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Frequently Asked Questions
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| Q: Where can I buy Prophet 2004? |
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| A: Prophet 2004 Sales and Contact Management Software can be purchased online from the Avidian web site
and opt to either download an electronic copy immediately or receive
shrink-wrapped software in the mail. Click on the Buy Now button on the Avidian
Home page, or the Buy Prophet button at the bottom of any Avidian web site
page. Prophet 2004 can also be purchased directly from Avidian Technologies by
contacting us via email at sales@avidian.com
or via telephone at Toll Free: 1-877-Avidian (1-877-284-3426) |
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| Q: Does Prophet work with Outlook 2003, Outlook XP and Outlook 2000? |
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| A: Prophet works with Outlook 2000, XP/2002 and Outlook 2003. It also is compatible with Exchange 2000 and 2003. |
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| Q: How does sharing work in Prophet?? |
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A: With the Prophet Server Edition, all the team's sales and contact data
resides on a central server. That way the team can view each other's
data and create consolidated sales reports by connecting to the server.
When users are offline, Prophet keeps track
of new and modified data and automatically synch's this data with the
Prophet Server when you reconnect to the network.
Prophet also allows sharing of sales data with others through peer
to peer sharing. Therefore you can share data with your teammates without
having the need of a server and you're looking at the information real time.
When you are in sharing mode, you just click on Opportunity Manager and you get
a consolidated view of all sales information, i.e. detail date/time stamp
notes, contact information and sales stages. The sales information you see is a
total view of everyone's sales information so it seems it's coming from a
server but the information really resides on each person's computer. By virtue
of Peer to Peer, you have to be connected to each on a network i.e. Local Area
Network, VPN or dial-up to share information. If one of the user is offline,
you won't have access to that user's information.
Another option for sharing data is to send each other reports from within
Prophet. Prophet comes with 30+ predefined reports and a customer report
designer that allows you to save these reports in 6 different formats, i.e.
Word, Excel, PDF, Tiff, HTML and Text.
In Prophet users can also email opportunities to each other. This will allow you to
share sales information with other almost as easy as emailing each other. If
you need a server based product, Prophet Server Edition will be released in
February 2004 and includes an ability to store and share all sales information
from a server and within Exchange Server.
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| Q: How do I share Prophet data with other users? |
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| A: The Prophet Administrator allows you to set the type of data sharing;
Connect to a Prophet Server, Peer-to-Peer or keep private. You have control
to set access to Read Only, or Read And Write. Data Sharing allows you to view
or modify other user’s data along with your own data in Prophet; Prophet
Reports allows you to include other user’s data along with your own data in
reports that you can print or save. |
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| Q: Does Prophet work while I am Offline? |
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| A: Yes. Prophet works offline or online. |
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| Q: Can I send an attachment with the Group Email Wizard? |
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| A: Prophet 2004 includes the ability to send an attachment with
personalized group emails. |
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| Q: What if I don’t see all my contacts in Prophet?
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| A: Prophet displays contacts in the Contact Manager List View
based on the Folders and Categories you have checked. Open the Folders button
in the Contact Manager toolbar and verify what folders and what Categories are
checked. Checking no categories will return all contacts in the checked
folders, regardless or what categories the contacts are associated with.
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| Q: I deleted a contact in Outlook; why is it still in Prophet?
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| A: Deleting a contact in Outlook moves the contact to the Deleted
folder. Until the Deleted folder is emptied, the contact is not really deleted.
Only then will the delete be propagated to Prophet. Prophet will then delete
the contact from Prophet, except that the username, company, and email address
will still be displayed in the Contact Manager List View. This data is retained
because this contact may have opportunities associated with the contact’s name
and company. You must highlight and delete the contact’s name in Prophet in
order to completely delete the contact. Deleting a contact in Prophet will
automatically delete the contact from Outlook. |
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| Q: I clicked View Report but the window is grey?
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| A: There is a status bar at the bottom of the reports window. If
there is no data that fits the report parameters, it will state, "There is
currently no information to compose the report as requested." |
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| Q: I moved contacts between folders in Outlook; why aren’t those
changes reflected in Prophet?
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| A: If changes to contacts in Outlook don’t show up in Prophet,
click on the Tools toolbar button in Contact Manager or Opportunity Manager,
and click Re-synch Contact/Company Data. It could take several minutes to complete the data
re-synch. |
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| Q: What is the difference between the Email, Task and Appointment
buttons on the Contact Manager toolbar and the Opportunity window toolbar?
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| A: Creating Emails, Tasks or Appointments via the Contact Manager
toolbar buttons will create general emails, tasks or appointments which are the
same as creating those items in Outlook. However, if you create emails, tasks
or appointments via the toolbar buttons in the Opportunity window, they will be
linked with that specific opportunity. Now you can view the task and
appointments in Prophet Today and see the associated opportunity, or search for
emails, tasks or appointments associated with a specific opportunity. |
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| Q: Can I create custom reports?
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| A: Custom report templates can be created using the Prophet
Reports Wizard and modified using the Reports Designer. The Wizard allows you
to start with one of the existing report templates and add, remove or re-order
the report fields. The Designer allows you to add graphics, add or modify
report text and modify text fonts in custom templates only. The data generated
by the standard report templates that ship with Prophet can be fine-tuned by
modifying any filters that apply to that report category. The data generated by
any report template can then be saved in multiple file formats or printed.
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Use a current report template such as Account Sales and change the
filters that drive the information on the report. Save the filters and report
as a unique report.
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Use the report designer to start with a current template and alter
the template using the report designer. Fields, actions, titles and pictures
can all be added or edited in the designer.
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| Q: When I create an email in Prophet, why doesn’t Outlook recognize
some of the email names?
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| A: When you add a name to an email, Outlook will underline the
contact name with a solid line if Outlook can resolve the email name with an
email address. Outlook will underline the contact name with a zig-zag line if
it can resolve the contact name to more than one email address, and you will be
prompted to choose which email address you want to use. But if Outlook cannot
resolve the contact name to an email address, the name will not be underlined.
There could be two reasons for this: the contact may not have an email address
in the contact record; or the contact may belong to a folder that has not been
configured as a valid Outlook address book. This is often the case if the name
is in a sub-folder. To set the permissions for a folder, Right-click on the
folder name in Outlook>In the Folder Properties dialog, select Outlook Address
Book tab>check “Show this folder as an e-mail Address Book”. Now Outlook can
resolve the contact’s email address. |
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| Q: What are the up and down arrows in the Opportunity window for?
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| A: If you have opened an opportunity from the Opportunity Manager,
you can scroll through the opportunities listed in the Opportunity Manager by
clicking on the up or down arrows. Each successive opportunity will be
displayed in the Opportunity window. If you are viewing a remote computer’s
opportunities along with your own, the remote opportunity will be greyed if
access is set to Read Only. |
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| Q: How do I get my ACT, Goldmine or other data into Prophet? |
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| A: Several ways exist now to import ACT and GoldMine data into
Outlook. You can check the ACT or Goldmine partner site for products that
migrate to Outlook. Once the data is imported into Outlook, it is therefore also in
Prophet 2004. Won’t it be nice when you don’t have to worry about this? |
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1. Outlook includes an import/export wizard that can bring-in tab
separated and comma separated values. Depending on how your ACT! or GoldMine
files are configured, you can use this utility to bring in specific data. |
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2. Several ACT! to Outlook or GoldMine to Outlook data converters
exist for a more complex data exchange. |
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| Q: Does Prophet work with Exchange Public Folders? |
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| Yes, Prophet supports accessing Public Folders in Exchange. |
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| Q: How do I export my custom product groups/products to other users? |
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| A: The Import and Export Wizard enables you to export or import
all customizations including report templates, product groups and opportunity
window changes for use by other Prophet users. |
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| Q: How do I export my custom opportunity window to other users? |
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| A: The import/export wizard allows you to export custom configurations to other users on your network with a few clicks. |
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| Q: How do I export my custom report templates to other users? |
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| A: The Import and Export Wizard enables you to export or import
all customizations including report templates, product groups and opportunity
window changes for use by other Prophet users. |
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| Q: I noticed that Prophet automatically assigns a Company ID when a
new company is created. Can I either get that list of Company ID’s in a
spreadsheet or have a way to change it to fit my current scheme? |
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| A: There is no way to change the Company ID that is assigned as we
use this to match-up the additional Prophet data with the data stored in
Outlook. You can assign account numbers to company accounts by doing the
following: |
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Click view on the Prophet Toolbar and select company account |
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Click on the edit button in the Prophet Data Window |
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Click on the details tab |
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Input the number or letters you want in the account number field
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| Q: How do I change the Prophet display name so that it says a different name? |
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| A: In the Prophet Administrator, under the General tab, you can
enter the name you would like displayed by Prophet in the “created by” field in
reports or the default account rep field in your opportunities. |
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| Q: Can I change the default action of the buttons on the Prophet
Toolbar? For example, clicking on New would automatically pop-up a contact or
company account instead of an opportunity? |
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| A: No, Prophet has pre-set the default button settings and the current release does not support changing these. |
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| Q: Will Prophet 2004 change any functionality of Outlook? |
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| A: No, Prophet adds to Outlook, but does not change any functionality Outlook already contains. |
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| Q: If the forms in my Outlook have been modified, will Prophet change or effect these in some way? |
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| A: No, we have designed Prophet so that it does not interfere with
the standard or modified forms that may have been created in your Outlook
environment. |
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| Q: I have Contacts that have nothing to do with sales at our
company. For use of only sales contacts within the Prophet system, what is the
best way to set this up (in Outlook and/or Prophet) so that I am only using
sales contacts in Prophet?
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A: Prophet is designed specifically for situations like this. There are two
ways you can do this:
1. Categorize all your contacts using the Category option in the lower
right corner of each Outlook contact form. Then click on Folder button within
Prophet Contact Manager and choose the category that you've selected. It will
only show the contacts for that category.
2. You can create multiple contact folders within Outlook, i.e. separate
personal and business contact folders. To create another Contact folder within
Outlook, click File, New, Folder within Outlook. When the new folder dialog box
pops up, in the Name, type in the name of your new contact folder. Choose
Contact Items and then choose where you want the folder to be created. Then you
can create new contacts or move all of the contacts you want to be in this
folder from your existing contact folder by dragging and dropping. After this,
you can click on Folder within Prophet Contact Manager and choose the folder
that you want to use.
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| Q: What version of Microsoft SQL Server are supported? |
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A: Prophet ONLY supports SQL Server/MSDE 2000 (8.0). Prophet will install this
automatically if you do not have it. If your machine has an older version of
SQL server/MSDE installed then please contact us for special instructions.
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| Q: After Prophet installs, I do not see the Avidian Prophet folders when launching Outlook?
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A: For users on Exchange, please be sure you are connected ONLINE to the
server. Also go to the Outlook Help-->About Microsoft Outlook-->Disabled Items,
if Avidian is in the list of items, enable it and restart Outlook.
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| Q: Does Prophet work with Outlook 2003, Outlook XP and Outlook 2000? |
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A: Prophet works with Outlook 2000, XP/2002 and Outlook 2003. It also is compatible with Exchange 2000 and 2003. Prophet does not work with Outlook Express, the lite version of Outlook. |
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| Q: How do I fix peer-to-peer sharing of Prophet once I install Windows XP SP2? |
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A: By default SP2 enables the personal firewall on Windows XP. When Prophet tries to communicate via peer-to-peer sharing, it fails because the firewall is blocking the program. To remedy this problem, users will need to enable UDP port 1434 on the firewall. |
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| Q: Does Prophet 2004 work with a Tablet PC? |
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A: Currently Prophet does not support Tablet PC. |
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| Q: How do I fix peer-to-peer sharing of Prophet once I install Windows XP SP2? |
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A: By default SP2 enables the personal firewall on Windows XP. When Prophet tries to communicate via peer-to-peer sharing, it fails because the firewall is blocking the program. To remedy this problem, users will need to enable UDP port 1433 and 1434 on the firewall. To see which ports are open, use "netstat -a" at a command prompt. To enable/disable ports on your firewall, open control panel-->windows firewall-->click the exceptions tab and select "add port"-->enter the port number -->click OK. |
