That’s right … I said you might want to “Crash” your GoldMine!   We have a salesperson who uses GoldMine all day long and has done a  ton of personalization to his GoldMine toolbar.  His toolbar saves him a lot of time and helps him to sell more.   The other day this salesperson accidently hit the “Reset” on their GoldMine Toolbar.   He freaked-out at the thought of having to recreate all their personalization, or worse, having to work with the default toolbar.   What could he do to “undo” their problem?   The answer was simple, albeit not obvious.  Here’s an easy trick for GoldMine Administrators to know about if someone comes to you in a panic because they accidently “reset” their GoldMine Toolbar.

Because the users Toolbar settings are stored in the GoldMine users “.INI” file, and because that it written to WHEN they close their GoldMine properly, all you have to do is crash GoldMine and any changes to the users preferences are not stored.  How could we do that you might ask?  Simple, just go into the Windows Task Manager and “End Process” for the GoldMine Executable (GM.exe).  This “kills” the GoldMine software application and the INI is NOT written to with the changes to his GoldMine preferences including the “reset” of the GoldMine Toolbar.  The user’s problem is solved easily!  And he thanked me profusly for saving his customizations!   (NOTE:  This will only work if you do it BEFORE the user logs out of GoldMine!)

First Direct Corp. offers a 1 hour webinar on “Two Terrific Productivity Tools” that goes into how to sell more efficiently with the GoldMine Toolbar and Taskbar.  Visit  http://www.1stdirect.com/events/gmtools.php for information.

You may already know there are two different kinds of emails you can send in GoldMine: Internet email and GoldMine user-to-user email. User-to-user email can be used when one GoldMine user wants to send an email to another GoldMine user who is on the same company GoldMine system.  An advantage of GoldMine ”user-to-user” email is the way it stores your communications back & forth in the GoldMine record you’re writing to one another about. 

This post is intended to focus on one aspect of GoldMine’s email client that users need to be aware of.  When using GoldMine’s “user-to-user” email it handles attachments differently than Internet email.

By default, GoldMine sets users’ preferences to NOT send a copy of the attached file when sending email to a GoldMine user, but rather is simply creates a link in the email that “points” to the location of the originally attached file.  This is designed to help save space on your server but cutting down on the creation of duplicate copies of a the attachment.  This is an attractive feature, but it can cause two problems: 1) If the receiving user does not have access to that file location (like the sender’s desktop or My Documents folder) the receiving users will not be able to see or open the attachment. 2) Often the sender does not realise when they open the attachment they are opening and editing the sender’s original file, NOT a copy of the file. To avoid these two problems, simply change GoldMine users’ email preferences as follows:

In GoldMine go to Tools->Options… Email Tab… More Options button… and on the “Composing” tab uncheck the box “Send attachments as links for GM users.”

The GoldMine Knowledge Base

The GoldMine Knowledge Base provides a resource for maintaining any type of information useful to an organization or an individual. It can provide easy accessible storage for graphics, multimedia files, and/or program applications. This information can then be linked to a contact record (displays the record whenever you access that topic).

The Knowledge Base consists of the Knowledge Base, and the Personal Base. Configure them to present newly added information to the GoldMine user, control user reading and updating privileges, and search for specific entries based on user-defined criteria.

If your organization is not using the GoldMine Knowledge Base now is a great time to start.

GoldMine Knowledge Base Toolbar

Knowledge Base Topic Text Local Menu

HTML means HyperText Markup Language. The authoring language used to define the structure and layout of a Web document by using a variety of tags and attributes.

To add an attachment to a Knowledge Base document

GoldMine’s Universal Search is set to be the “default” search in the search box of the new “Left Navigation” area in GoldMine Premium.  I do NOT recommend that!

First of all, the new GoldMine Universal Search capability is great when you need to find a needle in a haystack. So if you’re looking for an obscure piece of information (e.g  part or serial number)  that could have been stored anywhere in GoldMine and you don’t want to hunt & peck around for it GoldMine’s Universal Search is great.

Universal Search in GoldMine will return a long list of ranked search results based on all the places where it finds what you’re looking for stored in GoldMine history, notes, emails, etc.   Therefore, if you’re looking for a name and you use universal search that name will come up on pending and history activites, emails and a lot more places than you need to sift through when you just want to pull up a contact who’s just called in for you.  That’s what the “Contact Search Center” is better for.  And, that’s what you want the quick GoldMine Navigation look-up window to use when you type your search value and press go!

Last but not least, if you haven’t implemented GoldMine Universal Search properly and you are not regularly indexing the data and you haven’t optimized the configuration in SQL and GoldMine for Universal Search to work well it is ineffective anyway.  That’s one more reason to change the default.

Changing the Default Search to the Contact Search Center is not hard, but it is little tricky.

Here’s all you need to do:

1. Open up the Universal Search

2. Click “Advanced”

3. Select Options

4. Uncheck the Default setting.

You will see that there are many other settings to consider – way more than I cover here.  And, there are all sorts of great search tools in GoldMine Premium!  Universal Search,  SQL Queries,  Lookup Wizard, as well there is a lot that you can do with the Contact Search Center.  An expert can show and explain these functions.

If you’re going to encourage users to capture data in GoldMine you ought to know how to find it, report it, analyze it, and use it!

Sadly, it is time to say goodbye to OmniRush.

While OmniRush is a Swiss-army-knife of function (fax, print, shipping, email), over 90% of OmniRush is for fax. And fax has died. Fax is used in an ever-smaller circle of verticals.

OmniRush has had quite a run. It began life as FaxRush in 1996, and grew into a suite including EmailRush, PrintRush, ShipRush Server, and CashRush. OmniRush has many thousands of installations, tens of thousands of users, and has processed tens of millions of faxes, print merges, emails and shipments.

Further, OmniRush relies on expensive licensed technology (PDF module, database engine) and is tricky to maintain, as it depends on device drivers (print drivers and fax board drivers). This is complex to manage with many versions of Windows, 64 bit environments, and more.

As a result, the cost to maintain OmniRush has gone up significantly, while sales have sunk to extremely low levels. Many businesses (Z-Firm included!) depend on OmniRush. However Z-Firm can no longer support or maintain OmniRush. Therefore Z-Firm, makers of OmniRush have decided it is time to sunset the OmniRush suite.

Rafael Zimberoff, President of Z-Firm LLC, makers of OmniRush, heartly thanks the OmniRush Community (users, resellers, etc.) for nearly 15 years of support!

This is not the end of Z-Firm!!

FYI, Z-Firm will be focusing efforts on ShipRush – their powerful integrated shipping application.  This has integration with GoldMine.  First Direct Corp. uses and sells this product.  Read more about ShipRush at http://www.1stdirect.com/ShipRush/index.html

To read the complete “Sunset Announcement Letter” from Z-firm click here.

On a personal note:  As a long-time OmniRush user and Z-Firm Solutions Partner (reseller), I know I will miss OmniRush!  Fortunately, because we also love to sell and support ShipRush, I am thrilled to be continuing my relationship with Raf and his firm.  We love Raf!!

Training is the key to unlocking the potential of any software, and its also true with GoldMine software.  There are many resources for GoldMine training as well as many approaches. The most reliable source is from a certified GoldMine solutions partner with years of experience. In addition to technical expertise they bring a practical approach which is needed to “use” the software.

People learn differently and so training solutions need to address these preferences.  Some users train best in a group, while others require a more personalized coaching like style.  Some people have short attention spans while others may be able to focus for hours straight.  Some would prefer a self paced resource, such as a book or CD and others need live interaction.

A great source for all these GoldMine training options is First Direct Corp. (www.1stdirect.com) As a winner of  “GoldMine Training of the Year,” a Premier Elite Solutions Partner with more awards then any other GoldMine partner in the last ten years they are an extremely credible source for your GoldMine training needs. And, First Direct Corp offers all the training options to meet your GoldMine users training needs.

• Interactive Training CDs
• Training Books & Guides
• Sharpen Your GoldMine Knowledge Webinars
• Private Group Classes
• One-on-one coaching
• GoldMine Success Newsletter
• The GoldMine Guide to SQL Queries
• GoldMine 8.0 for Dummies
• Other Resources

In addition First Direct Corp. has services to help you before, during and after your GoldMine  implementation.

FrontRange Solutions is about to release GoldMine Premium Edition 9.  We are anticipating it to be near the end of May 2010. This is a major release with many significant enhancements including:

1. Dashboard Infrastructure

• Real-time, graphical, and interactive view of your CRM data provides you intelligent understanding of your business results and processes
• Benefit from intuitive and easy to read perspectives of you organization’s activities and the happenings with your prospects, customers, customer service issues, and more
• Includes many predefined dashboards along with the flexibility to modify and create your own powerful dashboards
• Because you can “drill-down” into the data and contact records associated with the tables that the dashboards are based on, unlike other competitive CRM solutions, GoldMine’s dashboards are superior tools for users and management and can contribute to greater productivity and effectiveness

2. Greatly Expanded MS Outlook Integration

• View related GoldMine record information, including record fields, notes, opportunities, cases, and more from your Outlook calendar, address book, and even linked emails
• Quickly and easily associate your Outlook calendar, addresss book, and even emails with records in GoldMine
• Apply GoldMine email templates when composing emails in Outlook
• Automated synchronization with many ways to control the transfer of data between Outlook and GoldMine
• Leverage Outlook as a conduit for communicating your GoldMine information with your Smartphone
• Many other benefits as well

3. Numerous Administration Improvements

4. Hundreds of User Interface Changes 

Many of us who have seen the new GoldMine Premium Edition 9.x as BETA testers and Solution Partners are very excited about what this latest update has to offer.  Personally, I believe this is a “game changer” for the entire GoldMine community, including the users.  Just when firms are beginning to appreciate the high ongoing rental costs and disadvantages of software as a service, GoldMine with its affordable one-time purchase price, and the many feature benefits that are native to the application is becoming a more attractive solution than ever!

Click here to see flash slides including the 8.5 Upgrade and the new GoldMine 9.x.

Click here to attend a live demonstration of GoldMine 9.x with First Direct.

GoldMine Premium Edition owners with Current Maintenance are entitled to this upgrade at NO software charge.
Older edition users can upgrade – contact First Direct for special pricing.

Back in GoldMine 6.x, GoldMine administrators were introduced to a new feature called User Override Controls that allows administrators to centrally control/override what the users set for their preferences. This is done from the GM.ini under the [GoldMine] section via the [User-Override:<user.ini section>] header.

Through the GM.ini, the GoldMine Administrator, can set a global setting presence for your GoldMine.

For example, to disable all users access to the GoldMine taskbar the GM.ini would read as follows:

[GoldMine]
[User-OverRide:gmbar]
show_gmbar=0

This next one sets the GoldMine default tabs that are to be displayed for all users. You are defining a
global setting for the default GoldMine tabs, overriding any user selected tab order.

[User-OverRide:GoldMine]
RoTabItems1 = 1;2;4;5;6;7;8;9;10;11;12;13;14;

These overrides are a great way for the GoldMine Administrator to enforce company wide standards for their GoldMine.

NOTE: Any override settings configured by the Administrator in the GM.ini will ALWAYS override a user’s settings, even if they attempt to change their local preferences – GoldMine will never apply the username.ini settings if a corresponding user-override exists in the GM.ini.

Here’s  how to rename your GoldMine tabs to something more meaningful to your organization. For example, if you use the GM+Views tab, you might want to rename it to Intranet, or Web – this makes the tab name look more appropriate, as the GM+Views tab is a built in web browser for GoldMine.

You can add the following string to each USERNAME.ini file and it will override the default tab names on a user by user basis:

ROTabs1=Summary,Fields,INTRANET,Notes,Contacts,Details,Referrals,Pending,History,Links,Members,Tracks,Opptys,Projects,Tickets,Events,Licenses,Products,Renewal,Sales,Sent

Or, alternatively, you can change every users tab names by adding the following to the GM.ini file:

[User-OverRide:GoldMine]
ROTabs1=Summary,Fields,INTRANET,Notes,Contacts,Details,Referrals,Pending,History,Links,Members,Tracks,Opptys,Projects,Tickets,Events,Licenses,Products,Renewal,Sales,Sent

As you can see, you need to just change the tab name to the required text. Simple as that!

NOTE:  Adding the ROTabs1 field to the .ini file won’t affect the ROTabItems1 values. The ROTabItems1 option holds the order in which each users tabs are displayed – and fickle users will get angry if you change it! All we are doing here is changing the default name mappings, NOT the order of the tabs.

With the release of GoldMine Premium 9.x there will be a signficant improvement in the integration between GoldMine and Outlook.  And, FrontRange expects more users to use Outlook clients in conjunction with their GoldMine CRM.  As part of this progression, FrontRange Solutions has new licensing requirements for users of this integration.

In previous versions of GoldMine, O licenses were used to extend minimal GoldMine functionality (known as “GISMO”) to Outlook users without using a GoldMine E license. In version 9.0, FrontRange Solutions is greatly increasing the GoldMine functionality inside Outlook, with additional linking options and ability to display GoldMine data in the context of Outlook e-mail messages, contacts, and calendar items. This functionality will consume an E license when used within Outlook.

In version 9.0, users will have the option of using Outlook without consuming a GoldMine license, by unchecking the “Enable GoldMine integration” box that is shown within GoldMine Plus for Microsoft Outlook.

Because of this new approach FrontRange will no longer be selling GISMO unlimited user licenses effective immediately.  In addition, they  will no longer be renewing the maintenance on the product upon expiration of the current maintenance period.  There will be no refunds issued as they will continue to support the product.

GoldMine Premium still ships with licenses for the Outlook Link.  And, you can install the GISMO link on users workstations even if they are not going to be logged into GoldMine in order for those users to link incoming and outgoing emails to records in the GoldMine database.  Previously, users would not use up a GoldMine license unless they actually logged into GoldMine.  FrontRange has changed the licensing with GISMO and now all users of GISMO will take up a GoldMine license.