Question: How can I bring in a field from my contact manager?
Answer: QwikQuote’s [User Field ] button on the Quote screen enables you to include most fields from your contact manager including your contact manager’s user-definable fields. For instance, suppose you have defined your first User Definable field in ACT! as “Terms”, and you want that field to appear automatically on every layout. The “Terms” for each contact will automatically print just like the contact’s address or phone number.

1. Ensure that the contact manager is set up correctly in Options | Contacts. If the contact manager itself is not linked, the information will not appear.
2. Click on the User Fields button on the Quote screen.
3. Click on “Configure” in “QwikQuote User-Definable Fields”
4. The “Maintain QwikQuote User-Defined Fields” appears. This is a list of any fields you have defined. Click on the “Add” button.
5. The “Configure User-Definable Fields” box appears. This is where you will define the new field. For purposes of this explanation, we are configuring a User-Defined Field in ACT! called “Terms.” On the first line – Name of Field – type in any name you want to call the field. You may use “Terms” or “Payment Terms” or whatever you find descriptive: the name does not affect the link. Longer names will wrap-around; we suggest you keep the name to about 12 characters.
6. On the second line – Field Type – click on the down arrow, and select from “Single-line Text,” “Multi-line Text,” “Alphabetical list,” or “Random order List.” When working with a contact manager, you will most often choose “Single-line Text” because the fields in a contact manager are usually a single line. The other options will generally be applied to new fields that you will create, not fields in Contact Managers.
7. On the third line – Validate Input As – we will leave “None,” since we are looking for a string of alphabetic characters. You also have the option of ensuring that the data is a credit card number, that the credit card expiration date has not passed, that the data is a date, or that it is numeric data. These options can be applied to other fields as appropriate.
8. The fourth line – Conversion – will usually be set to “None” unless you have imported your data in all caps, and wish to convert it to lower case.
9. The fifth line – Must be filled in to print or save the quote – can be checked to ensure that the field is filled in. If it is checked, and the user-field is empty in your contact manager, you will get a message when you try to save or print saying, “You must choose a value for user-defined field Payment Terms before saving.”
10. There are three more choices under the line in the “Configure User-Defined Fields” box. These are mutually exclusive, and only the first is used for linking to a contact manager. Click on “Retrieve Contact Manager Field.”
11. In the box to the right of “Retrieve Contact Manager Field,” type the exact field item name from the Contact Manager Link Table below. For the first user-defined field in ACT!, you would type: User_1
12. Click the OK buttons on the three open windows. You have completed a link to your contact manager fields, and can now choose the field in QwikQuote’s Layout (click on the “Field” button.) Place it wherever you prefer on your quote design.
See ACT!; GoldMine; Maximizer Link Table, in the QwikQuote Help file. i.e. “ACT! Link Table”
Filed under: Fields | Tagged: Contact Fields, Fields, Link, Linked Fields, Retrieve Fields, User Fields | Leave a Comment »