automatic auto-linking for all Contacts in Shared db?

[Guest]

Using Outlook 2007 w/bcm, 6 users sharing a SQL 2005 BCM db:
We want all emails to/from all users to be included in the histories for all
BCM contacts, so we have told all users to turn on auto-linking for their
Inbox and Sent Items folders, and to select all BCM contact email addresses
for auto-linking. This works great until a new BCM contact is added. Then all
6 users must remember to turn on auto-linking for the new contact right away
so that the initial and future emails to him/her get included in the history.
This will never happen consistently with 6 users involved. Is there a way to
set it so that new contacts are automatically set for auto-linking for all
users??
thanks in advance.

 

[Guest]

Hi,

by default BCM have autolinking turned on, but turns OFF as soon as you
share the database. (This is in my opinion the correct way to do it, as to
prevent private e-mails entering the system.) I may be possible to change
this behavior, but you will likely spend more time and effort than is wise to
do so.

You do however have a choice scan your folders when you select your
auto-link contacts. What we do is that we periodically enter the
auto-linking tab, select everyone, then do a scan. This scan will then pick
up e-mails that have been sent but not linked, and create message log items.

As such, you do not need to have everyone do this right away as soon as a
new contact is entered, just make sure the e-mails are not deleted, then they
will get into the system after scans are made.

The scan can take some time dependent on how many folders/items/contacts you
have. We have made an recurring reminder in outlook twice a week at the end
of the working day making sure this happens at a non-critical time, but you
can of course adjust to whatever suits your needs.

Hope this was helpful,

Vidar

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestion, but with 6 scatter brained sales people this will
never work consistently for us. Microsoft, Please make it an option to turn

 

[mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com]

I agree with having easier auto linkage of emails in a shared db. The
concern over 1 shared user's private email getting into the system can easily
be resolved by just having that user keep their private contacts in native
Outlook so that BCM can't link to them.

This overblown "one-size-fits-all" shared db email linking feature reminds
me of the old days in the space race between NASA and the Soviets. The US
Astronauts encountered the problem of their ink pens not flowing in a zero g
environment and NASA committed over a million dollars toward R&D to solve the
problem. The Soviet solution? ...they switched to using pencils in space!

-THP

Thanks for the suggestion, but with 6 scatter brained sales people this will
never work consistently for us. Microsoft, Please make it an option to turn
on autolinking when using a shared db

Hi,

[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]

 

[Luther]

I agree with having easier auto linkage of emails in a shared db. The
concern over 1 shared user's private email getting into the system can easily
be resolved by just having that user keep their private contacts in native
Outlook so that BCM can't link to them.

This overblown "one-size-fits-all" shared db email linking feature reminds
me of the old days in the space race between NASA and the Soviets. The US
Astronauts encountered the problem of their ink pens not flowing in a zero g
environment and NASA committed over a million dollars toward R&D to solve the
problem. The Soviet solution? ...they switched to using pencils in space!

-THP

Thanks for the suggestion, but with 6 scatter brained sales people this will
never work consistently for us. Microsoft, Please make it an option to turn
on autolinking when using a shared db
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]

users??
thanks in advance.

I remember a discussion of auto-linking from a BCM customer council
years ago.

The issue was with privacy and the scenario went something like this:
Bob gets personal emails from (e-mail address removed). Alice creates a
Contact "Carol" with (e-mail address removed) as an emial address. Alice
can now monitor all of the emails Bob gets from Ted by looking at
Carol's history.

To prevent that happening, auto-linking defaults to off in shared
databases; Bob must explicitly ask BCM to track emails from Ted.

To get around this, the database owner could probably run a database
script to turn on auto-linking for every user's bcm contacts.

 

[mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com]

Another matter not to be overlooked is the total omission of any and all
access permission settings with the design of BCM. All shared db users are
either "in" or "out." You have to use MS CRM to modify anything like this.

-THP

I agree with having easier auto linkage of emails in a shared db. The
concern over 1 shared user's private email getting into the system can easily

[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
I remember a discussion of auto-linking from a BCM customer council
years ago.

The issue was with privacy and the scenario went something like this:
Bob gets personal emails from (e-mail address removed). Alice creates a
Contact "Carol" with (e-mail address removed) as an emial address. Alice
can now monitor all of the emails Bob gets from Ted by looking at
Carol's history.

To prevent that happening, auto-linking defaults to off in shared
databases; Bob must explicitly ask BCM to track emails from Ted.

To get around this, the database owner could probably run a database
script to turn on auto-linking for every user's bcm contacts.