Linking Applications together

[kimberleyallen]

I wonder if anyone can help me. I rent out my property in Spain and am looking for a way to make things more efficient. I am a Mac newbie and so am struggling a little! For each of my clients I have the following:

ADDRESS BOOK: Contact details & notes about the booking
iCAL: Calendar entry for booking
FINDER: Folder for documents sent / received, booking forms, accounts etc.
MAIL: Email folder for correspondence

iCAL:
In iCal I have the calendar entry for the booking. If I made the entry with information from an email I can click 'URL' in the info section and it will take me to the original email. Is there any way that the URL link can be changed to the email folder where all my email correspondence is stored for that client, rather than just one particular email

Similarly in the 'attachment' area I can link to a file, can I change that to link to the folder where I have my documents for that client stored rather than just one particular file

Also can I place a link to the Address Book entry for that client so that I can quickly look at my notes when I am in iCal

ADDRESS BOOK
Is there any way that I can put links in the notes section to link to the iCal entry, the relevant Email folder and the relevant Finder folder?

I'm basically looking for a way to switch between all the info I have for one client when I'm looking at their booking in iCal or their entry in Address Book. I used to have a management program (Guestracker) that did all this for me but I only had the windows version and it's no longer available. I have searched on the web for something similar but they are all too complicated for my needs, and too expensive, and I thought I could probably achieve the same thing using the software I already have on my MacBookPro. Also iCal and Address Book will sync to my iPhone through Mobile Me meaning I have the information to hand if I'm away from my computer, I haven't been able to find any Mac software that does that.

I hope I have made sense!

 

[Kyffin]

Have you tried Bento? Afraid I can't be of help with doing what you want using the native software as I've not been able to figure that out myself- in the end went with Bento and it sounds like it'll do exactly what you want it to do.

Its a project management/database and it syncs with iCal, AddressBook and Mail so you'll have all the information gathered in one place, with the ability to search and work with any of the elements from there. You can also keep your relevant documents (which you have in Finder) there with the other information . There are limitations to the app, but for what you describe it should do the job and it is a straightforward program to use. There is a free trial, if you want to check it out...

http://www.filemaker.co.uk/products/bento/

 

[kimberleyallen]

Bento

I've finally got around to installing the free trial for Bento but I have come unstuck straight away! I just don't seem to be able to get my head around it! I've opened the address book and immediately saw that my contacts that have been stored with company names rather than first and last aren't showing up in the list view but I can't work out how to display additional fields that are already present in my contacts, rather than creating a new field. Can anyone point me in the direction of some simple step by step video training so that I can learn this app? I just need to be able to understand how it works!