contactLINK – Frequently Asked Questions

We have produced a document called Choosing a Database which covers this (as well as other topics) in detail. To view it or download it – please go to this page ????

contactLINK is a low cost, and yet high quality database, developed over many years, with the emphasis on ease of use

You can look at screenshots, on-screen video-style demonstrations and even download a full working demo version. See our Demos page ???.

The demo version comes with a few example records (made up Individuals and Organisations) so that you can start using it immediately and get a sense of what it can do, without having to enter lots of your own information.

You can also enter your own information (up to a limit of 100 contacts).

The Advanced version of contactLINK includes Events, Room Hire, Product Sales and advanced Membership management. Further details. ???

We have produced a document called Choosing a Database which covers this (as well as other topics). To view it or download it – please go to this page ???

contactLINK does not work with Apple Macs

It is possible to set up ‘remote access’ for contactLINK, but its not designed to handle lots of this type of operation. Talk to us about your setup and your needs.

Something like Outlook or Excel and doing mail merges may work for you.

contactLINK has its limits. Although, as it depends upon many variables, it is hard to be specific.

To give you an idea of what might cause problems, if you want 15 or more workers using the system simultaneously (i.e. entering/editing data at the same time) then you may experience performance degradation.

Similarly if you need to store more than 100,000 organisations or individuals, you may experience problems.

If you are unsure about any of this then please call us.

You can use contactLINK for basic fundraising work. But it has not been designed specifically as a fundraising database.

If this is a large part of what you need to do, then you may be better off with a specialised fundraising database.

Like any system, contactLINK does have its limitations and it does not do everything – there are some databases on the market that may be able to do everything you want one to do (and come with a price tag to match) – check out the range of features to see what is and isn’t included in contactLINK to get clear.

contactLINK will run on any version of Microsoft Access from 2000 onwards and from Windows Vista onwards

No, contactLINK has not been designed to run on Apple Macs. You may be able to find an Apple Mac specific database, but your best bet is probably to consider an ‘on-line’ or ‘web based’ database.

Yes, contactLINK will work on a single PC or over a network. It works best on wired rather than wireless networks.

As many as you want!
Its limitation is concurrent users – that is people using it at the same time.
And your copy of contactLINK is licensed for concurrent users. So there’s no limit to how many PCs and laptops you load it onto.

Approximately 15 users.

Although this also depends upon your network. If you’re considering using contactLINK for more than 10 concurrent users then talk to us about this.

This is called ‘remote access’ and is possible.

We currently have clients accessing contactLINK remotely from home and from other offices.

To handle remote access will require some ‘tweaking’ of your server, and at a simple level you will be limited to one remote user at a time.

However, contactLINK has been designed to be a ‘server based’ or ‘office based’ database. And if many people need to regularly access the data from outside your offices you probably need to look at ‘web based’ systems.

No it is not ‘web based’, but can be accessed via the internet in a limited way. See answer above and talk to us for more details.

contactLINK consists of just a small number of files (shown below). No changes are made to your registry and no hidden files installed.

Simply contact us

We’ll then make sure you have everything you need and that contactLINK is right for your needs.

We’ll discuss any training and data transfer issues.

Then we’ll email you (or post you a CD) with your copy of contactLINK

Because contactLINK consists of just a few files (and no changes are made to your registry and no hidden files installed), to uninstall contactLINK you simply delete the files.

That’s it!

We offer as much training as you need and can offer face-to-face training as well as phone training/support.

For full details see our Training page

Most of the documentation we provide is online. We do have a basic guide for some of the more basic features. However, most people find it really intuitive and easy to use.

Updates contain new features and fix problems (bugs) that arise.

contactLINK is constantly in a process of development.

By paying an annual support charge you get updates for free. You can expect new updates every 6 months or so.

Simply pay the current difference between the two versions and we’ll send you an upgrade.

This is covered by the yearly support contract:

• 9-5 Monday to Friday – personal one-to-one phone and/or email support
• 24/7 – web based support – help, tutorials, FAQs etc

So you can call us:

• If anything goes wrong with contactLINK itself. Then we’ll get you up and running as soon as possible.
• When you need something done (e.g. report) and you aren’t sure of the best way to do it
• When you can’t remember how to do something (and you’ve check with your colleagues)
• If you try to do something on contactLINK and you get frustrated with it.
• Even if you manage it in the end, its incredibly useful for us to know that it wasn’t easy – rest assured there’ll be others who have had or will have the same experience – and we may be able to make it easier for the future.

We do not provide free support for your equipment or any of the other software on it.

For example, if the problem is due to faulty hardware or you’ve upgraded to software that contactLINK doesn’t work with (see “What hardware/software does contactLINK need?” above).

However, we won’t just put the phone down on you!

We’ll either quote you and sort it out ourselves, or help you to find someone else who can sort it out.

On the one hand – contactLINK is an off-the-shelf package, and not a tailor-made system

On the other hand – we do accept suggestions from users and are continually improving contactLINK

On the other hand – we will only make changes that we feel benefit a large proportion of our client base so that contactLINK doesn’t get overloaded with small specific features which will make it harder to use – defeating its original design values

On the other hand – good ideas from you – the real users – are invaluable to us

So in the end it comes down to … talk to us!

If a report you require is not available we will design it for you.

Once a report has been produced, it will then be available to all other users free of charge.

Yes.

We can transfer any information you already have into the database for you. So no extra typing for you!

We’ll even check your data for obvious discrepancies if you want us to, such as duplicate records, mis-spelt towns and counties etc.

Send us your data and we will provide a quote for you, so that you can decide whether to go ahead.

A few databases/programs do not allow you to export your data. In which case we would obviously not be able to do the transfer for you. However, most can. So, if you are in doubt, tell us what you’ve got and we’ll tell you whether its possible.

We can certainly work with the following packages/formats (and if you don’t understand any of this – just call us and we’ll sort it out for you):

• Access
• Excel (and most other spreadsheets)
• Word (and most other word processors)
• MS Works
• ACT!
• ASCII delimited
• CSV (comma separated values)
• HTML
• RTF (rich text format)

No problem. We’ve done this many, many times.

No problem. We can transfer it. We’ve done this many times.

No problem. We can import them quite easily. We’ve done this many, many times.