Tracker ST 3.0/database/commercial
From: Doug Wokoun (aa384@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Date: 12/11/91-07:55:39 PM Z
From: aa384@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Doug Wokoun)
Subject: Tracker ST 3.0/database/commercial
Date: Wed Dec 11 19:55:39 1991
Taken from: ST Report online magazine, issue #745 (November 15, 1991):
|
|
| > Tracker ST 3.0 STR Review "TrackerST 3.0 is a terrific program.."
| ==========================
|
|
|
|
| *** TRACKER/ST 3.0 ***
| THE MAILING LIST/DATABASE & MAIL MERGE TOOL
|
|
|
| by Dana P. Jacobson
|
|
|
| Do you maintain your user group membership listing? Do you keep
| track of newsletter subscriptions? Do you have hundreds of business cards
| all over the place? Does your business maintain any kind of customer
| list? Do you send out regular mailings to clients? Do you need an easy
| way to send out those 'thank you' letters for wedding/graduation gifts?
| Class reunion coming up soon?
|
| If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions; or you can
| substitute a similar task - Tracker/ST is the software tool that will do
| it all, and much more.
|
| Assuming that most of you belong to a user group or any organized
| club or association, there will probably be a membership list. Most or-
| ganizations have annual memberships, newsletters, dues, etc. Tracker/ST
| will allow you to easily keep track (no pun intended!) of members' yearly
| dues and newsletter subscription renewal dates. Also, you can maintain
| unlimited notes about each member and/or subscriber. Tracker/ST will also
| allow you to create letters, reminders, and announcements to the member-
| ship without the need to type each one individually. It even has its
| own text editor for creating letters and various notes. Tracker/ST also
| allows you to create, edit, and save multiple mailing label formats.
|
| The minimum hardware requirements are a 1-meg machine (color or mono)
| and a double-sided floppy drive. It's recommended that you use Tracker/ST
| on a hard drive system because of speed and the capability of maintaining
| large databases. Obviously, you'll probably want to have a printer for
| taking advantage of the program's hard copy features (letters, labels,
| etc.). Installation of the program is quick and painless. Once you've
| got the program installed, finish reading the manual and take advantage of
| the couple of tutorials included. Once you've done so, using the program
| will be very easy, almost intuitive.
|
| Tracker/ST has three main areas: The "Entry Screen", the "Power
| Station", and the "Quick Letter". Each area has its own drop-down menus,
| buttons, and keyboard commands (quick keys) to make moving around and ac-
| cessing various functions a snap. Whichever method, or combination, works
| best for your - use.
|
| The "Entry Screen" is pretty straightforward. This is the area where
| you'll enter all of the data that you want to include in your listings.
| This includes first & last names; a salutation (how you want to address
| this person in your letters); company name (if any); 2 street address
| fields; city, state, ZIP,and country; home, work, and FAX numbers. There
| are also fields for a "category", "rank", "date", "I.D. number", short
| "notes", "source", and the option to include "long notes" for each entry.
| These last few fields can be set up for your various needs. For instance:
| category can signify a member or non-member; rank can be used to determine
| months left in membership or subscription; date can signify renewal time;
| I.D. number is self-explanatory (or you can devise something entirely dif-
| ferent); notes can be used for anything, usually a reminder of some kind
| (ex.: John has 20 friends who are buying STs and want to join the group
| next month!); source could signify how each member learned of the group;
| and long notes can be used to create a memo on each person entered which
| might include info about each member's system, favorite programs, etc.
| The Entry Screen also allows you to move back and forward, one entry at a
| time; or you can fast-forward or rewind which will display each entry
| quickly. You also have the ability to add a person at any time; search
| for any entry, edit an entry, or delete one.
|
| One of the best and unique features of the Entry Screen is the
| ability to set defaults for _any_ of the fields that you wish to include.
| In one of the drop-down menus, you can access a "default" menu and fill in
| whichever defaults you wish to include, saving you the trouble of typing
| them all in individually for each entry. For example, if your entries are
| all from the same city, state, and zip code - you can put those items in
| the default menu and those fields will already be 'completed' when you
| enter new names (provided you chose to use defaults!). It makes a time-
| consuming task a lot easier.
|
| You can create new databases, load an existing one, rename an exis-
| ting one, delete one, import names into a current database, and more. You
| can edit, browse, update, view, and sort any and all fields, at any time,
| as well. And, there are even more options available!
|
| The "Power Station" is another of the integral areas of Tracker/ST.
| The Power Station is the area where you can display the various Tracker
| reports that are available. It's here that you can also print labels and
| mail merges. The Power Station consists of three main areas: "Report Set-
| tings", "Mail Merge Settings", and "Label Settings". You're also given
| the opportunity in this area to set a "filter" so you can display only
| those entries matching the filter setting, i.e., all entries listed from
| Texas.
|
| The "Report Settings" area is defined by choices you make in a
| Reports drop-down menu. You can display the report type, primary sort,
| and grouping. You have the option to display headers and footers; and
| also choose between a full or summarized report.
|
| The "Mail Merge" settings are also defined from a drop-down menu. The
| primary setting here is which letter template you want to use (if any).
| The other setting options refer to how you want to position various parts
| of your letter: top margin to allow for pre-printed letterheads; and date,
| return address, and sender's address offsets.
|
| The "Label Settings" are fairly obvious. Just select the correct
| settings from the menus. The label area is also where you can select your
| printer type.
|
| At the bottom of the Power Station screen, there are six selector
| buttons, two for each of the three settings areas. The "Run Report" but-
| ton will allow you to run a report, according to your settings, to either
| the screen (a great preview option!) or to actually print out a copy.
| "Page Width/Length" allows you to set your paper size (width by characters
| and length by lines). "Mail Merge-Print" allows you to determine how your
| merge will be sorted (filter) and then the merge will print. "Form Feed"
| will allow you to send a form feed command to your printer, if needed.
| "Labels Print" allows you to set a filter also (which entries to print
| labels), how many of each, and then print. "Test Print Labels" is a good
| way to dt shelling out, I dunno, $50,000 for one full
| page color ad in MacWorld that people will flip through? Heck, no.
|
| I honestly believe ST users, despite everything, have one of the best
| kept secrets, and the best machines, you can find. Lordee, just try
| moving directories on the Toshiba. The Mac is slightly better ...
| well, that is you don't get a crash. They need a crash recoverer BAD.
|
| It's like 2:30 AM and I'm up; Sandy is in the next room getting SST
| and MegaTalk boxes ready. People have given us money for GCR and in
| turn we've given them back new stuff that keeps the ST *more* than
| competitive for the '90's. And I see a resurgence in ST software that
| makes my whole week -- check out Codehead GT stuff. Try it with an
| SST and you can't go back.
|
| Maybe I ought to just loan an SST to every user group for a while...
|
|
| David Small, engineer, bottle washer, & hacker
|
| Gadgets by Small, Inc.
|
| -----------------
|
| Until next week.....
|
|
|
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