Integrate 3CX with Sage ACT!

IMPORTANT: This guide has been tested with Sage ACT! 2009, Sage ACT! 2010 and Sage ACT! 2011. Older versions of Sage ACT! are not supported. You need a local Sage ACT! installation for the plugin to work.

The Sage ACT! Plugin

The 3CX CRM Integration module provides out of the box integration with Sage ACT!. It allows looking for contact information in the Contacts and / or Companies tables using all the phone related fields, showing the contact details in a screen pop-up, opening the contact record in Sage ACT!, creating a new contact if it has not been found, and saving the call information in the contact’s history.

Launching outbound calls from the Sage ACT! interface is already available using the 3CX TAPI service provider. You just need to press the “Phone Contact” button, and the call will be launched and automatically connected to your extension!

System Requirements

The Sage ACT! plugin for 3CX Phone System requires one of the following Sage ACT! versions locally installed:

• Sage ACT! Pro 2011, Sage ACT! Premium 2011
• Sage ACT! 2010 Standard, Sage ACT! 2010 Premium
• Sage ACT! 2009 Standard, Sage ACT! 2009 Premium

Configuring the Sage ACT! Plugin

General Configuration

In order to enable the integration with Sage ACT! check the “Enable Sage ACT! Plugin” option.

If you also want to automatically create call logs in the contact’s activity history, you must check the “Store Call Information in the Sage ACT!” options section. When this option is set, the plugin will create a new call activity for the contact in Sage ACT! after the call has ended.

Login Information

Now, you need to fill in the Login Information section. If you have access to the database file via the file system, you need to select “Local File” login type. If you need to connect to the database through the network, then choose “Database” login type.

When using “Local File” login type, you have to browse for the PAD file in your file system. Otherwise, when using “Database” login type, you need to enter the name or IP address of the server where the Sage ACT! database is installed as well as the database name. In both cases, you may need to enter your credentials to access the database.

Contact Lookup

You can change the maximum digit length to compare in the Contact Lookup section. When an inbound call arrives into your extension, the caller ID may have different formats depending on your PSTN or VoIP Provider. It could have an international format (including the country code), national format (including the region or city code), or local format (including only the local number).

Also, you may have created your Contact’s phones in Sage ACT! with prefixes that are not present in the caller ID, such as mobile phone prefixes. In order to match the caller ID with the contact’s phone in these cases, you need to specify this parameter. The system will compare the last number digits of the caller ID with the last number digits of your contact’s phone, where the number is the specified maximum digit length to compare. Usually this parameter should be the length of your local number. With a higher number you get great accuracy, but you may possibly not match the caller ID with some contact. With a lower number you get less accuracy (with possible false positives), minimizing the possibility of a no match.

You can choose to look for contact information in the Contacts and / or Companies tables, and select the lookup order in these tables.

Trial and Registration

The first time you enable the Sage ACT! plugin, a 30 days trial will be automatically started. You will be able to use the full functionality during the trial period. When the trial expires, you need to activate a license key to continue using the Sage ACT! integration. The Register button allows you to enter the product key purchased.

Inbound Call Behavior

When an inbound call arrives into your extension and a contact is matched, depending on your 3CX CRM Integration module configuration, the contact record will be automatically shown in Sage ACT!, or you will be able to click a link to open it.

If you have the option “Store Call Information in Sage ACT!” checked, a new call log containing the call details will be created and stored into Sage ACT! for the contact, after the call has ended.

If a contact is not matched on an inbound call, clicking on the “Create contact” link in the screen pop-up will open the create contact tab. You can fill that form and automatically create the contact in Sage ACT!

Launching Calls from Sage ACT!

You can launch outbound calls directly from Sage ACT! using the dialer. This is an already existing feature available when installing the 3CX MyPhone and Desktop Components locally. The Sage ACT! plugin for 3CX Phone System does not add any additional functionality for outbound calls, because it is not needed.

Configuring the Dialer

In order to launch outbound calls from the Sage ACT! interface you need to first configure the dialer to work with the 3CX TAPI service provider. To do this, go to “Tools” -> “Preferences”, select the “Communication” tab, press the “Dialer Preferences” button, check the “Use Dialer” option and finally select “3CX TAPI Service Provider”. Press “OK” to accept the changes.

Launching Calls from the Sage ACT! Interface

After configuring the dialer, you just need to press the “Phone Contact” button, select the desired phone number, and the call will be launched and automatically connected to your extension!

Troubleshooting

Issues with the Database Connection

When the Sage ACT! plugin for 3CX Phone System is configured to access a remote database through the network, you may experience problems due to firewall settings.

Sage ACT! uses a SQL Server database, so it listens by default on port TCP 1433. You will have to allow the access to that port from the client machines.

Problems Opening a Contact in Sage ACT!

The Sage ACT! plugin for 3CX Phone System is able to look for contact information even when Sage ACT! is not running. But in that case, when you try to open a contact in Sage ACT! using the “Open contact” link in the screen pop-up tab, you will see the following error message:

When you open Sage ACT!, a plugin is loaded, allowing to display a contact in Sage ACT! when you trigger that action from the screen pop-up. If Sage ACT! has a problem loading that plugin, you will continue receiving this error, even when Sage ACT! is running.

In order to know if this is causing the problem, open the folder “%AppData%\ACT\ACT Data”, and then open the file named “DependentDlls.xml” from that folder. If that file contains the text “3CX Plugin for SageAct.dll”, then the plugin is having problems to be loaded.

If this is the case, contact 3CX Support and we’ll help you to fix the problem.