When subscription was introduced to Act! back in May 2015, it signaled the end of traditional annual upgrade cycles, as subscription promised year round product improvements. We saw this trend continue in the spring of 2018, when v20.1 introduced us to a whole new Outlook integration technology and a new tier of Act! called "Premium Plus".
Next month we expect to see a continuation of this product evolution, as Act! v21 is tentatively scheduled for release on October 23rd, offering significant improvements to the following:
- Act! Marketing automation (subscription benefit only)
- New Template Designer and library
- Campaign Management and automation
- Surveys, web forms, asset tracking, and other advanced features
- Revamped Opportunity management and display enhancements (subscription benefit only)
- Interactive filter panel and in-context KPI's
- New sales pipeline management view
- Key Compatibility Updates
- Updates to .NET Framework and SQL Server
- Preliminary testing with Office 2019 (unconfirmed until MS release)
- Windows & Web custom tables technology (subscription benefit only)
- Cascading drop downs through web
- Ask Act! with create Notes & Activities through Alexa
- Improved Outlook Integration - support for inbound email History recording
- Windows/Web feature parity improvements
- Mail Merge for web
- Manage Activity types through web
- Security & Privacy Enhancements
- Complying with GDPR documentation
- Updates to .NET framework with improved security
- SQL 2014 SP2 supporting higher security protocols
- SOC 2 compliance
- Insight support for custom tables (subscription benefit only)
- Companion Improvements
As always, no features are certain until a product release is fully baked, but since the Keystroke team participates in the Act! development process, we're confident users will enjoy the new features.
In fact, we believe the improvements to emarketing automation will make this one of the most significant product releases in years, and change how many users will market their business.
Stay tuned for more details as they become available.
