We have recently picked up a new client that has been without reliable IT direction for about a decade now. In the beginning of the decade, they were advised by their contracted IT professional to install and use Sage's ACT! 2000 to manage their contacts and other information on their small business network. Actually, I believe it was Intuit or someone else back then who owned ACT!.
Regardless, they purchased ACT! 2010 recently, and are understandably having issues with the conversion of the database. One cannot reasonably expect that an upgrade will just "go smoothly" after a lapse of ten years of releases and updates.
I am not well experienced with ACT!, but am aware of what it is and how it works. Here's their setup:
- ACT! 2000 database hosted on their in-house Windows 2000 server, not sharing the app; just the database.
- Three Windows XP Pro SP3 workstations access the database daily for routine business tasks.
The problem lies in the conversion of the existing database from 2000 to 2010, as one would expect. When importing the 2000 database into 2010 on a workstation, all seems to go smoothly until the very end of the conversion. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get the exact error message from the client, as they are they only ones who have seen it. From what I understand, the conversion takes a good three to four hours to occur, and errors out at the end of the progress bar.
I wish I could provide more information at this time, but sadly cannot until they attempt this again. They have been on the phone with Sage a few times over this issue, and I understand they remotely administered a workstation to perform the conversion with the same problem. The client told me that the Sage rep "didn't seem to be surprised" by the problem. Me neither.
At any rate, they really need to convert this database into something usable by ACT! 2010. I'm just wondering if anyone has suggestions for making this happen. Does ACT! 2000 support exporting the database to CSV or another more universal format? If so, could it then be imported into 2010? Maybe there is a different approach that they could take?
I am in the process of modernizing their network infrastructure, but have not yet set them up for remote administration with us yet, so I apologize for the lack of detail. If more information is needed, please let me know and I will contact the client to get any info you guys need.
Thanks in advance!
by: GLComputingPosted on 2009-10-21 at 06:01:55ID: 25623440
It was Symantec who owned ACT! in 2000.
Normally, the database should convert without issue unless there is some corruption in the daabase. It's a good idea to run the maintenance options in the old version before the conversion
However, you should not that ACT! 2010 won't run on Windows 2000. They will need to host the database on one of their XP boxes or upgrade to server to 2003 or 2008
To convert the database, I'd recommend doing this:
- Download and install the ACT! 6.0 30-day trial from http://kb.sagesoftwareonli
- Run the repair options from http://kb.sagesoftwareonli
- If they want to also bring in attached files, you'll need to move them to a folder on the machine you're going to run the conversion. You'll then need to use something like Oak!check! too set the attachment location in the database to the correct locations - http://www.glcomputing.com
- Then open the database in ACT! 2010, which will convert it.
If that fails, post the error message and the conversion log.