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Asia/Pacific Computer Services
CAPTURE -- Customer And Project Tracking with Usage Reporting Extensions
FREE CRM for Lotus Notes - Freeware Download - ENJOY!
Asia/Pacific Computer Services is an Advanced member of the IBM Business Partner program.


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Asia/Pacific Computer Services is pleased to provide at no charge -- on an "as is" basis -- CAPTURE, which is a Lotus Notes database application that may be freely used, subject to the Terms and Conditions below. If you do not agree to the terms and conditions, you must not use this database or any derivative of it. Please read the CAPTURE Terms and Conditions of usage, at the bottom of this page.

CAPTURE is freeware. That's right, NO COST to you ever. No limitations. You can donate if you want, but that's certainly not required.

THE DESIGN PHILOSOPHY OF CAPTURE:

Often, a simple application solution is quite good enough, rather than an application with many features and options. CAPTURE was designed to be extremely easy to deploy, manage and use, and so should require minimal or no training since only assumes regular Lotus Notes usage skills. We think that CAPTURE is functional enough to be useful in many situations, while not being overly complex or difficult to master and use effectively.

CAPTURE is a simple "customer relationship management" (CRM) database application. In its design we have tried to deliberately avoid the more intricate aspects of CRM, with the aim of CAPTURE being suitable for a range of organizations and industries (as well as being easier to learn and use). Various other vendors offer a range of full-featured Notes/Domino CRM applications if that's what you need, but they tend to be rather complex to learn, deploy and use -- not to mention somewhat on the expensive side!

You could well find that CAPTURE has enough features to be quite adequate for your CRM needs. If not, then at the very least you will find CAPTURE to be a good (and extremely well-priced) introduction to CRM applications for IBM Lotus Notes/Domino, and a launching point for you to investigate the various heavyweight CRM suites on offer from other vendors.

If you want a straightforward, easy-to-use solution and don't need the many functions of those other CRM solutions, CAPTURE may be just right for you. And CAPTURE will be very easy on your budget, since it's provided free!


WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH CAPTURE?
Use this application to track activity with your customers, and the resources allocated to the customers. The term "customers" covers organizations which have already purchased your products or services, prospects (who might purchase them), plus your suppliers and business partners who provide you with products or services or who market and support them. While this terminology tends to be that of a typical manufacturing, distribution or services company, CAPTURE is useful for all sorts of organizations. Other terms that you might use instead of "customers" are "clients", "members", "associates" and the like.

For a new customer, you must first create a Customer Profile to describe basic facts about the customer (company or other type of organization). You can set up a  parent customer with any number of subsidiary customers. Then you create Project Profiles and Contact Profiles for each customer (there can be separate projects and contacts the parent customer). You can have any number of Project Profiles and Contact Profiles per customer.  Then you can track all activity you might have with the customer in general, and with each individual project or contact person.

You can track many different kinds of activity between us and a customer/prospect:

  • Action Items (including the assignment of tasks and the controlling of their timely resolution)
  • Phone Call Reports (whether initiated by you or by the customer)
  • Sales Call Reports (when you actually meet with the customer)
  • Miscellaneous Activities (anything not covered by the above three items)

Over time, you will build up a history of this activity with all your customers.

Thereafter, anyone in who has a relationship with the customer/prospect/supplier/partner can come to this database to review the history of activity between us and the customer. A sales person might review the latest activity before making a sales call. A developer might log marketing support or technical activities related to the customer or prospect. Management might track action items from the time they are specified, to the assignment of a person responsible, and finally to their ultimate resolution.

 

To broaden its applicability, we made it easy to adjust various settings and tables in CAPTURE to suit your type of organization with its own style of operation and terminology. For example, you might prefer to use the term "client" rather than the default term "customer", the term “Associate” rather than "Sales Rep", or the term “Campaign” instead of "Project". Selection lists -- such as action types, customer and contact categories, calling cycles, project stages and currency codes -- are all easily configurable. This provides considerable flexibility to the way you deploy and use CAPTURE in your particular environment.

 

Click to view a larger image.
(Click the image to view a larger, clearer version)


WHO WILL USE CAPTURE?

Anyone using IBM Lotus Notes and Domino, from the smallest organization or group upwards, could use CAPTURE,

You can use CAPTURE if you want to store and share information about customers (or "clients" or "prospects" or "partners" or "suppliers" or "distributors" or "members" or "affiliates", and so on). You can easily configure CAPTURE to use terminology appropriate to your organization's environment. For example, you can specify your organization's name ("company" name) and preferred terminology such as "Account Executive" rather than "Sales Representative", "Advertising Campaign" rather than "Project", a list of currencies to select from for financial values, and the like. This brings a considerable degree of flexibility and adaptability to the ways that you can use CAPTURE.

The obvious use is by sales/marketing teams. but CAPTURE could be used by all sorts of groups: hardware or software product support, Help Desk, legal department, credit section, senior management, manufacturing and so on. And thinking more broadly, because it's free CAPTURE should also be of interest to clubs and societies, non-profit groups, etc -- even to single individuals -- anywhere that relationships and activities need to be recorded and tracked for personal or group purposes.


WHAT IS THE THE "URE" IN CAPTURE? -- USAGE REPORTING EXTENSIONS:
Gather and analyze comprehensive document usage metrics ...
CAPTURE includes an implementation of our NotesTrackerTM technology for the tracking and reporting of document usage. When you activate usage tracking for a CAPTURE database, you'll be able to see who Creates documents, Deletes documents, Reads documents and Updates which fields in them (you'll see the field contents before and after each change). More information about NotesTracker (including terms of use and pricing) may be found by clicking the following button:

Currently (as of 12 April 2007) CAPTURE Version 2.1 incorporates NotesTracker Version 5.0 capabilities.


CLICK HERE to find out more about our own key product, NotesTracker ...

Most organisations don't have any real idea of how effectively their Notes/Domino applications are being used!

NotesTracker provides a NEW WAY for you to gather and examine key usage information about your Lotus Notes/Domino applications, whether the databases are accessed via a Lotus Notes Client or a Web Browser.
NotesTracker voice-annotated animations


WHAT IS PROVIDED IN THE DOWNLOAD:
The CAPTURE database is provided, fully functional and with no restrictions as to how you use it, but with its design hidden to protect our intellectual property (particularly in the NotesTracker technology).

REQUESTING ENHANCEMENTS TO CAPTURE:
We plan to make some enhancements to the CAPTURE freeware, and will consider adding small features that you might suggest. Some enhancements that were made in Version 1.1,arose from excellent suggestions from a user in Buenos Aires. The key determinant is that any such requests must be of a generally-applicable nature. We want to avoid falling into the trap of creeping featurism. Therefore any new features must comply with our overall concept that the freeware version of CAPTURE must remain a simple and easy-to-use application. (Also, the requests must not put a burden on our limited development resources. Remember that after all CAPTURE is freeware, and we'll need to be very selective about which of your requests to implement as freeware!)
 

 

CUSTOM-TAILORED FORMS OF CAPTURE:
If you are interested in using CAPTURE but need significant modifications to meet your requirements, we certainly will consider performing the modifications for you -- at reasonable rates for our professional services. We will license the resulting product to you (with unhidden design) for your exclusive use. The one proviso is that since CAPTURE has built-in NotesTracker code we'll expect you to purchase the appropriate level NotesTracker license. (See a few paragraphs above for more about NotesTracker.) And even if you don't need any major functional changes you still might wish to purchase a CAPTURE license so that you can make minor changes such as in forms appearance or layout, or to globalize it (translate it from English into one or more other languages).


Click the following link or image to download...
CAPTURE VERSION 2.1
Click on the image to download the CAPTURE self-extractor program, then execute it to extract the CAPTURE database.
Download size approximately 3.5 MB

Please don't forget to send us an e-mail if you like (or don't like) CAPTURE and any interesting experiences you have in using it!

 CAPTURE Version 2.1 has some small usability fixes/enhancements,
plus one major enhancement ... the inclusion of NotesTracker Version 5.0
which includes "Special" documents, e-Mail alerting, tracking of pasted and mail-in documents, and more.
Version 2.0 added a considerably-improved interface, an extremely useful Notes mail merge,
numerous small improvements, plus internal NotesTracker views.
Version: 2.1.01 (released early on 13 April 2007) - minor changes.
V
ersion: 2.1.02 (released late on 13 April 2007) - enhancements and minor fixes.
V
ersion: 2.1.03 (released 23 January 2008) - Bug fix for selection of sales person's name in Customer Profile.

Latest version: 2.1.04 (released 29 January 2008) -
Bug fixes, plus minor enhancements

Still available here:
CAPTURE Version 2.0

The built-in
Help About This Database and Help Using This Database documents
contain user guidance and security/administration details.


The latter is also downloadable separately (starting from Version 2.1.04) ...
Using AsiaPac CAPTURE 2.1 (PDF document ~ 2.5 MB)

The CAPTURE database comes with sample documents to help you understand how it works.
Delete these after examining them.

Since you will want to use the built-in NotesTracker
for its extensive usage tracking and other capabilities...
CLICK HERE to download the Tracker Guide

YOU need NotesTracker! Purchase a copy
for all your IBM Lotus Notes and Domino
database application usage tracking needs!
Find out about about NotesTracker here or here.

We have spent many hours developing and enhancing CAPTURE.
While it it a totally free application, voluntary donations are gratefully accepted
to help defray our development costs and fund future development!
So please consider sending us a contribution to the extent that CAPTURE is of value to you.


BE SURE TO KEEP A WATCH OUT FOR UPDATES...
They will be announced in our NotesTracker news weblog.
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You will need to sign the CAPTURE database, in order for
its agents to execute in your Notes/Domino environment.

Therefore you also should download and make use of
yet another FREE application from Asia/Pacific Computer Services ...
Simple Signer - to easily Sign all design elements in a Lotus Notes database


 

The download is a self-extracting zipped file that when executed yields the CAPTURE database, which you place in your Lotus Notes data directory.
 

There's no complicated installation procedure. Just open the extracted CAPTURE database and, in a matter of seconds, you have your simple Customer And Project Tracking system up and running!

Read the built-in "Help Using" document for database usage guidelines and tips.

You will have to carry out some basic administrative activities, specifically, the amendment of the database's ACL (Access Control List) to suit your individual security requirements. That is, you must modify the ACL to control who will be database Readers, Authors, Editors and Managers.

 

As distributed, the CAPTURE database comes with the -Default- access level set to "Manager", but this is done only to make it easy for you to become familiar with the database's functions and capabilities.

 

TIP: In the Help you will find a section about securing your database. The CAPTURE database is distributed with certain assumptions in its Access Control List (ACL) about who will use the database and how (who will be managers, editors, readers, and so on). If you wish to change the database's ACL, but do not have Manager access rights needed to make such changes, all you need do is to make a new copy of the database without copying its ACL, which gives you the necessary Manager access so you will be able to adjust the ACL (of the new copy) to meet your needs.

Note: To better secure local copies of CAPTURE databases, the Access Control List has (in its "Advanced" section) the property "Enforce a consistent Access Control List across all replicas of the database". (This might cause you some problems in accessing the database, so it's important for you to properly understand how this setting works.)

OPERATING ENVIRONMENT:
CAPTURE operates under IBM Lotus Notes Release 5 or later. Historically, CAPTURE was only designed to use the IBM Lotus Notes Client. While a CAPTURE database can be accessed via a web browser, no resource time was available or expended (because it is a freeware project) to fully adapt CAPTURE to the Internet environment. Specifically, the viewing of CAPTURE documents via a browser should be okay but there are limitations in the way that some field types (Rich Text, keyword lists, etc) are editable via a web browser. The added value of the richly-featured IBM Lotus Notes Client is that, for many editing functions in particular, it provides a notably superior user experience compared with a web browser. Therefore, to use CAPTURE to its fullest, access a CAPTURE database using your Lotus Notes client.


Please send us your comments, suggestions, feedback and bug reports so we can improve CAPTURE


BUILT-IN DOCUMENTATION FOR CAPTURE:
As discussed above, CAPTURE is designed to be straightforward and easy to use, and there is no separate printed User Guide. Please
 refer to the "Help About This Database" and "Help Using This Database" (accessible from the Notes menu bar in the database itself) for guidance and tips on  CAPTURE operation and security.

 

Since CAPTURE contains NotesTracker functionality, you might like to examine the NotesTracker documentation too:

OPTIONAL - Click here to download the NotesTracker Guide

Please do not hesitate to contact us about CAPTURE.
WE WOULD APPRECIATE YOUR FEEDBACK
.
If CAPTURE doesn't quite fit your needs, we are prepared to design tailored versions of it for you, for a modest fee plus the appropriate licence fee for the built-in NotesTracker implementation. For the latter, please refer to:


SOFTWARE USAGE TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Copyright: 1999-2006 Asia/Pacific Computer Services Pty Ltd

This Software, the "Customer And Project Tracking + Usage Reporting Extensions" ("CAPTURE") database for IBM Lotus Notes/Domino, contains proprietary information of Asia/Pacific Computer Services Pty Ltd ("APCS") and is copyrighted and licensed, not sold.

The term "Software" means the original program and all whole or partial copies of it. A Program consists of machine-readable instructions, its components, data, audio-visual content (such as images, text, recordings, or pictures), and related licensed materials.

By installing the Software you agree to these Terms and Conditions and APCS grants you an unlimited free license to use the
CAPTURE software for personal use or in your organization and to distribute it on a not-for-profit basis.

The free form of the Software is provided with hidden design and you shall not modify, translate, disassemble, decompile, or reverse engineer the Software. If you purchase the tailored (licensed) form of the Software it will be provided with unhidden design so that its design elements may be modified and adapted by you to meet your specific requirements.  For both forms you may not remove, alter or deface any proprietary notices on the Software.

CAPTURE contains a full implementation of NotesTrackerTM software, and it is important to APCS that you must agree not to violate the Terms and Conditions of use for NotesTracker which may be viewed at the APCS web site, on either of the following Web pages:
      http://asiapac.com.au/Pricing/Usage_Tracker_pricing.htm
or   http://notestracker.com/Pricing/Usage_Tracker_pricing.htm

Note: you must not transpose the NotesTracker code from CAPTURE to any of your other databases without purchasing the appropriate full NotesTracker license.

Because
CAPTURE is free ("freeware") the guarantee of free support is not included in the license for the Software. APCS may decide to make reasonable effort to fix problems reported, and enhance functionality where requested or suggested but APCS reserves the right to charge for such enhancements and future upgrades or maintenance of this product. If you wish to modify CAPTURE to better suit your individual requirements, then APCS is willing to sell CAPTURE to you and provide it without hidden design, in conjunction with the appropriate NotesTracker license fee, so that your Notes developer can adapt it to meet your needs. (APCS is also willing to carry out design changes on your behalf, for a reasonable fee.)

The Software and associated documentation are copyrighted under international intellectual property laws and are proprietary to APCS. By installing and using the Software, you agree to comply with these terms and acknowledge that the Software and documentation contain valuable trade secrets and other proprietary information belonging to APCS. You agree not to remove any copyright statement from the Software.



Last updated: 18 March 2007

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YOU need NotesTracker! Purchase a copy
for all your IBM Lotus Notes and Domino
database application usage tracking needs!
Find out about about NotesTracker here or here.