I agree with those who said it depends on the context, and they might be interchangeable, depending on what you have in mind.
If me and my sweetheart are about to leave, I might ask
"Did you lock the door?" or
"Have you locked the door?", but if we were already on the road I would only choose the version with the simple past,
"Did you lock the door?"The simple past is a general tense you can use to mention whatever happened in the past, whether it was years ago or just seconds ago.
The present perfect is actually pretty much of a "present" tense, because although you use it to mention things that happened in the past, the real focus is on the present situation.
Have you locked the door? = Is the door locked now? Can we leave now?
Did you lock the door? = Did you do that? Do you remember locking the door in the past few minutes?So my interpretation of...
YSchneider“I have spoken with our Quality Manager, Mr. Todd Richardello, and he told me that he has just sent the requested documents”
...is:
I have spoken... = I know some things. I am in a position where I can tell you some things now, because I spoke with Todd in the (recent) past
I spoke... = In the (recent) past, I remember speaking with Todd. Speaking with him is something that happened in the (recent) past. So the simple past and the present perfect are often interchangeable, neither is completely right or completely wrong, but both the choices mainly depend on your interpretation and on the context. The rule of thumb "do not use the present perfect with specific time references in the past" comes from that interpretation: if the speaker mentions a point in the past, they can't be focusing on the present and use the present perfect, but they are much more likely to just think of that past event and therefore use the simple past instead.
This is the best explanation I can give on the present perfect. I hope there's nothing wrong or weird... because I am not a native speaker, hehe.
Just the way I see it, based on what I learned here in these forums.