How much can a developer customize/extend BCM?

[Guest]

Specifically, we would like to add a new table to a business contact that
would contain data in a one-to-many relationship and would display it in a
form with a grid. We need another similar type of table & form added to an
account. Can a developer do this via code? We also want to change some
label names on existing forms, again via code.

Can the customizations be exported in the same way customizations done
through BCM can be exported to other systems?

 

[Lon Orenstein]

Lisa:

The answer is Sort Of... You can't change the BCM forms, nor can you change
the labels on fields. Those are fixed. You can't add a table to the BCM
database but you can link another SQL db or Access db to create a
one-to-many relationship. You'll just need to write your own UI for it.
You can get to any of the data in BCM to display, change, delete, et al from
your form and write it back into BCM.

The customizations to the additional custom fields in BCM (40 each for
account, contact, opportunity, and project) are already in the db. When you
define them, you're really just creating a mask for displaying them on
whatever page you choose (general, details, history, or user defined).
Those, and the values of picklists, can be exported into a .BCMX file and
imported into another PC using the deployment tool. This is an XML file
that is pretty straightforward.

HTH,
Lon

___________________________________________________________
Lon Orenstein
pinpointtools, llc
(e-mail address removed)
Author of Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Author of the eBook: Moving from ACT! to Business Contact Manager
www.pinpointtools.com