In case you've missed it — or, if you're like me, have been temporarily stupefied by the "polar vortex" sweeping the nation — January 2014 is officially here and in full swing. In our last blog post, we told you that we're striving to make 2014 the year of relationships. From our side of the fence, a major part of relationship building is ensuring that you can interact with your key contacts wherever you are, on the fly, and have all of your important contact data accurate and in sync across the many tools you use to communicate.

With today's two-fold announcement, we're bringing you that much closer to making 2014 your best and most productive year yet. Read on to learn more.

1. Our Android application is finally here!

We're THRILLED to kick this year off by announcing the much-anticipated arrival of our Android application! We know how important the ability to work remotely and "mobile-ly" is to our users, and with our iPhone and Android apps, we now have most of you covered. You can download the Android app from Google Play by clicking here.

Once you've downloaded and installed the Android app, you'll be able to do many of the things possible from our website and more, at any time, from wherever you are. Some of the highlights include:

• automatic call logging, even if you don't initiate the call from the app
• automatic text message (SMS) conversation logging and syncing
• powerful searching, using the same search engine you've come to love on our site
• contact syncing between your mobile address book, Google Contacts, Contactually and beyond
• effortless follow-up and access to your favorite email templates
• ...and much more.

Of course, the best way to experience our Android app is to give it a try yourself. Click here to go to Google Play and download the Android app. We can't wait to hear your thoughts.

2. Zapier integration

Our passionate users often send us requests to build integrations with their favorite software products. As such, we're really excited to announce our newest integration partner, Zapier, to accommodate as many of you as possible with one single integration.

For those of you who aren't already familiar with the service, Zapier is a GREAT software tool that allows you to connect over 250 different web apps to one another. Instead of having to worry about direct integrations that developers would have to build between any two given apps, Zapier lets you easily connect any two apps that have built a Zapier integration. This makes it easy to automate tedious tasks like manual data entry and ensures that all of your data syncs seamlessly with the many tools you're using.

Note: this integration does NOT mean that we won't build additional integrations in-house moving forward! However, our new Zapier integration will provide you with temporary and robust relief in the present.

Looking for ideas to help you get started with Zapier? Click here to see all of the different tools that integrate with Zapier, which means that you can also connect your Contactually account to those platforms. Some great use cases include:

• sending tasks from Contactually to services like Asana or Basecamp
• pushing new contact data from Nimble to Contactually
• creating a new contact in Contactually after somebody fills out your Wufoo form
• recording a Survey Monkey submission in a contact profile in Contactually
• adding email campaigns from Constant Contact to your conversation histories in Contactually
• ...and much more.

To get started with Zapier, first read our support article containing instructions on setting up your Zapier integration. Then, head to your Integrations Settings to activate the integration.

Looking for additional ways to up your networking prowess now that you've downloaded the Android app and enabled the Zapier integration? Click here to download our Own Your Network in Seven Days eBook.

To view the original post, visit the Contactually blog.