BCM 2007--Deployment/Design

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Guest

Looking for suggestions on the setup of BCM2007 in the following conditions:
1. 2 Sales Managers, each with their own subset of contacts/accounts. Each
Sales Manager would only like to see their accounts
2. 3 Administrative users who need to see all contacts/accounts
3. There are some shared contacts all users need to see

Does it makes sense to go with a client/server approach in these
circumstances, with each user having offline capabilities when out of the
office and synchronizing upon return? Or should there be individual
databases that are each shared?

Thank you,
Yonx
 
Hi Younx,

how you want to set this up is more an issue of security. By using
customized views and filters, you can easily have each sales manager only see
accounts/contacts assigned to him/her.

The administrative users will view all data in this scenario. There is only
one "catch": every sales manager will have the opportunity to see all data by
turning off their filters/adjusting their customized views. BCM does not
support any form of rights management - what goes into the database is
viewable for every user that is granted access to the system.

Having individual databases will work for the sales managers, but poses a
syncronization issue for the administrators. An option if you choose this
route is that each sales manager have their own database, and then share it
with the administrators, who in turn change database in BCM when needed, or
optionally work with different outlook profiles to switch between users. This
option I believe will be too complicated to be practical.

The accounts that all need to see will only be possible in the first
scenario, using one database. Well, it will be "possible" if all have their
own database as well, but will involving complicated sql replication/syncs to
be setup.

If you need to isolate customer data from the sales managers, I would look
at more complex systems that have rights management built in, like Microsoft
Dynamics CRM 3.0.

- Vidar C.
 
Thank you Vidar. Cross visibility is not an issue, so I will go with the one
shared database approach.

With this design, will email autolinking still be able to take place? Does
each user end up with a database on their laptop that is usable in an offline
state, and then synchs when they are back on the LAN?

Thank you again,
Yonx
 
Hi Vonx,

yes, and yes.

Autolinking will work, but each user have to turn it on. By default BCM
turns off autolinking when a database is shared (as to not have unwanted
private e-mail entering the database).

Each user will be able to create an offline database, which will contain all
information, and that will sync when they get online again. The only items
they will not get, are attachments to e-mails that are not their own. (BCM
creates a partial copy stored in the database, but this copy will not contain
attachments.)

- Vidar C.
 
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