Bug in BCM's import and History Report

[George]

I'm using Outlook2003w/BCM and importing some contacts from ACT! 2000 (also
known as version5). After importing contacts from ACT-to-BCM, (using File >
Import > BCM), BCM itself does show a contact's histories by date, but
printing a BCM Business Contact History *Report* is wrong...it instead shows
every history record with the same date/time...the date/time it was imported
(which is irrelevant).

Here's what it's doing, in case any beta-testers or MS developers in group
can get it fixed in next version, and/or in case someone can offer a
workaround for now:

CONTACT HISTORY IN ACT:
John Doe
12/31/04. 9:00am. I called John about big conference
01/16/05. 10:12am. John called, let's have it in Florida
01/31/05. 2:50pm. We scheduled it at MiamiResorts

CONTACT HISTORY IN BCM after importing:
John Doe
12/31/04. 9:00am. I called John about big conference
01/16/05. 10:12am. John called, let's have it in Florida
01/31/05. 2:50pm. We scheduled it at MiamiResorts

PRINT A BCM "BUSINESS CONTACT HISTORY" REPORT:
John Doe
02/09/05. 11:17am. I called John about big conference
02/09/05. 11:17am. John called, let's have it in Florida
02/09/05. 11:17am. We scheduled it at MiamiResorts

 

[Luther]

Looks like a bug in the Report.

It's using the Outlook item's CreationTime instead of the BCM item's
ActivityTime.

 

[George]

Thanks Luther,

-Is there a chance you might know of a workaround?

-Also, I've only imported a few "test" contacts, which brought out this
"business contact history report" problem. Assuming this bug gets fixed in
the next version... would you say with ___% confidence either "a" or "b"
below?:

a) I can go ahead and import the real contacts (100's) right now, and assume
that the "corrected" report code will clear this bug in the next version.
That is, there's nothing wrong with the underlying data, so it's not really
a bad "conversion" problem, just a bad report.

-or-

b) I probably don't want to import all those "real" contacts, because
there's a good chance the import or some other mechanism is corrupting the
data on the way in...and once bad data is in BCM, it's going to stay that
way, no matter what happens to BCM or its report code. So, I'd have no way
(or a lot of work) to clean up the badly imported data.

Thanks

 

[Luther]

-Is there a chance you might know of a workaround?

Use another package to generate the custom reports you want; e.g.
Access, Excel, or Crystal.

I don't know that BCM considers it a bug. The report does clearly state
that the date is the Created date. Like you, I'd prefer to have the
ActivityTime on this particular report.

The datetime you'd like to see is in the database. The data got
imported correctly and that datetime shows up in the forms and folders.
It's just this particular Report that isn't showing the data you'd like
to see on it.

There's nothing bad about importing all your data, but make sure you
keep a backup. Just in case...

 

[George]

Thanks, got it

 

[George]

Use another package to generate the custom reports you want; e.g. Access,

Excel, or Crystal.

These would all require multiple steps, right? Meaning that I'd need to
export all the data into a file, or do a 'save as', or something like this
so that one of these apps could then "import" or open or read that data,
right? (You couldn't just do a one-time link to some BCM file and just run
reports, never again doing any database file prep/setup, right?)

And, after that, I would need to custom-design various reports since there
wouldn't be any canned reports that fit this particular BCM data, right?

And (assuming there's no "linking"), when the data gets changed in BCM, I'd
need to go through the steps again...a time consuming process.

It really would be great if MS could sure up the built-in/integrated
reporting and/or provide some editing capabilities in the next version.
Anyway...