After last year's much delayed release of Service Pack #1 for ACT 16.0 (8 months), most observers expected Service Pack #1 for ACT v17 to be a ways off, but it is upon us after less than three months. The initial release of ACT 17.0 was on October 23rd, 2014, and the first Beta was, in fact, released to ACT partners back on January 8th for testing purposes. The Gold release is expected to be minted some time around February 16-19th. International release is currently scheduled for February 25th, but that may be adjusted during the beta process if such feedback warrants..

Make no mistake, this is not just a bug fix service pack. This release is loaded with new features we've been clamoring for for years. While the list may not complete, the initial new features include the following (please note that any feature during the beta period can be dropped based on negative testing results):

Intelligent emarketing

• New ACT E-Marketing Template Editor will improve user interface and functionality to help design great layouts

• Call List Improvements will save time by performing common tasks directly from a call list

Automation & Productivity Enhancements

• Improved URLs in Documents allows user to create shortcuts to folders that are shared on the network or local

• Improve accessibility on high resolution monitors will help users with devices like MS Surface Pro to function with display distortions

• Major enhancements to logging for Outlook Sync and minor stability improvements

Streamlined configuration and access options

• Customizable Big Buttons on Toolbar allows users to remove unneeded buttons from the big toolbar at the top

• Global Preference now includes "Web Info" links so they can be added or removed for all users

• Manage Drop Down Lists is a massive improvement, as drop down menus are now available to create within ACT for Web, AND they're redesigned to support creation during the Field creation process rather than separately. LONG OVERDUE.

• Import and Duplicate Checking has been improved to support duplicate checking modifications DURING the import process.

• Administrator Notifications are now configurable so they can be used for sending out Administrator notifications to all users.

• Change Default History Options allows user to set their local preferences so they could set the default History option when recording a History manually. For instance, prior to ACT 2010 when a user hit CTRL+H they were prompted to record a "Call", but after ACT 2011 it was switched to "Appointment". A minor thing perhaps, but quite nice when you record 30-40 Histories a day as most active ACT users do.

• New Installs get SQL 2014 instead of SQL 2008R2. Existing ACT v17.0 networks need not fear of massive SQL upgrade requirements, as ACT supports a mixed SQL environment provided the database host has the lowest version.

The list of bug fixes is long for v17.1, but will likely be longer by the time it's released in late February. It's for this reason that we're refraining from publishing the current list for fear users might falsely conclude some issuers were overlooked.

At present, we in the ACT partner community are encouraging Swiftpage to make this service pack available only to Business Care subscribers. If the service pack only contained bug fixes that would be a different matter, but the above list of feature improvements is precisely what we told Business Care subscribers they could expect as part of their membership benefits.