ContactReview :: View topic

BobTaylor · GoldBox Guru

GoldMine 9.0.4.28, to be updated - Client has prospect database in the hundreds to low thousand of Main Contacts. They want to be able to fill out the Company Calendars of all the prospects and maintain them (holidays, plant closings, etc).

The only way I can think of to do this in GM is to make each prospect a User, for the purpose of creating a calendar. Maybe have the Username begin with ZZ to keep them all at the end of the User List. But can GM actually handle that many Users? Anyone know, or have other ideas? Many thanks for your time!

bgannett · GoldMine Guru

Please elaborate on what you mean by "Company Calendars". This may be done by "Scheduling" and "Completing" Activities then run a reqport (of one type or another) based on the desired "accountno"

BobTaylor · GoldBox Guru

I believe I'm correct in thinking that in GoldMine, ALL Calendars belong to Users. You can schedule and complete Activities for Contacts, but that all goes on one or more User Calendars.

What this client wants is the ability to click on a widget and look at the Company Calendar that someone would fill out using info obtained from a Contact. This is info that GoldMine does not normally store. There would never be any scheduling or completing of real GoldMine activities against this Calendar; it is purely for reference.

Maybe the solution is to buy some sort of Calendar program. But consider: if I only needed one of these, for XYZ Company, I could add XYZ as a User to GM, and Schedule Dec 31 as Festivus on XYZ's Calendar. Then, if anyone needs to check on late December holidays at XYZ Co., they just check that Calendar.

Now the question is: if it will work for one, will it work for 1,000?

And if not, can anyone recommend a good Calendar program that will hold LOTS of different Calendars? Many thanks!

DJ · GoldMine Guru

I'm fairly certain that there is no way of doing this within GoldMine. I'm fairly certain that there is not a program out there that currently exists to resolve this issue. I'm fairly certain that this could only be done with a customized third-party add-on application regardless of the CRM solution which they are using.

BobTaylor · GoldBox Guru

Thanks, DJ;

bgannett · GoldMine Guru

The client is obviously not using GoldMine correctly to achieve his ability to review history and pending events for his contacts.

BobTaylor · GoldBox Guru

Not so, Bob. As DJ indicates, this requirement is really not a GoldMine issue; It's something the client was hoping to "find" in GM. I found what I could, but it's not going to be a practical solution.

dexterb · GoldMine Journeyman

Hi Bob,

Sounds like a custom app if they need integration with GoldMiine. If it is just as simple as scheduling an event and then eventually displaying it on a Calendar view, I think 4 hours max of work can give us some working app

-
dexter

bgannett · GoldMine Guru

I agree with DJ's comments. If GoldMine's existing great features were properly used, the client could probably obtain the needed information for his contact but not necessarily posted to GM's calendar.

BobTaylor · GoldBox Guru

Thanks everyone.

cdohmen · Cuckoo for GoldMine Puffs

Bob T.

You can create custom "holiday category" calendars and assign them to specific users. Not sure if this is where you are going.

We recycle this concept for creating custom calendars for standing meetings for a given year. The dates of these meetings are fixed and multiple users would attend. Instead of having each user enter all of the meeting dates in manually we create a custom "holiday" calendar called "Meeting X 2013" and they subscribe to the list. By subscribing those dates are highlighted on thier calendars as such.

I'm guessing you could extend this concept for whatever series of dates you want to highlight (i.e. plant closings) on any particular user's calendar.

This feature is under User Preferences, Calendar, Holidays.

Hope this might help.

CD

BobTaylor · GoldBox Guru

Thanks for that! I'll take a look at it.

DJ · GoldMine Guru

Great out of the box thinking Chris, however, that will probably only work for assigning the entire day as a holiday, and will not work for specific periods on time. I suppose, if you have 16 or under Users that you could just use the Multi-User Calendar as the Company Calendar.

BobTaylor · GoldBox Guru

Actually, DJ, in my case I was not looking at partial days. I only want to associate Company-specific calendars with the Contact records of people who work for those companies. No interactivity or scheduling against these calendars is required. Basically, we want to know which days of the year would not conflict with the company's pre-scheduled holidays, annual meetings, inventory and other scheduled "down days". These dates do vary from one Company to another.

Another option has occurred to me: create a "Company Calendar" Contact record for each Company; populate that "Contact's" Calendar appropriately; then associate that record with the Relationship chart of the Company; Might be the simplest solution yet.

cdohmen · Cuckoo for GoldMine Puffs

Thx DJ. I think that Bob's last idea has merit for his situation as well.