software question

[wendyzski]

Yeah - bit surprise to no one that some of the software my current employer uses is woefully outdated and inadequate.

Any of you who work with databases - can you suggest or recommend something that can do most of the following:

• Track multiple subgroups (partnerships) with percentages of ownership of each


• Have multiple contact addresses for each member - possibly able to set which address by dates.


• Allow members to select a favored method of contact (fax, mail, e-mail)


• Allows export of lists to MS office products


• Allows multiple members to be associated with a company/project and to be able to search by group as well as individual.


• An individual can be a member of multiple subgroups (partnerships, committees)

I know that there are products out there that do this - I came in midway through the search for something similar at the National Brownfield Association. But I can't remember any of them

Comments

[rileybear67.livejournal.com]

Is it a bad thing that when friends ask questions like this, I almost immediately start coding the thing in my head?

Sorry, ready made packages - no clue.
However with even a MS-Access database, something like that would be fairly easy to build, including a user interface.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

Right now we're using a 10-yr-old run-time version of Access, which has limited fields (no room for e-mail) that pops up random errors. I cannot get one address corrected! It's correct when you pull up the address but when you print labels the apartment number is wrong.

[rileybear67.livejournal.com]

Sounds like someone did a pretty half-assed job on creating that then.

Again, sorry, no packages come to mind.
*I'll shoot myself later* If ya'll need someone to look at it, let me know.

[geekymary.livejournal.com]

I don't understand the context - what tasks are you doing with this? Is it a contact management system?

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

Sorry if I was unclear.

I work for a guy who puts together partnerships to buy property. I need to be able to track all the people in the various partnerships and their percentages of ownerships - and some shareholders ARE partnerships.

(Joe B calls and asks if we've gotten forms in for the Stonebridge partnership. I see that we have and I go to look up his entry to read his address back to him in case he forgot to tell us he moved. But I can't FIND him because he's part of Law Street LLC which is a partner in Stonebridge. I have to call the COO who is on medical leave and ask her what partnership Joe B is in)

I also need to be able to set things up such that it is easily indicated that "Irv is in FL from October through May, and in NY from June to September, and he also wants his tax documents faxed to his accountant".

Right now we are using a 10yr old run-time version of Access that pops up random errors that can't be corrected (I have one address that shows fine when I pull up the entry but persists in printing the wrong account numbers on the labels), and that only has one address field and no place to put e-mails except a "notes" field which is not searchable. I can't export info into any other program, so all I can do is print tiny labels (the size and font were programmed when it was set up 10 yrs ago) and stick them on the letters.

We're talking people with hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars invested here, and we're tracking them with an abacus!

[lisagems.livejournal.com]

ACT! is the best thing that I can think of, off hand. It is a contact management application. We implemented it at the bead store, and didn't use even half of its potential.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

OK - we have that - let me look some more into it's capabilities....

[lisagems.livejournal.com]

It can do a lot that we just didn't have a need for, and more that we didn't take the time for. The comment ability, and layered contact tracking was pretty spiffy.