How *quickly* link to NEW contact

[George]

In Outlook 2003 with BCM...suppose I get an email from a new person, Joe
Smith, and want to create a NEW BCM record and link (attach, store,
whatever) the email to Joe all at once.

Is there a simple way to launch this from Outlook-email... that is, click
the email in Outlook, then click something else for it to bring up a "new
contact" window, then I type in Joe Smith and his company name, and OK...
and it saves him in BCM along with the email?

I tried right clicking on the email, I tried Link History, and other
things.. but all of these assume you *already* have the contact name in BCM.

Sure, the alternative is to leave Outlook email, got to BCM contacts, create
the new BCM contact, come back to Outlook email, then link it...but that
seems like more steps than necessary.

Or does this need to be a wish list item...where do I send it to MS?

Thanks for any insights

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

I usually drag the message to my BCM Business Contacts folder and thus
create a new contact that has the email address and contact name, plus the
information from the incoming message. I don't worry about linking that
message, since its details are in the contact. But all subsequent mail will
be linked automatically since I have the autolink feature turned on.

 

[George]

Thanks Sue,

-That method seems to work great and will have to do for now, so thanks.
But, as a 'wish item' for future versions, I hope MS will consider these
three shortcomings (I capitalized key phrases)...

1) IT DOESN'T LINK the first email that was used to *create* the BCM contact
(as you pointed out), so you have to do without or manually link this first
one.

2) what it does do is...it CLUTTERS THE "COMMENT" field (under the Details
tab) for this BCM contact by injecting all of the email text into it....so
you'll have to delete this text later.

3) The DRAG AND DROP COULD BE SIMPLER... To open up the BCM folder, I had to
drag over the blue CONTACTS bar (bottom left), which caused the My Contacts
options (top left) to open up, then keep dragging and release onto "Business
Contacts." (An alternate way was to open Folder List (bottom left), then do
a drag and drop, but that's a few extra steps also).

Overall, however, seems like BCM has great promise.

Thanks again,
George