Installing BCM2007 and Sharing?

[Guest]

Hi everyone!

Our company has grown a bit and it's just no longer working with a excel
sheet to manage the contacts and accounts so they assigned me to check whats
out there... BCM seems to be a sweet solution since it's integrated nicely
into outlook that we all are using. Found some different web based CRM
solutions but none of uss wanted to have 2 diferent systems. ie. web and
outlook...

I have 2 small questions though, I've tried to search and read some of the
posts here but I just wanted to be real sure about this:

1. We already have a SQL server on the company server, as I understood it
BCM will see that it's installed and use that one for the database instead of
installing the one that come's with it. or am I wrong here?

2. All the users that want's to connect to the db through the VPN we have
needs to have exactly the same login both on the "home-computer" and on the
server... isn't there anyway to go around this one, seems like one of the
biggest draw-backs since multiple accounts on the server sounds like a bad
idea!

Thanks for any replies about this!

 

[Lon Orenstein]

Erik:

Welcome to BCM! Here are your answers:

1. Not exactly. You can use the BCM Database Tool available on the BCM
Team Blog http://blogs.msdn.com/bcm/default.aspx to create a BCM database on
the server, then restore a backup from an existing db. Then, each user
would connect to that database. You can also use SQL Management Studio to
detach an existing db from someone's PC and re-attach to the server.

2. If your server is a MS Small Business Server, you would use their domain
account when you share the database. That way, when they login to the SBS
server, BCM would recognize their username as a shared database user.

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

 

[Guest]

Hi and Thanks!

1. That sounds like a good idea, I'll forward this to the admin and I'll bet
he's going to be real happy about not having to use 2 different sql db's.

2. We are using Windows Server 2003 R2, Enterprise Edition, I have no clue
what the differences are but might it work the same way...
the thing is that on my company laptop I have pernm as login but when I use
remote desktop to the server or when I log onto the VPN I have EN as
username, it's the same for the others in the company that usually conects to
the server as well...

Thanks in advance!
/Erik

 

[Lon Orenstein]

Your admin (IS guy) needs to tell you how they have configured all that.
When you configure a BCM to be shared, it will ask you what usernames to use
and can pull them from your domain controller. My gut sense tells me you
should use pemm as the user but I'm not sure if that will affect the
synchronization if you logon through the VPN.

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

 

[Guest]

Hi again!

He was kind enough to set up a virtual machine that I could try it on but I
ran into some problems right away...
After installing the Database tool i tried to import my old db but got a
error message:
"Cannot retrieve the list of SQL Server instances. Please make sure that SQL
Server 2005 or SQL Server 2005 Express is installed and that the service is
running."

I checked it and the server is running Microsoft SQL Server Version 8.00.760.

I'm guessing that it needs to be updated to work with BCM then?

 

[Lon Orenstein]

I think so - I'm not a virtual machine guy yet...

I would get him back over there and have him help you get it configured
correctly. BCM sometimes has trouble getting setup but not that much....

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

 

[Guest]

OMG, I actually just read your signature, just wanted to say that I ordered
your book 2 days ago...

since I have the luck of having your attention may I ask another question
that I was thinking of...
When creating a opportunity I can enter the cost and the sales price of the
products, but I havn't found a way to show the profit yet in the pipelines,
it seems like it just shows the price "we" (the company) pays for the
complete set...

Since my salary is depending on the profit of each deal it's pretty
important to see how much every deal generates...

 

[Lon Orenstein]

Thanks Eric -- I appreciate you buying the book!

The bad news is that there isn't a way inside of BCM to calculate the
profit. However, you can export a report to Excel, add the numbers into the
spreadsheet, and calculate it that way. It's a PITA, but it will work...
If it would help, you could add the cost info into the Description field of
the line items in the opportunity -- that way, when you export it the
numbers would be there already...


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

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the tip about using excel... to bad that MS didn't think of adding
some extra fields that you can add som excel like formulas into, but doing as
you said will work for now... I'll just need to do it at the end of each
month so it's pretty easy...

Thanks once again for all the patience answering all my questions...