Janna Contact Personal

Janna Contact Personal

Janna Contact debuted as the first contact manager for Windows 95 and bills itself as "the coolest contact manager ever." The essence of the program is to capture information about your contacts and track your relationships with them. This can be useful to attorneys that deal with a high volume of clients and need to track the progress of their client matters. Another advantage of Janna Contact for legal users is that it combines contact management with document management. This "contact-centric" approach to documents might fit nicely in a law practice environment.

Since Janna Contact Personal is a contact manager, the heart of the application is the phone book. Detailed information can be entered about each of your contacts or clients. You can enter several phone numbers for each person using either pre-defined labels or your own. Contacts can also be arranged into groups, providing a quick way to filter through hundreds of records. Documents relevant to your contacts can be stored with their record and the associated application can be launched directly from Janna Contact Personal. In effect, the program might serve as the clearinghouse for all your information, quickly jumping out to other applications when working within a contact.

The calendar in Janna Contact is no slouch either. The interface is very clean and easy to use. The toolbars and buttons are small, but pop-up hints provide clues. Add new items quickly by selecting the time, clicking and starting to type. Streamline the process by right-clicking and then selecting the type of task from the drop-down list (meeting, negotiate, coffee, leisure, medical, etc.) The calendar is completely drag and drop enabled.

The Janna Contact tutorial provides a quick-start to using the program. Like Day-Timer Organizer, Janna Contact installs itself directly into the Programs folder on your Start Menu. Janna Contact Enterprise, the workgroup version, integrates easily with the Internet or your Intranet using its integrated Web browser. The Personal version is very reasonably priced at $49 and offers big features at a bargain price.

Janna Systems Inc.
(800) 268-6107

By Michael Jimmerson

From the Shopper's Guide to Personal Information Managers - Feb/Mar '98

Pros: Janna Contact Personal ties contact and document management together.

Cons: Novice users may find the interface to be a little clumsy.

Verdict: This is a nifty little PIM for users that mainly want to track contacts. However, the interface may be slightly difficult at first.