Linked Accounts: How to link multiple accounts to opportunites

[cjepp]

I use opportunites in BCM 2007 quite extensively. For as long as i've
looked, and waited for an update/release, there still doesn't seem to be a
way to link opportunities to multiple accounts and/or contacts. This is
becoming more and more essential for what I do.

Can anyone help me find a solution, even a work-around will do.
Essentially, what I want to do is this: Create an opportunity, link it to
multiple records, work up my quote, and send it to everyone linked to that
record.

To send the quotes out, i use a combination of ms accounting and simple mail
merge from word - depending on which method is faster per opportunity. Mail
merge would be fine if there were more fields available to find and filter
the contact list. I'd love to be able to just select the opportunity as a
filter for all the contacts associated with it. The only applicable field to
really work with there is 'categories' - and that would get out of control
real quick in my process.

Any help is appreciated.

cjepp

 

[Luther]

I use opportunites in BCM 2007 quite extensively.  For as long as i've
looked, and waited for an update/release, there still doesn't seem to be a
way to link opportunities to multiple accounts and/or contacts.  This is
becoming more and more essential for what I do.  

Can anyone help me find a solution, even a work-around will do.  
Essentially, what I want to do is this:  Create an opportunity, link itto
multiple records, work up my quote, and send it to everyone linked to that
record.

To send the quotes out, i use a combination of ms accounting and simple mail
merge from word - depending on which method is faster per opportunity.  Mail
merge would be fine if there were more fields available to find and filter
the contact list.  I'd love to be able to just select the opportunity as a
filter for all the contacts associated with it.  The only applicable field to
really work with there is 'categories' - and that would get out of control
real quick in my process.

Any help is appreciated.

cjepp

That's a limitation in BCM. It's designed with Accounts only as being
entities you sell
things to, so opportunities are only linked to one Account (the
buyer). And Business
Contacts are only intended to be people working for a single Account.
BCM doesn't
really handle other contacts, like contractors, employees, vendors,
expert witnesses,
and so on. It was designed to be a sales force automation tool rather
than a general
purpose business contact manager.

 

[cjepp]

This is an unfortunate limitation. Perhaps you, or someone out there, can
suggest an alternative. IE:

1. Is there an efficient way to create contact groups for mail merge lists?
a) From MS Word, there is an option to 'use existing list' - but how do i
create and save the list?
2) Is there a way to 'categorize' contacts without using the default
category function?
a) IE. Creating categories of contacts for every opportunity/project would
help sort and create mailing lists - but using the default category function
for this would clutter existing categories very quickly.

I've tried creating user-defined fields, but as you can imagine - this
doesn't work very well for filtering. Can't add multiple select items and/or
filter text/notes fields for individual project names.

Any help would be appreciated.
cjepp