Touch Ahead Software Releases EquityTouch®
2.0
EquityTouch, the popular private equity/venture capital deal sourcing software receives Outlook integration, advanced search options, and other enhancements in new release
Boston, MA, March 15, 2010 - Based on the "Touch" concept, EquityTouch is unlike traditional customer relationship management (CRM) software systems. With EquityTouch, Touches are any transaction or communication involved in daily business activities that include emails, events, phone calls, and meetings. These Touches are then organized in the application by company, contact, and Touch type for easy reference. The newest version contains multiple application enhancements and customizable options that allow users to import data easily with fewer keystrokes and mouse clicks.
Outlook®
Integration: EquityTouch 2.0 features a downloadable plug-in for Microsoft® Outlook. Users who are running Outlook 2003 or 2007 can install the plug-in to push emails, calendar events, and contacts directly into EquityTouch from Outlook. The EquityTouch Outlook integration allows users to push emails/events to EquityTouch as a Touch, and all recipients become participants of the Touch. EquityTouch then matches all email/event recipients to contacts already existing in the application. If a match is not found, a pop-up window appears that allows them to either create a new contact or manually match them with an existing contact to resolve the difference.
"Or" Searching: Version 2.0 of EquityTouch allows users to perform "or" searches under the Advanced Search tab. Previous versions would allow for single variable searching in all fields. "Or" searching now allows users to select multiple variables in a single field. The new feature is accessible under the Advanced Search tab.
Created/Modified By: EquityTouch 2.0 also includes "Modified By" and "Created By" searching that allows users to look up information based on what other users have been working on in the application. A created and modified date and time stamp will appear on company and person summary pages as well. These options are available under the "Company" and the "Person" search fields in Advanced Search.
Enhanced Filtering: The new release also contains improved filter settings that allow a user to save their filter settings under the "Touches" tab. Users can select the Touch types they would like to see, and then select "Apply Filter." Once the search is run, the user can save the filter under tools settings.
Current EquityTouch users will automatically receive the update. The only action required on the user side is the option of downloading and installing the Outlook plug-in. Any technical questions/concerns can be directed to Touch Ahead Support via email (help@touchahead.com) or phone (1-866-960-9301).
For additional information on EquityTouch or to request a demo, please visit www.touchahead.com/equitytouch.html.
About Touch Ahead Software LLC
Touch Ahead Software is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions company, focused on providing unparalleled benefits of advanced technology to the alternative asset community. The benefits include dramatically reduced cost of ownership and time for implementation, as well as higher user satisfaction and organizational profitability through deal sourcing and powerful collaboration tools. Touch Ahead Software is the developer of EquityTouch, the premiere deal CRM service for the financial and other specialized industries. For more information, please visit www.touchahead.com
Press Contact
For more information, please contact:
Cathie Briggette
Touch Ahead Software LLC
(p) +1 866 960 9301
(e) cmb@touchahead.com
Release Notes
|
Product |
EquityTouch |
|
Release Number |
1.3.0 |
|
Release Date |
12/04/09 |
|
Support |
TouchAhead |
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Purpose
This is a major feature release. Changes have been made based on requests gathered from user feedback and on initial planning. There have been updates throughout the system that also include several bug fixes. All users of EquityTouch
™ will see these changes.
No action is required on the client side to implement these changes.
Brief Overview
-
Ability to add, remove, and edit Employees from the Company Summary page.
-
Ability to change the Primary Contact from the Company Summary page.
-
Ability to merge duplicate companies and people.
-
Easier method for adding multiple attendees to a Touch.
-
Changes to the Advanced Search including the ability to search for blank/null values and the ability to search for other people’s touches.
-
Change method for calculating the “Next Step” value.
-
Introduction of Security Groups (admin level).
-
Ability to configure Dashboard Statistics (admin level).
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A few other design/display enhancements.
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Assorted bug fixes across the application.
New Features
- Ability To Add, Remove, and Edit Employees From Company Summary – You can now add, edit, and remove employees directly from the Company Summary page.
1. Adding Employees – While looking at a Company Summary page, click
the Add Employee” button in the bottom left corner of the Employees
section.
This will open the New Employee form at the top of the page. Filling out this form and hitting “Enter” will save this new Person to the Company.
2. Editing Employees – While looking at a Company Summary page, click the “Edit” button in the top right corner of the Employees section.
This will open this section in edit mode. You can make changes to the person’s first, middle or last name; his/her title, primary phone number, and email address. Click “Save” to save your changes.
3. Changing Primary Contact – You can now change who the primary contact is at a company from the Company Summary page. In the Employee section, click the radio button next to the appropriate employee. His/her name will become bolded and it will bubble to the top. This name will now appear in search results for that company.
4. Deleting Employees – While looking at a Company Summary page, click the ‘X’ on the far right of the person’s row. You will be alerted that this person has been removed from the company. His/her current role of employment with this company will be made into a past role and he/she will no longer be visible on the Company Summary page.
5. Ability To Merge Records – You can now merge both People and Company records. This is done from a search result and only 2 records can be merged together at once.
To merge two companies or people, first select the two records by checking the checkboxes in the left column of the search result. Then, click the ‘Options’ menu and select ‘Merge Selected Items’.
A window will pop up with all the information displayed in 3 columns. A preview of the merged record’s information will be displayed on the left, the primary record’s information will be displayed in the middle, and the secondary record’s information will be displayed on the right. To swap the primary and secondary companies, click “Swap Primary Company” in the top part of the panel.
To merge using the default values click ‘Merge People’ or ‘Merge Companies’ in the top left. To change what information is included in the merged record, click the radio buttons on the field you would like to swap. If you would like to remove certain information from the merged record, click the ‘X’ next to the field you want removed. You will see the Merge Results column update with the new information.
Some information is hidden to start (communications information, custom fields). To see this information, click “Show Phones, Emails, and URLs” or “Show Custom Fields”.
When you are ready to merge, click ‘Merge People’ or ‘Merge Companies’ in the top left.
Notes:
o All touches are kept when records are merged.
o All groups containing the deleted record are updated to include the merged record if it is not already in the group.
o Fields that can contain multiple values (phone, location, etc) will default to be updated to include all values from both records being merged.
o The primary record is selected by taking the record with the most recent change (Touch or info). This is the one which will remain after the merge. The secondary record is the company or person being merged from. This record will be deleted after the merge.
o After merging people or companies, a touch will be attached to the merged record containing both records’ information. The touch type will be “Company Merge” or “Person Merge”.
o In the resulting Company or Person record, email addresses, phone numbers, and URLs will appear in the order of the select list they belong to.
Note about People records when merging Companies – When you merge two companies, the employees of those companies will be auto-merged based on an exact match on email or full name. You are not given an option to mix and match Person fields when merging Companies.
· Add Attendee Panel – A simpler way of adding attendees to a touch has been added. On a new or existing touch, click the ‘Add Attendee Form’ button.
A window will open up with 3 sections.
o Users - The section on the left is a list of all users in a certain user group of EquityTouch. The first time you use this it will be the default group ‘All Users’. You can change which user group you would like to see by clicking on the following menu and selecting a different group:
o Current Company - The section in the top right is a list all people at the Active Company.
o Other Relationships - The section in the bottom right is a list of all people that have a role with the Active Company, have a previous role with the Active Company (past employees), and anyone who has ever been involved with a touch with the Active Company or Person.
To the left of each person will be radio buttons corresponding to different Touch Roles. To include someone on the Touch, just check the appropriate circle for him/her. You will see them be added to the Touch fly out. To remove them, click the ‘X’ on the Touch fly out next to his/her name (this is the same as removing them without this new tool). When you are done, close the ‘Add Attendee’ panel by clicking the ‘x’ in the top right corner.
· Improvements to Advanced Searching – Several improvements have been made to Advanced Searching that allow you to search for other EquityTouch user’s touches and search for blank/null values in fields. Some procedural and display issues have also been addressed to make the process smoother.
o Other People’s Touches – You can now search through other EquityTouch
™ users' touches. To do this, look for the “Search In” field under the Touch section of the Advanced Search panel.
This drop down previously contained two options: My Touches and All Touches. In addition to those two, it now contains every user of EquityTouch
™ . Selecting a user will narrow the search down to that person’s touches.
o Searching For Blank Values – You can now search for fields that have no values. In drop-down lists the option will now appear in the Advanced Search panel. For text fields, type into the field. In a range (date, numbers), the text is only required in the ‘From’ field.
Note: Searching for in either the Company Name or Person Last Name fields will search for the string ‘’ and not for records with no entries (as those two fields are required and cannot be blank).
o Hitting ‘Enter’ Starts Search – While in the Advanced Search panel, if you hit ‘Enter’/’Return’ the search will start. Note that this will not work if you have a drop-down list selected. In this case the drop-down list will toggle open and closed.
o The Advanced Search Panel Closes on Search - Once the search is complete, the Advanced Search panel will close, displaying the search results.
- Change to ‘Next Step’ Calculation – The ‘Next Step’ date is now the date of the incomplete touch that is closest to the current date. If two incomplete touches are equidistant from the current date, the touch in the future will be displayed. This value will be updated for a Company if a new touch is added and nightly if one is not.
- Security Groups – This release contains the first steps necessary for implementing Security Groups. A Security Group is a group of users set up by an application Administrator that can be used in the application. With this release it will be used in the new Add Attendee functionality (adding People to Touches). All users will belong to the group “All Users” by default. This functionality will continue to become more important with future releases.
- Person Title Added To Relationships Tab - On the Company Relationships tab a Person’s current title is now displayed.
· Changes to the Intermediary Panel – Changes have been made to the Intermediary panel on Company Summary pages. This section now includes the Intermediary’s title, Company, phone, email, and the start date of the intermediary role with the company.
· Dashboard Statistics Now Admin Configurable – Under Customization -> Dashboard -> Statistics Panel in the Administration section. An application administrator can configure the default date range for statistics, the touch types to include, the company types to include, and the touch roles to include.
· Email/Invitation Defaults Admin Configurable by Touch Role – The ability to specify defaults (checked/not checked) based on Touch Role for Email and Outlook Invitation when adding attendees to Touches is now Admin Configurable. Previously all roles that were not ‘Initiator’ were included under ‘Participant’. The administrator can now configure for each Role. This is in the same place it used to be (System Settings -> Mail and Calendar).
· Tag Email Functionality Now Admin Configurable – Under System Settings -> Options -> Mail and Calendar there is now a setting called ‘Send emails with Tags’. Turning this on will send an email to the recipient of a tag.
· Options Button Change – The options button has been changed throughout EquityTouch
™ to the following:
Bug Fixes
- Pagination Saved Preference – The ‘Results Per Page’ setting is now saved across sessions.
- Custom Field Invalid Character - Saving ampersand (&) to a custom field no longer throws an error.
- Company Name Invalid Character – Saving ampersand (&) to a company name no longer throws an error.
- Deleting Company Address Bug - Deleting a company address immediately updates what gets returned in search results. Previously this would not always get updated.
- Export To XLS on Advanced Search - After running an Advanced Search on custom fields, exporting to XLS will now export the correct fields. Previously incorrect results were exported.
- ‘Groups’ Filter Preference Saved Across Sessions – The most recent selection for the Groups filter on the dashboard will now be saved (All Groups, My Groups, Company Groups, People Groups, Shared Groups).
- Saving Touch Without Attendees Alerts User – If you save a touch without any attendees you will receive a message explaining that you need to have at least 1 attendee on the touch. Previously the edit touch panel would say ‘Saving’ but nothing would happen.
- Adding A Relationship No Longer Changes Person’s Header - Only changing the Employee role will change the information displayed in the Person’s header (area above the tabs).
- Options Menus Close Correctly – Sometimes options menus closed prematurely if the mouse hovered over certain areas. This has been fixed.
- Deleting Initiator on Touch Already Sent To Outlook – If a Touch has been sent as an Outlook invitation, and the initiator of the Touch changes, a new invitation will be sent. The old Outlook meeting will remain. Previously, removing the initiator in this situation would have thrown an error.
- Next Step View Available from Stats Search - After clicking on a number in the stats section of the Dashboard, you can now select ‘Next Step View’ as a search result view.
- Drag and Drop of Custom Financial Fields Works - In the Admin section, you can click and drag custom financial fields into order in ‘Financial Fields Layout’.
- Person Summary ‘Save Changes’ Message - The ‘Are you sure you want to navigate away without saving your changes’ dialogue is only displayed if something has changed.
- New Group from Selected Bug - This did not always display the correct number of groups being added. This has been fixed.
- Google News Module Bug – Editing search terms in the Google news module automatically refreshes the search results.