a contact management system that does what I need?

[PebbleBeachProd]

Hi everyone,

I need a contact management system that allows me to keep track of all the business cards currently piling up on my desk and am hoping you folks can help me identify one that does what I need.

What I'm hoping my CMS will do is allow me to organize and search on a variety of levels. For example, if I want to put Larry Smith's business card information in there, I'd be able to keep track of him based on:

- Larry Smith (his name, phone & e-mail, plus any notes might go here)
- his job (let's say he's a mortgage broker)
- how I met him (networking event, through a friend, etc.)
- the level of client he is (became a client, strong possibility to become a client, medium-shot, long-shot, what have you)

Does anyone know of a system that does that? I've come across all kinds of systems that allow me to add photos and sync to various address books, etc., but what I'm looking for is pretty basic (I think) and powerful.

I don't mind paying for it but do not want to pay a monthly/annual fee to keep it running.

Thanks, all!

 

[miles01110]

Address Book sounds like it would work for you.

 

[angelwatt]

Along with the Address Book solution. You can set up groups and drag an drop contacts into each one. You can create a client list, etc. You can also add some info to the notes section to describe the contact with any info that there isn't a field for. Then, setup a smart group and have it search for specific info in the notes section. I do this for creating smart friend/family/work groups.

 

[flynz4]

Off topic suggestion:

If you scan lots of business cards, you might want to consider getting something like the "Cardscan scanner for Mac". I keep one on my desk at work and it scans both sides of a biz card, uses OCR to get the information... places it into Address Book or an Exchange Server... and stores an image of the card in its own application. That way you can even go back to see any hand written notes you put on either side of the card.

I've found that I do not really need to check the accuracy of the OCR, because if in the future if I notice that it made an error, I can always go back to the image, and correct the database manually.

/Jim

 

[mysterytramp]

Take a look at Bento.

It can open your Address Book file, which you would still use to maintain most of the basics (an advantage because of its integration with Mail). Bento would allow you to add fields you might find necessary (like how you met the client, level of client, etc.).

There could be others, but Bento's advantage would be that you have an extra app that can do lots more than just manage contacts.

mt

 

[PebbleBeachProd]

I just took a look at Bento and it sounds like it might be just what I'm looking for (and more, most likely!). Thanks, all!

 

[PebbleBeachProd]

One other question - it says you have to have Leopard to use Bento. My Mac is a 10.5.8 version. Do you know whether that's enough?

 

[blodwyn]

One other question - it says you have to have Leopard to use Bento. My Mac is a 10.5.8 version. Do you know whether that's enough?

Yes, 10.4.x was Tiger, 10.5.x is Leopard, 10.6.x is Snow Leopard.

As another suggestion you could try Evernote, which will import pictures of business cards, do an OCR on the contents and make it searchable. You can also set multiple tags to help filter what you're looking for.

 

[nadyne]

You could do this in Entourage (part of Office:Mac). Name, phone number, email, etc all go in the defined fields, and you can type notes too.

Then you could set up categories for each of your "client", "maybe", "longshot", etc. Then you can assign the correct category to each contact in your Entourage address book. You can assign multiple categories to anything, so you could also set up categories for "networking", "friend", etc. When you're viewing your contacts in your Entourage address book, you can sort on category, so you can easily see which ones are "longshot". You can also set up Entourage to automatically assign categories to your emails based on who's sending them, so you can see at-a-glance in your inbox how much mail you're getting from your current clients and how much you're getting from your long shots.

Regards,
Nadyne.