Custom Tables in the ACT! SDK

Rex

ACT!has enjoyed a long history as a product allowing powerful customizations tosuit business needs.  Debuting in ACT!2008 (10.0.2), the ACT! SDK exposes Custom Tables functionality, allowing newcustom, related entities to be associated with Contacts, Groups, and/orCompanies. 

 

Ina typical scenario, the ACT! SDK can be used to create custom entities andcustom fields, and a custom tab in the detail view of Contacts, Groups, orCompanies.  The tab normally provides alist with custom entity data, alongside a User Interface (UI) to enter customdata.  Custom Tables can be used toprovide new horizontal or vertical business-specific functionality in ACT!, butalso to provide rich integration with existing systems by synchronizing andstoring the data in ACT!, as well as displaying the information and/orfunctionality in ACT!.

 

BREAK HERE

 

TheACT! SDK allows full control of the creation and management of both CustomTable entities and fields, including dropdown fields and behavior, allowingpowerful business-tailored entities to be developed and used in ACT!.  Custom Table entities can be secured muchlike other ACT! data, including record-level security (public/private), andfield-level security.   Expected fieldslike Record Manager, Record Creator and Editor, alongside related date fields(Create and Edit date) are always created as part of Custom Table entity.  Custom Tables data synchronizes naturallyalong other ACT! data, such that remote databases can also leverage CustomTables functionality.

 

CustomTables reporting can be done via the ACT! OLE DB provider, which fully supportsCustom Tables data.  Also, Keyword Searchcan be used via the SDK to find data housed in Custom Tables. 

 

Asample implementation of Custom Tables, policies (shown below), can bedownloaded from the ACT! Developer Network.