[Nep2ne]

I'm new to the entire concept of business/contact management software, but this product looks intriguing. I'm familiar with Now Up to Date, but due to it doesn't import or sync with Address Book, and the fact that it is two products ("Contact" being second) make me lean toward this. Just wondering if anyone has any experience and recommended usage, or otherwise. Has anyone used it to create reports?

[joelcpa]

I have been using DayLite as my primary PIM/CRM for about a month now. It is a great product written for OS X with very responsive support staff and regular updates. It is a 1.3 version program, so there are still several features lacking (Palm support being one of the biggest), but Marketcircle seems to be hard at work to take care of those.

I have two suggestions for you:

1. Marketcircle has a 30 day trial, so give it a whirl. It is very easy to set up and play with. DayLite is very different from other Mac PIM/CRM programs I have tried so you really need to try it out.
2. Join the mailing list. It is an active user list with discussions on the pros and cons of the program as well as ideas on getting the most out of it. MarketCircle employees often jump in and join the discussions. As I said, this is a very responsive company.

I converted a 5000 contact database from Act! 6.0 (PC) to DayLite (using DayLite's conversion utility) and am not looking back. Act! was my last PC program since my switch to a Mac over a year ago, so thanks to DayLite, I am now PC FREE!!!

[ls -al]

I cannot say enough about this product. the developers are extremely responsive and commited to the OS X platform.

Wholeheartedly recommend it!

[kcmac]

I used the demo versions and finally bought the product. While it certainly has made great strides, I still prefer ACT.

The developers are very responsive and I do not feel bad about supporting them. I am hopeful that this product will become my favorite in the coming versions.

I mostly am waiting for this product, or any product in this genre for that matter to TRULY use the addressbook as the central repository for contacts.

You still have to synchronize Daylite with Addressbook and Daylite wants to take precedent. This is still very unacceptable to me. Also, the demo version synch was extremely quick when importing the Addressbook. It is excrutiatingly slow in the retail full version.

[cpac]

A few thoughts:

DayLite pros:
•responsive developer team
•nicer appearance than most CRM/PIMs
•nice pro features like letter/email merges etc.
•great tools if you're involved in sales

DayLite cons:
•fundamentally flawed Calendar module can't perform even basic tasks (like having a birthday repeat yearly, or an appointment repeat every monday, tuesday, and friday, or deleting/modifying a single instance of a repeating appointment)
•may be overkill for some not involved in sales
•expensive to license
•must go through address book to sync/no way to sync calendar/task information with Palm as yet
•feels slow on TiBook/500/512 when compared with iCal/AddressBook

I started using DayLite in its beta pre-release days, and am still a member of the email discussion list. I was always interested in DayLite as a super-powerful PIM rather than as a CRM/Sales tool. I am a law student and used DayLite both to track schedule and contacts, but also to prepare and track all my relationships with potential employers, plan a wedding, used "projects" to track specific classes, etc. But I stopped.

I now primarily use iCal, Address Book, and TextEdit to do the jobs DayLite once performed.

Why'd I switch? well the calendar module problems were a large factor - the problem's been there since the beginning and although it's frequently complained about, I haven't seen any actual movement towards a fix as yet.

Second, while I would have absolutely considered using DayLite to run a small law office, it seems now that rather than focus on the more generally usable interface tweaks/fixes, the DayLite team has chosen to focus on making small changes applicable mainly to persons involved in sales (i.e. phone calls, follow-ups, etc.).

My hopes that DayLite will still emerge a compelling product as an advanced PIM are still high, but for now, I've decided it's just not the right product for my needs..

[joelcpa]

Originally posted by cpac:
My hopes that DayLite will still emerge a compelling product as an advanced PIM are still high, but for now, I've decided it's just not the right product for my needs..

The first sentence from Marketcircle's website should be an indication to you that what you are hoping for is not their mission:

"DayLite is a business solution designed to manage customers, accounts, marketing campaigns and sales."

DayLite does have some basic project management capability, but that is clearly not its strength nor objective.