/Sales force automation and then, at the end of the day, my hope is that it will synch with contacts and calendar in Kerio server/entourage.
January 17th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Let’s hope the folks from Apple will see that CRM integration is an issue to he reckoned with soon. I too have thought Salesforce.com might do the trick, but want to control my own destiny within my environment. Maybe I’ll just have to compromise.
January 28th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Go to the Filemaker website, look at Benito. (I might be mis-spelling it). It’s in ver. 1 so it might be clunky and more of a beta (that’s what a couple of reviews said) but it promises versatile contact management, user configurable, integrated with iCal, Mail and Address Book. And it syncs to the iPhone. It’s a free download to try.
February 18th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Try crusecontrol.com contacts3. It’s not a cheap solution if you don’t already have filemaker but seems to do the job.
March 5th, 2008 at 8:36 am
My office uses Now Contact and Now up to date. It works great for what we do. If I need to email someone in the contact database I just have to click on their email address and Entourage opens a new email window. No one has tried to use their iPhone with it but I know that it will sync with other devices.
We have all of our databases set up on a server so that the entire office has access.
I have a fair amount of experience with FileMaker but have never used it as a master database for client management.
April 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Same - unsolved - problem here, also coming from Now UTDC/C, running it parallel with Entourage. It is such a hassle to keep several contact lists; on top of that the Entourage calendar is so weak it’s not funny.
To add more complications, I’m self-employed and need to sync two, often three Macs w/o a server, not to mention a Palm (or soon a Symbian device). Daylight isn’t the solution, NUTD/C isn’t anymore, the Apple suite isn’t: doesn’t anyone have mercy with us? Thunderbird?
April 8th, 2008 at 10:06 am
hey there all,
they call me lucky and im not new to the problems we are having…. though its coming im goint to down load daylite 3 it bosts a fare bit of stuff…. ill go check it out….there was a way i thought with file maker pro to do all we would need…. but i need a caned solution i am not a data base guy……Grrrrrrrrr!
let ya know….
“lucky”
May 9th, 2008 at 7:03 am
The “holy grail” seems to be complete integration of everything. Strangely, what I want is a contact management/sales tool that stands completely apart from Entourage, Address Book, etc. When someone makes the transition from prospect to client, then I can add them to the world of people I live and work with, but until then I’d rather keep them separate. Like George Costanza, I don’t want those worlds to collide! Any suggestions?
May 9th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I’ve used macs for years, and since december 07 it’s been my everyday work computer. In the past I used ACT! for several years while running my engineering business, but when it went through a complete redesign I found it slow, and confusing to navigate through.. and it’s not on Mac.
It depends what your needs really are. My needs are to track conversations, tasks, documents, etc. with all my business contacts, for running a small business. We do not have any need for sales team type CRM, that covers transitioning leads, to opportunities, through to sales.
Do you need to track full CRM, Leads thru Sales?
Do you need collaborative functionality?
Is working offline versus online important to you?
Do you simply want Contact Management rather than full CRM?
Do you prefer a simple and pleasant user interface?
Are you fine with a “database” looking interface?
For full CRM there are many options, and would most likely require collaborative functionality for your sales team. Companies such as SugarCRM, and Salesforce.com can provide this for monthly service fees. They are platform independent as they are web based Application Service Providers.
If that is your need then I would opt for an open source version (most are simple to setup.. I have used them), where you maintain your data on your server. From my research I found no reason to use Salesforce.com over the open source version of SugarCRM, or vtiger. My preference being vtiger, due to it’s nicer GUI and slightly better features.
These can also be setup on your Mac standalone if you know how to configure your apache server, php, and mysql. This takes a little programming expertise, but instructions are readily available online.
If collaboration is less important and you want a desktop application with the benefit of being able to work offline, then Entourage and Daylite seem to be the most advanced. I like neither. In fact most CRM/Contact Managers that I look at are overly complicated. Can’t anyone design something more intuitive for a simple and effective workflow?
I have yet to test out Filemaker Pro, Bento, or Contactizer which may prove to provide what I need.
From my years of business experience I prefer task specific applications that keep it simple. This is why I really like Highrise (highrisehq.com) from 37Signals. It’s NOT full CRM, so if that’s what you need then it’s not for you.
It IS simple, clean, and works really well, somewhere between a plain Contact Manager, and a CRM application. It’s web based, collaborative, and although I want a desktop software solution I keep coming back to highrise. I’m not a paying customer yet, but need to make a decision this week.
Comments, and feedback appreciated for those also needing just a good Contact Manager.
Cheers,
J.
May 12th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Just downloaded Daylite on their 30 day trial. It takes a little getting used to and reports seem to require a programmer. I’ll let you know how I do in a couple of weeks. BTW folks at Daylite actually return email, how refreshing!