Question I want a contact tracking app/spreadsheet/something

[teuchter]

I often send off emails to a bunch of different companies/people when I am looking for information or quotes or whatever. And then I wait and usually some respond with everything I need, some respond but I need to ask follow up questions and some don't respond at all, or respond but are clearly useless. And this process may play out over days or weeks or months and in-between times it's easy to forget where everything is at.

So, usually I make a basic table that records who I've sent what to, whether I've heard back from them, what I got from them, whether I need to reply, or chase. And maybe I highlight in green or orange or red accordingly, but I just do all this manually.

But I'd prefer to have some kind of more automated something, where I can quickly & easily add a record of a new enquiry and any responses, and it'll organise it all into a nice list for me that makes clear who I'm waiting for and how many days it's been and so on.

My main question is: is there a generic thing that basically does this, and if so, what is it usually called and what do I need to google?

Or if anyone has any specific recommendations feel free to share. I don't need anything complex or large-scale; I do not run a global corporation which may come as a surprise to some.

 

[spitfire]

CRM will do it, may be a bit OTT for what you want but there are loads of free ones.

Try Hubspot: What is CRM? | HubSpot

But they're all much of a muchness.

 

[Pickman's model]

Think most people here would be surprised if you could run a mile let alone a small enterprise. What you need is called a diary.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

If your needs aren't too heavy duty and you require a number of related things then Notion could work, I'd got for HubSpot if you're really only after a CRM.

 

[teuchter]

CRM will do it, may be a bit OTT for what you want but there are loads of free ones.

Try Hubspot: What is CRM? | HubSpot

But they're all much of a muchness.

Thanks, i will have a look at that.

In general I like to avoid anything proprietary if possible (even if free) which is why I was wondering if there might just be a kind of spreadsheet template out there that would do most of what I want.

 

[RiderOnTheStorm]

honestly, a simple xls spreadsheet was my first thought here. Have first worksheet / tab as list of who you have contacted and various columns going across for dates, estimates, phone numbers, email address etc. Maybe a 'status' for who is getting back to who. Then have a seperate worksheet / tabs for each contact/business that gets back to you , so you can cut & paste answers, questions, links etc.. Have as much detail there as you want/need, so you can see history and progress of enquiry.

 

[teuchter]

honestly, a simple xls spreadsheet was my first thought here. Have first worksheet / tab as list of who you have contacted and various columns going across for dates, estimates, phone numbers, email address etc. Maybe a 'status' for who is getting back to who. Then have a seperate worksheet / tabs for each contact/business that gets back to you , so you can cut & paste answers, questions, links etc.. Have as much detail there as you want/need, so you can see history and progress of enquiry.

Yes. I'm no spreadsheet maestro though.

I could spend a day or two inefficiently building exactly what I want, as a procrastination task to avoid doing other things. But it seems like other people must have built something similar before. If I knew the right term to google I might be able to find one out there that I can modify to my needs.

 

[MBV]

Sounds like you are on your way with the design from your opening post. Consider using a calendar like outlook or Google's to help with diarising reminders to chase/make contact.

 

[teuchter]

It seems there are lots of free spreadsheet templates offered online by makers of project management software.

And the purpose of the spreadsheets is to convince you that the spreadsheet doesn't work very well so why don't you purchase the software instead.

 

[Spymaster]

CRM will do it, may be a bit OTT for what you want but there are loads of free ones.

Try Hubspot: What is CRM? | HubSpot

But they're all much of a muchness.

This.

Although I'm surprised teuchter doesn't have a PA for this stuff.

 

[moochedit]

This.

Although I'm surprised teuchter doesn't have a PA for this stuff.

Christ... imagine the tasks they'd have to do

(((Teuchter's PA)))

 

[Kid_Eternity]

It seems there are lots of free spreadsheet templates offered online by makers of project management software.

And the purpose of the spreadsheets is to convince you that the spreadsheet doesn't work very well so why don't you purchase the software instead.

This is also why I mentioned Notion, plenty of really easy to use templates, plus the product does a bunch of other really useful stuff.

 

[teuchter]

Yeah... I have looked at Notion in the past, for other slightly different purposes.

Each time I look at this kind of stuff, I seem to find endless options none of which quite give me what I actually want - either that or they are so complex that I've have to spend quite a while working out what they actually do before I'd even know if they were going to help me. Plus, I have to hand over all my stuff to be held in some proprietary type format that I don't have reliable long term control over.

I've looked at some of the CRM things but they are completely overkill for me, plus all the standard templates are built for similar but different purposes - I don't want to chase marketing leads or manage customer databases or track my team's progress on some stupid project in a stupid startup.

It kind of seems that my solution would be to make a simple but purpose built spreadsheet. That, or find one that someone else has built that is close enough to what I need that I can just modify it.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Yeah... I have looked at Notion in the past, for other slightly different purposes.

Each time I look at this kind of stuff, I seem to find endless options none of which quite give me what I actually want - either that or they are so complex that I've have to spend quite a while working out what they actually do before I'd even know if they were going to help me. Plus, I have to hand over all my stuff to be held in some proprietary type format that I don't have reliable long term control over.

I've looked at some of the CRM things but they are completely overkill for me, plus all the standard templates are built for similar but different purposes - I don't want to chase marketing leads or manage customer databases or track my team's progress on some stupid project in a stupid startup.

It kind of seems that my solution would be to make a simple but purpose built spreadsheet. That, or find one that someone else has built that is close enough to what I need that I can just modify it.

It's fantastic now, very good AI too. Here's some CRM templates:

Best CRM Templates from Notion

From lead tracking to deal management, Notion's CRM templates make it easy to organize your sales pipeline and close more deals by customizing your CRM to fit your unique business needs.

www.notion.so

 

[teuchter]

But CRM stands for customer relationship management, and I don't want to manage relationships with customers.

That's why none of these CRM templates, whatever the platform, really do what I want.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

But CRM stands for customer relationship management, and I don't want to manage relationships with customers.

That's why none of these CRM templates, whatever the platform, really do what I want.

Try searching on

Quote Tracker Software

Or

Quote Tracker Excel Template

 

[Kid_Eternity]

But CRM stands for customer relationship management, and I don't want to manage relationships with customers.

That's why none of these CRM templates, whatever the platform, really do what I want.

Your op literally says you’re struggling to manage your relationships with customer.

 

[teuchter]

Customers are literally not mentioned at all in my OP.

 

[tommers]

Monday.com

 

[A380]

I’m guessing from your response that you are t a spreadsheet guru that you can’t write data bases?

It sounds like the sort of task which can be done on a spreadsheet but would get very clunky or would be a very light touch database.

I’d have thought Access ( or similar) would be the ideal medium for this kind of thing. Can you use Access? Or know someone who can?

 

[spudulike]

I'd suggest a task manager. I use Evolution on Linux but I'm sure others have similar features.

So you'd make a task based on an email query (maybe use email-to-task addon), add more notes, set a due date. All your tasks are ordered by (e.g.) due dates. Set reminders "x" days/hours before the due date etc.

It runs my finances easily. For instance, state pension recurs every four weeks but major bills are monthly. I click on the pension task when the due date is reached and it moves the task due date on four weeks ... then I have an easy visual of every "task" occurring before that I have to deal with e.g. "leave money in current account for council tax direct debit", "pay visa bill", "leave money for energy bill" i.e. once done, click on it and it moves the due date forward a month (after the next pension payment is due).

You can see from the screen shot I'll need to move money to my current account to pay the energy bill which will be due on 17th Dec (don't know it yet as bill arrives around 2nd of the month

 

[teuchter]

I’m guessing from your response that you are t a spreadsheet guru that you can’t write data bases?

It sounds like the sort of task which can be done on a spreadsheet but would get very clunky or would be a very light touch database.

I’d have thought Access ( or similar) would be the ideal medium for this kind of thing. Can you use Access? Or know someone who can?

I don't really know much about databases no. I did not know what Access is until googling it just now.

That said, I do use this

Memento Database

mementodatabase.com

For something that runs on my phone, that I made myself and use everyday.

I didn't consider using it for this job too, because it used to be that it was really just a phone app and the desktop version was very basic. But looking at the website now, it seems that maybe the desktop version has been developed quite a bit since I last looked in detail. So might be worth investigation.

 

[teuchter]

I'd suggest a task manager. I use Evolution on Linux but I'm sure others have similar features.

So you'd make a task based on an email query (maybe use email-to-task addon), add more notes, set a due date. All your tasks are ordered by (e.g.) due dates. Set reminders "x" days/hours before the due date etc.

It runs my finances easily. For instance, state pension recurs every four weeks but major bills are monthly. I click on the pension task when the due date is reached and it moves the task due date on four weeks ... then I have an easy visual of every "task" occurring before that I have to deal with e.g. "leave money in current account for council tax direct debit", "pay visa bill", "leave money for energy bill" i.e. once done, click on it and it moves the due date forward a month (after the next pension payment is due).

You can see from the screen shot I'll need to move money to my current account to pay the energy bill which will be due on 17th Dec (don't know it yet as bill arrives around 2nd of the month

View attachment 401628

Thanks. I'll look more at this.

 

[teuchter]

I could spend a day or two inefficiently building exactly what I want, as a procrastination task to avoid doing other things.

So, this is kind of what happened.

I did quite a lot of searching for something already-existing that does what I want but without success.

At some point I decided to make my task more difficult by building something where I can copy emails to it and it'll automatically make an entry in the table/spreadsheet/database/thing.

I managed to do this using a "mailhook" in https://www.make.com/en which can then send the bits of info I need to Notion (as suggested by Kid_Eternity ).

Notion works, because it has the integration with Make and because it's quite flexible in what you can build as a table. I had to fiddle around getting formulas right but did manage to get what I want.

I'm still not very comfortable with Notion being a proprietary system that I can't really get my data out of in a way that can be read/used in a different application.

So, have been looking around a bit for other things that give you a bit more control of your own stuff. Have seen Obsidian - Sharpen your thinking suggested in some places.

I might also re-look at just using Google sheets, now I understand a bit more about how to get data automatically extracted from emails. Google of course is also a proprietary system but it at least allows me to keep all documents in a parallel synced folder on my computer, and I think there's a better chance of being able to export things in a way that can be read by other apps.

I sort of think that a spreadsheet can mostly do what I want - the main issue with a spreadsheet is that it's not very convenient for entering new data. I looked at various ways of setting up forms that would make it quick to add or alter new entries but that started getting complicated. Being able to just copy emails to the mailhook thing largely deals with this though.