Multi-select option greyed out for drop-down 1

[Snakeroot]

I am using Act! 2006 with the default MSDE 2000 on the backend.

What I'm trying to do is make a dropdown that can have multiple selections. I have this working in all but one of my databases.

Here are the steps I'm taking to make the dropdown:

1) Tools > Define fields
2) Manage Dropdown Lists > select Contact ID/Status > Edit Dropdown List
3) Check Allow users to add items to this list > click Next
4) Type in unique values with no descriptions > click Finish
5) Click Home
6) Select Contat ID Status field > Edit Field
7) Enter name and type (Character)
8) Under Customize field behavior, all boxes are checked.
9) The dropdown list to use is Contact Status/ID
10) click Next
11) Every option on this page is greyed out. Although they are greyed out, Limit to List is checked, Show Descriptions, and Enable Type ahead are checked. The only one that ISN'T checked is Allow Multi-select, which is the option I WANT to be checked.

Does anyone know why this is happening, or better yet, how I can make this option NOT greyed out?

I've tried creating a new dropdown list, and new field (instead of changing already created ones), but that didn't work either. Like, I said, I've done this multiple times on multiple other databases, but this one just doesn't want to give me the option to allow multiple selections in a drop-down list.

Any thoughts, ideas, possiblities, or answers welcomed. Thanks!

SR

 

[GLComputing]

Maybe check your ACT! version -

http://itdomino.act.com/act.nsf/docid/16482

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[Snakeroot]

Thanks Mike!

KB is the first place I looked, but I wasn't able to find anything based on my search. That appears to be what the problem is, which is a bummer because we're purposely not doing updates because their updates kill some functionality that we NEED since we're running on a terminal server.

Since the other DB's are working fine, I suspect what happened was the dropdowns were created while we were using the upgraded version, then once we realized the update is what was causing our other problem, we reverted back to the original version, and now when I try to create a drop down, my box is greyed out.

I guess I can load a dummy copy of Act on a VPC, copy the DB to that machine, make the changes, then put everything back on our server. What a pain.

Anyways, thanks again for figuring out my issue!

SR

 

[GLComputing]

What was lost with the update?

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[Snakeroot]

We had made the users Power Users on the TS so that they could run Act! (since it won't run if they're just Users), which worked fine until they needed to do anything having to do with mail merge capabilities (i.e., exporting contacts to a delimited file or opening a template that would merge Act! fields to Word 2003).

In testing, we found that if we gave them Admin rights, there was no problem with the mail merge capabilities. From here, I ran regmon and filemon to see what was causing the problem, so I could grant access to a file directory or the registry, but I couldn't see what the issue was. I found a document online describe registry permission changes and file permission changes and did that, but that didn't work either. I finally resorted to a "runas" type utility that would run Act! using an Admin account I setup just for running Act!. This worked okay, except that it uses it's own profile, so files were all getting saved to the same my docs folder that no one had access to. Also, we needed seperate folders for each franchise, so that they couldn't see each other's files. One common file dump location was not going to work. Then I found out that the windows runas command has an option to login with an admin account, but to not load the profile, so my docs is unique to each user account that is running Act!. The problem was that when I tried to use runas.exe on Act!, it would not load.

By chance, I had to do a rebuild of one of our servers and before I updated Act! I right clicked the Act! icon and did a runas and to my surprise it worked. I did the updates to Act! and tried it again, and it didn't work.

So, now we're running Act! 8.0.0.182 and not doing updates so that we can use runas.

Also, to note, with the windows runas command, you have to type in the password each time (which is unacceptable to us for how we wanted to use it), so we are using a utility called sanur.exe that passes the password to the runas command automatically.

SR

 

[GLComputing]

Thanks for the info... did you have the same issues with 8.01 and 8.02?

Just FYI here are a couple of useful kb articles for you:
General TS -

http://itdomino.act.com/act.nsf/docid/15275

Email Hotfix -

http://itdomino.act.com/act.nsf/docid/17444

Also, if you go to ACT! 9, you might also look at the Web version which wouldn't have same security issues.

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au

 

[Snakeroot]

Yes I did.

I did find the General TS link you posted before. I did follow that procedure except I ended install mode before running it the first time. So now when I create a user, I login as that person the first time and point them to the already existing database, etc.

It has me wondering though if that was a crucial step I missed that is requiring people to have power user/admin accounts to use Act!. I'd be interested in knowing if someone has Act! running in a TS environment without users being promoted to power users or admins and they are able to do mail merges.

I might have to do a test install now on a VPC and see if this last step changes anything for me. Thanks!

We have looked at the web version and now the dual version as well. Undecided at this point.

SR

 

[GLComputing]

I think you need Power User access as a minimum to create the links to Word and Outlook which is necessary for merging. I think the link to Excel also needs it.

Regards,
Mike Lazarus
ACT! Evangelist
GL Computing, Aust

http://www.GLComputing.com.au