share contacts in business contact manager

[Guest]

When is Microsoft going to make BCM a viable competitor to ACT? Even the new
version of ACT! is so clunky and it tries to take over your calendar and
email and even web browsing, doing a worse version of all three. The only
thing it does do well, however, is allow different sales and marketing people
to share contacts data. This is a must for any company with more than one
employee. And those with only one employee are unlikely to need anything
more than standard Outlook, so who exactly is BCM designed for?
Microsoft need to integrate BCM with Exchange so it becomes a proper
business tool, then they might have more commercial success with this
product. Goodness knows, with ACT! still stuck in the 90s, the market is
crying out for it!

 

[Luther]

BCM does not change existing Outlook calendar and email functionality,
nor does it affect IE in any way.

Many individuals (e.g. hundreds of thousands of daily BCM v1 users)
prefer BCM over plain old Outlook. BCM v1 was designed with those users
in mind. Most small businesses do not have sales and marketing
departments. Most small businesses do not have a LAN or DSL, nor do
they use Exchange.

BCM is growing. v2 supports five LAN users per database, and, I
believe, supports Exchange, but I haven't tested that feature.
I understand that Microsoft CRM has the features you are looking for.

 

[Guest]

Luther,

I agree with Bathugeo's prior post. It is so basic that a small business
wants to have one location with all the business contact info. The most
recent FAQs for Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager Update says:

NEW! SHARE CUSTOMER INFORMATION.... and proceeds to discuss peer-to-peer
environments. Ha... maybe we are getting close!!!??? But alas no, this
FAQ raises my hopes, but a search of the KB gives a message saying it can't
be done. I have been waiting for 3 years to get this simple solution. MS
Access is the database foundation for outlook. Access can handle this for 5
users. It is a decision by Microsoft NOT to do it.. .Why? Aha.... charge em
for another program. Sheeesh... Why not get this going.

I have BillQuick Software based on MSAccess. It can handle 5 users. It is
a network database. Why not in Outlook? I almost moved to Exchange
Server... but I can not afford to spend the time it will take to keep the
system up and running. I have 3-5 employees not 100-200.

So........ just not hope I guess

If you know how to make the FAQ claim work... email me at (e-mail address removed)

 

[Luther]

I run shared BCM databases with several BCM clients everyday.

What in the FAQ is confusing things?

Outlook does not use Access. It has its own database manager which
stores data in PST files.

BCM uses MSDE, the low-end version of SQL Server. It is much more
powerful, in several ways, than Access.

 

[Guest]

Luther,
Can the BCM data base be placed on our server which runs Small Business 2003?
I want to share my BCM infomation with others in our office. We currently
share contacts in Outlook over our network but like the way BCM looks and
runs. Users can access the contacts at the same time. Can this be done with
BCM? I know that you can share BCM peer-to-peer. Having the option to have
BCM on the server would be great. If it can be done please explain. Thanks.

 

[Luther]

Putting the BCM database can be done, but is not supported.

If you search this newsgroup you'll find several people who have done
it, and various tips and tricks to accomplish it.

Apparently the easiest way is to install Outlook and BCM on the server,
create the database, share it out, and then remove Outlook and BCM,
leaving MSDE and the database on the server. You may also be able to
upgrade the MSDE instance to full SQL Server, but I've never done this.
The reason for removing Outlook is that it is incompatible with
Exchange on SBS.

 

[Luther]

Typo in previous post.

"Putting the BCM database can be done, but is not supported. "
should fully say
Putting the BCM database on a server can be done, but it is not
supported by Microsoft.

And let me just add that there is nothing peer-to-peer about BCM.
Sharing is pure client-server, with one of the BCM users deciding to
share her database with the other users. With a peer-to-peer
configuration, all users would have their own databases, be able to
take them offline with them, and their databases would then share
updates with each other.

You really cannot trust most of the marketing material for software
applications. Users are reduced to installing and learning about
products directly, or talking with someone who has done so.

Why does BCM work the way it does? Back when Microsoft was discussing
BCM sharing before v2 was released they made the following points. (1)
True peer-to-peer is hard, but will probably show up in BCM when the OS
supports it (back then that meant Longhorn, but today it means some OS
after Vista). (2) Taking a BCM v1 database and converting it so that
other BCMs could use it was relatively easy to do because that is what
SQL Server/MSDE was designed for. (3) Most small businesses don't have
a server, so it made more sense to have one PC share the database, than
install it on a server. Any small business with two networked PCs could
then share the BCM database. Installing on a server is likely to become
a feature (i.e. supported) in a future release given that it works so
it is just a question of writing a utility to install the database on
the server (without having to install Outlook on the server). (4)
Despite the demands you hear here for Exchange support, less than 90%
of small businesses use Exchange, and BCM is targeting those users. Any
BCM sharing solution has to work for small businesses with only two
PCs.

 

[mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com]

I think it may be helpful to clarify the complimentary difference between a
small business needs for "sharing" of data vs. "access" to data. This
difference may not seem readily apparent to some and may be why we keep
hearing that BCM is targeted to Small Business users yet so many users post
dissatisfaction that BCM is not designed for nor supported on a server.
Rudimentary sharing allowance via 2 networked PCs with appropriate permission
settings is one thing. Being able to remotely access continuously shared
data in real time is really what many are after. How that gets designed and
acheived does not really matter. Beyond the high IT cost, most small
business do not use Exchange because the need for massive messaging
collaboration does not apply due to Exchange's enterprise level design focus.
However, many of the access and sharing capabilities of Exchange are very
much in demand by Small Business. Just because Exchange is not in use by
many Small Business does not automatically mean that Small Business
collaboration needs don't exist just because they are small. There is even
the ability now to use Exchange as a hosted service so the high cost IT
hassle barrier is removed for a small business.

Many large and small business now often operate outside of the physical walls
of a geographic office space. In small business portable laptops are more
dominant and commonplace vs. desktop PC use. Even the smallest operation
will have a salesperson going here and there and they need a viable and easy
way to maintain real time data access and sharing among others on the team.
This is why many here would like to see server support or OWA (Outlook Web
Access) with BCM. BCM is still locked into the design model where most of a
users data is trapped on their own hard drive and in order to share data you
have to be physically networked via locational proximity to other PCs. This
is ironic because native Outlook by itself has its origins of being a PC
client that is merely the UI for collaborative sharing via an Exchange like
environment. While BCM does add some additional functional object items to
Outlook it then negates and limits the native Outlook functionality for
sharing and access to this additional data among others. It is like going 1
step forward with 2 steps back. This is an unnecessary trade off. I still
maintain that this does not HAVE to be this way. This is done purely (IMO)
for marketing positional purposes to create intentional incentive and demand
for the more fully featured CRM 3.0 solution.

I have posted elsewhere in this newsgroup that there are many positive
Outlook add-in alternatives to BCM where you don't have to live with these
trade offs. The more you explore these other options the more easy it is to
understand how lame that BCM is in its current state of design intent.

-THP

 

[Guest]

This is an interesting discussion and one I'd like to hear more about given
the new version. I'm looking at BCM for the first time and trying to decide
if it will work for us. I'm also looking at the BCM provided in MS Office
Live and I think I'll look at the full CRM solution too, although it's prob
too big for us right now. Is there something that compares these three MS
solutions? I'd also like to know what other addins you suggest. BCM looks
like it fits our needs given the flash demo, but I'm concerned about being
able to share with the rest of our distributed team.

Bryan

 

[Luther]

This is an interesting discussion and one I'd like to hear more about given
the new version. I'm looking at BCM for the first time and trying to decide
if it will work for us. I'm also looking at the BCM provided in MS Office
Live and I think I'll look at the full CRM solution too, although it's prob
too big for us right now. Is there something that compares these three MS
solutions? I'd also like to know what other addins you suggest. BCM looks
like it fits our needs given the flash demo, but I'm concerned about being
able to share with the rest of our distributed team.

Bryan







- Show quoted text -

BCM users can share the same database provided: (1) the client
machines can reach the machine hosting the database, and (2) the
machine hosting the database is powerful enough to support the number
of clients and the complexity of your data.