The GoldMine Blog - Tips, Tricks & More

Sale of GoldBox 7 has been suspended...  More information is available here:

http://www.redstonesoftbase.com/index_000009.htm

Not too much going on from FrontRange this quarter, but here it is:

1) 25% Discount on GoldMine VoiceSuite and GoldMine Mobile Edition sales when purchased with new or upgrades to Corporate Edition by October 31st.

2) Come Back to GoldMine - Waive 10% Maintenance Renewal penalty.  Just pay back maintenance. 10% off any bumps or add-on products.

Danger Will Robinson Danger!

Recent updates to Microsoft Office 2007 Beta renders GoldMine non-functional with BDE errors.  This is confirmed with GoldMine 6.7 and lower.  I saw the first instance of it with a client today.  The fix is easy, uninstall the beta software.

Also, you may want to try the fix posted here:

http://forums.microsoft.com/technet/showpost.aspx?postid=754988&siteid=17

It involves editing the registry to be careful but allows Office 2007 to function with BDE applications.

P.S. Get notified of the newest Blog postings as they happen!

Go to: http://www.thegmblog.com/notify and fill out the form.  Whenever I update the Blog you'll be notified so you can check out the new post.

There’s nothing worse than preparing to run a batch of letters, emails, labels or a filter and realizing the data just isn’t ‘good’ or ‘clean’ enough to get a good list.  Well here’s 5 Cool Ideas for maintaining good GoldMine data.

•  Use the “Required Data Entry” checkbox under a field’s security properties to force users to enter data in a field like contact, address, city, state, zip, or contact type.

•  Use the Lookup.ini to auto-populate the Dear field, which is used to denote what should go after the word ‘Dear’ in a letter, with the contact’s first name.

•  Standardize your lookup entries for fields like contact type and use the field’s lookup Setup to force valid input, i.e. to pick for something on the list.

•  Use a program like AccuMail Gold® or GoldPlus to scan your database to correct bad addresses. (Interested, ask me for more information)

•  Develop a set of data standards for users.  These should spell out which fields should be filled in as well as formatting, e.g. “IBM” or “GM” rather than “I.B.M.” or “General Motors”.

GoldBox 7 has been re-released from RedStoneSoftbase...  GoldBox is pretty much the premier data manipulation add-on for GoldMine, central features include:

• Import/Update - GoldMine & dBase tables
• Export from GoldMine & dBase tables
• Merge-Purge Main Contacts
• Global Replace GoldMine & dBase tables
• Global Delete GoldMine & dBase tables
• Archive Main Notes to History Items
• Convert BDE table to dBase
• Automation - Scripting - Timer Launch
• GoldBox Views (live link to outside data)
• Mirror - Update any accessible outside table
• Wild Card Referencing
• Group Builder / Groups-by-Break
• Organization Chart Creator
• Hub-n-Spoke Referral Generator
• Global Path & User Name Changer
• Modify any GoldMine Lookup List
• INI Settings Replicator
• Merge-Purge any accessible outside table
• Dedupe GoldMine & dBase tables

GoldBox 7 was recently pulled from from the market due to problemes with its interaction with GoldMine 7.  I am pleased to note that I do have it working on my test system with GoldMine 7.0.3 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

On the left side of the Blog is now 'Blog Bar' which will let you search the blog for key words, phrases, etc.  I hope you find this useful!

One hint - Change search from Google (the default) to Google Blog Search on the drop down.  The results will be much more accurate.

Cheers!

Chad

Here's a handy SQL Query for you.  It will show all primary and secondary contacts in the database.  If the secondary contact has an address it'll display that address and if they don't it'll use the address information from the primary contact.  To use go to:

Lookup | SQL Query then paste this into the box and hit query.  I tested this on 6.7 SQL 2000 & 7.0 SQL 2005.  It won't work on dBASE.

select company, contact, title, address1, address2, address3, city, state, zip, phone1, contact1.accountno from contact1
union
select contact1.company, contsupp.contact, contsupp.title, contact1.address1, contact1.address2, contact1.address3, contact1.city, contact1.state, contact1.zip, contsupp.phone, contact1.accountno from contact1, contsupp where rectype = 'C' and (contsupp.address1 is null or contsupp.address1 <= '') and contact1.accountno = contsupp.accountno
union
select contact1.company, contsupp.contact, contsupp.title, contsupp.address1, contsupp.address2, contsupp.address3, contsupp.city, contsupp.state, contsupp.zip, contsupp.phone, contact1.accountno from contact1, contsupp where rectype = 'C' and contsupp.address1 > ' ' and contact1.accountno = contsupp.accountno
order by company, contact

After working with a GoldMine contact for a few years you'll find their history tab becomes an absolute treasure trove, some might say "GoldMine" of information!  Finding that exact history nugget can, though, be challenging.  Fortunately, we are able to add a filter to the GoldMine History (and Pending) tab to help you find what you are looking for.

First, go to the History tab.  Then within the Tab do a Right-Click | Options | Filter.

This brings us to the Activity Filter window.  Here we can base our filter on the user, activity type (call, appointment, email, etc.), date range, activity code, result code, and reference text.  Simply check the boxes you want to filter by and then enter the criteria then click OK.  In the screen shot below you'll see that we've chosen to filter based on the User and Date Range.

So our History Tab now looks like this.

You'll notice above the Reference column it now says, "Filter Active", showing you a filter is active.  To release this filter simply do a Right-Click | Options | Release Filter to go back to standard viewing. You can also do a Right-Click | Options | Filter again to change your filter criteria.

Happy GoldMining!

Chad