G
Guest
I upgraded from an older version of Office (XP) to Office 2003 SBE to get the
BCM update. I was hoping it would be more integrated than it is; primarily
the fact that all my contacts (business and otherwise) are in Outlook now,
and when I move them into BCM as business contacts, they are completely
duplicated but unlinked and cannot even be sync'ed. As much of an oversight
as that seems to be, I would still like to try to make use of the new BCM
functionality. I am curious how people are utilizing it, once they have moved
their contacts into BCM and they now have two sets of contacts instead of
one.
1) Anybody using a reliable (if manual) method to keep contacts in BCM
synced to contacts in Outlook?
2) I'm assuming if you try to sync by copying from one DB to the other that
you are necessarily designating one to be the 'master' source, and the other
to be the destination. In other words, I'm trying to figure out when I add a
new contact, should I create it in BCM, then copy it into Outlook contacts...
or the other way around? Same question if a contact changes a phone number
for example. Are you making the change in BCM contact, or in the Outlook
contact?
3) If I had to choose, I'd prefer to do everything in BCM, however it
appears that all connectivity wtih external apps still seems to be tailored
towards Outllook contacts, not BCM contacts (like PDA's, etc.). My fear is
that I will spend huge amounts of time creating and maintaining BCM as my
master database for customers, only to find that it is poorly supported (or
abandoned) by MS in the future.
4) For those of you who took your contacts from Outlook and now have them in
BCM, have any of you abandoned the contact entries in Outlook entirely (in
other words, no longer update the original Outlook contacts, and only use
these contacts in BCM? I'm not talking about "friends and family" contacts.
5) My other concern with using BCM as my primary database for contacts is
that it appears that the SQL database is much more resource-consuming than
the original Contacts in Outlook. I don't want to find a year from now, that
my large number of contacts in BCM is making Outlook impossibly slow.
6) In short (I know this message was long) I'm trying to figure out how
people in REAL LIFE are getting the most from the duplicated contact design
and the pros and cons of using BCM contacts only, Outlook contacts, or
somehow maintaining both.
BCM update. I was hoping it would be more integrated than it is; primarily
the fact that all my contacts (business and otherwise) are in Outlook now,
and when I move them into BCM as business contacts, they are completely
duplicated but unlinked and cannot even be sync'ed. As much of an oversight
as that seems to be, I would still like to try to make use of the new BCM
functionality. I am curious how people are utilizing it, once they have moved
their contacts into BCM and they now have two sets of contacts instead of
one.
1) Anybody using a reliable (if manual) method to keep contacts in BCM
synced to contacts in Outlook?
2) I'm assuming if you try to sync by copying from one DB to the other that
you are necessarily designating one to be the 'master' source, and the other
to be the destination. In other words, I'm trying to figure out when I add a
new contact, should I create it in BCM, then copy it into Outlook contacts...
or the other way around? Same question if a contact changes a phone number
for example. Are you making the change in BCM contact, or in the Outlook
contact?
3) If I had to choose, I'd prefer to do everything in BCM, however it
appears that all connectivity wtih external apps still seems to be tailored
towards Outllook contacts, not BCM contacts (like PDA's, etc.). My fear is
that I will spend huge amounts of time creating and maintaining BCM as my
master database for customers, only to find that it is poorly supported (or
abandoned) by MS in the future.
4) For those of you who took your contacts from Outlook and now have them in
BCM, have any of you abandoned the contact entries in Outlook entirely (in
other words, no longer update the original Outlook contacts, and only use
these contacts in BCM? I'm not talking about "friends and family" contacts.
5) My other concern with using BCM as my primary database for contacts is
that it appears that the SQL database is much more resource-consuming than
the original Contacts in Outlook. I don't want to find a year from now, that
my large number of contacts in BCM is making Outlook impossibly slow.
6) In short (I know this message was long) I'm trying to figure out how
people in REAL LIFE are getting the most from the duplicated contact design
and the pros and cons of using BCM contacts only, Outlook contacts, or
somehow maintaining both.