Software Reviews : Political Campaign Software for Micros Reviewed by J. Theodore Anagnoson,California State University,Los Angeles Publisher: Below,Tobe and Associates,Inc.,Culver City (Los Angeles),CA and Falls Church,VA Year of Publication: Latest version is 1986 (Version reviewed is 1984) Materials: Program disk,data disk (requires dBASE II,III or III+ to run). Price: $1,000.00 Machine Specificity: IBM PC and compatibles. a CP/M version is available (ask publisher for details) System Requirements: Requires 192K RAM (dBASE II and dBASE III versions) or 384K (dBASE III+ version) and two double sided drives,a parallel printer port,printer (dBASE II version will not start up without printer turned on),modem (optional). Ms- or PC-DOS 1.1 or higher,dBASE II,v. 2.4 or dBASE III or III+ required. WORDSTARlMAIL- MERGE or a word processing program with a mail merge function required to print form letters. Files larger than 500 to 1,000 cases are much more effectively handled with a hard disk,larger system memory and a printer-spooler. Will run on a local area network with dBASE III+ if one is available. Operator Requirements: Requires a person who is familiar with MS- or PC-DOS and microcomputers generally. Below-Tobe state that the best operator is a person "who wants to get a particular job done and is incidentally using a computer to do it." Some knowledge of your word processor and its mail merge function is required to produce form letters. Effectiveness: Excellent User-Friendliness: Good Documentation: Good to excellent

Abstract

Summary: This campaign management software will handle campaign accounting and budgeting (including paying invoices, writing checks, managing the payroll, and general accounting), candidate scheduling (including printing a daily candidate schedule and acknowledgement letters), monitoring and reporting campaign contributions and pledges, and keeping a list of campaign personnel (including volunteers). Using the files for general research requires a knowledge of dBASE II, III or iii +. Changes in federal and state forms may require installation of the most recent release.