Business contact does not show attachments from linked e-mailes

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I am using Office 2003 and using the Business Contact Manager but I have one
problem. When I go into a contact to review previous e-mails it does not
open as the original e-mail and does not show the attachments that came with
the e-mail. It puts the original message in a note type format. I have
already deleted them from my in box because they should still be linked to my
contact. I have many attachments from many contacts that I cannot find.
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!
 
etchtec said:
I am using Office 2003 and using the Business Contact Manager but I have
one
problem. When I go into a contact to review previous e-mails it does not
open as the original e-mail and does not show the attachments that came
with
the e-mail. It puts the original message in a note type format. I have
already deleted them from my in box because they should still be linked to
my
contact. I have many attachments from many contacts that I cannot find.
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

Well, you have a big problem here and I am afraid I won't be able to offer
you an easy solution.

Due to a database limitation of 2GB for the free version of SQL server that
is called MSDE, which is what BCM is based on, it does not copy your email
messages into its database. Instead, it references existing e-mail message
items as they sit in your mailbox. Most users wouldn't have the knowledge
how to backup, much less restore a multi-GB SQL database in the event of
corruption, which is what would happen if we were to store attachments in
that database, so I support this decision.

You are backing up your .PST files, right? If not, click on Start -> Run and
type NTBACKUP and then click OK. You'll want to at least backup your
C:\Documents and Settings structure and the System State daily. Read the
help file from Windows Backup for more details.

The proper way to store attachments in BCM is to link to documents that
exist on your file system using the Link Document feature.

This behavior is by design.
--
Leonid S. Knyshov, CEO
Crashproof Solutions, LLC - http://www.crashproofsolutions.com
MCP Exchange 2003/Small Business Server 2003
Microsoft Small Business Specialist Partner
See the tips and tricks section on my website for video tutorials on BCM
Send a smile to Microsoft (Office 2007 Beta feedback tool)!
http://tinyurl.com/m4omy
 
I will offer an additonal way of explaining this. BCM is a "separate" MSDE
db add-in to native Outlook. These 2 separate applications are designed to
share the same Outlook interface and will for the most part appear to operate
seamlessly as 1 program. They are not the same however so when you have
regular (native) Outlook emails with attachments, they are a data item record
that are stored as part of the native Outlook pst file and NOT as part of the
BCM SQL db where the linked BCM data resides. When you delete any emails
that are linked to a BCM data item, BCM will do an automatic re-write of the
email's message body into a Business Note Record that will then reside inside
of BCM's Business History folder which is BCM's equivalent cousin to
Outlook's Journal folder. The deleted email's main message is rewritten only
and remains linked to the same BCM record that the original native Outlook
email was linked to. Any attachments to the native Outlook email item will
be lost however when the native email is deleted unless you first remove and
save the original email attachment to somewhere else among your Windows file
folders.

Whether or not you are using BCM as an add-in to the native Outlook
application, it is alway a good practice anyway to limit the number of your
attached email documents because the Outlook pst data folder can grow quite
large very quickly. I have been critical of MS for not making the separate
aspects of the Outlook/BCM merger more clear to users and unfortunately, you
appear to have needlessly lost a LOT of email attachments due to this lack of
documented instruction.

Am I the only one to notice and lament that there is not one single published
book for mainstream business users about using BCM anywhere on the market?
The Microsoft Press books are eerily silent with respect to BCM. No "BCM
Step-by-Step" guides to found anywhere! You have a few chapters here and
there among some Outlook usage manuals that may mention and outline basic
features of BCM v.1, etc.

"BCM for Dummies" anyone? I think I'll write the publisher and offer my
services to author such a volume in order to help prevent this way too often
type of oversight (lost linked attachments, etc.) from occuring!

-THP
 
Thank you so very much. I wish I would have known that before I trusted it
to manage my "complete" e-mail.
 
Thank you!!! I wish I would have known all this before I trusted it to
manage all my client "complete" e-mails. I have lost so many important art
files. I finally got to the point of saving the attachments elsewhere to
ensure I still had them because we refer to them until the project is
complete. You are right about not being clear or should I say it was never
mentioned in any BCM info I have read about it not transfering your e-mail
TOTALLY!! It raves about how you can have your e-mails linked to anything
you want and BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, I am so furious because of the enormous amount
of hours doing research to find out what happened. Not counting how many
clients I had to call and ask to resend the art file. Please by all means
write SOMEONE about this extremely important aspect of BCM that users NEED to
know about. Thank you so much for your input. I think I will discontinue
using it and go back to the old fashioned way.
 
etchtec said:
Thank you so very much. I wish I would have known that before I trusted
it
to manage my "complete" e-mail.
Click to expand...

Well, at the very least I'll post an article on my site. :)

Database-supported CRM a complicated concept and Microsoft made it seem
easy. Perhaps they've done too good of a job at that? :)

I use BCM 2007 and SBA 2007 daily and it works very well for my company's
needs.
--
Leonid S. Knyshov, CEO
Crashproof Solutions, LLC - http://www.crashproofsolutions.com
MCP Exchange 2003/Small Business Server 2003
Microsoft Small Business Specialist Partner
See the tips and tricks section on my website for video tutorials on BCM
Send a smile to Microsoft (Office 2007 Beta feedback tool)!
http://tinyurl.com/m4omy
 
I have been researching this issue as well and now know that I too have been
severly burnt by Microsoft's pitiful lack of documentation as well as well as
downright ignorance when implementing the BCM linking feature.

The 2GB limit of MS SQL server Express is a such a lame excuse it give me a
stomach ache just thinking of it. If they felt this was a limiting factor,
they should have chosen a different database system, modified SQL Express to
support larger file sizes or used a flat file database system like Outlook's
..pst format. Or, they could let people at least use up to 2GM of storage and
then tell them that they need to archive some records to continue placing
data in BCM.

I spent $450 for Office 2007 Small Business for the sole purpose of using
BCM. The only advantage I see that it has over using regular contact in
Outlook is the ability to flag contacts for follow up. I also can't sync my
BCM contacts to my PDA anymore so I now have two copies of contact info for
eveyone I know and I still have to manage emails and file attachemtns
manually.

Wasn't this software suppose to be the easiest Office solution to date? What
a joke..
 
Jim,

I agree with you on the usefulness of this feature. Email auto linking is
very useful feature in BCM. We read key information from Email and save it
in BCM database. It can certainly be extended to store all information from
email including attachment to BCM database. When we designed this feature,
we were extremely careful about the performance impact. The more information
we read from email and save to database, the more processing power get used
and it can considerably slow down the performance. So more than size limit,
peformance is another consideration.

We are looking at the possibility of providing document storage in BCM
database for next release. That could potentially allow to save attachments
manually to database.
 
Thanks for the reply Mukesh,

I understand the size and performance issues that must be considered as I
develop software myself. However, it's the implementation of the feature
itslef that seems poorly executed.

BCM is storing all the text elements of an email message without needing the
original email in Outlook, but drops all files that may have been attached to
that email. It should either store the email messages in their entirety or
not store them at all. Please understand that when this behavior is viewed by
an end user, it is completely baffeling and frustrating, especially when
there isn't any documentation to explain it.

If users still need to create sub folders under thier inbox and manually
move over every message they receive from a business contact into the
appropriate folder just to preserve file attachements for BCM, then the
implementation of the feature is giving more agrevation to the end user than
it is convenience.

Of course rules in Outlook could be setup to do this but that would be even
more tedious.

So basically, if the featue was fully implemented, it would be a huge
convenience to users who can be assured that all thier communications with
business contacts is being automatically recorded by BCM without them needing
to manually organize each and every inbound and outbound item. But currently,
it seems more straight forward to do things the old fashioned way and keep
messages in subfolders and refer to those folders when you want to review old
communications. BCM's email linking is more distraction that benefit at this
point.

Suggestion: If it is too cumbersome to store the actual files in SQL itself,
how about creating a hidden folder in Outlook's Personal Folder structure and
have BCM copy all file attachemnts (inbound and out) into it so that they
don't get lost.. This would esentially be the same as things are being stored
now except the user would not have to manually mangae the emails..

If improvements are on the map for a future release as you mentioned, than
great. But if the new version is not due out until the next Office release in
3 to 4 years, than it is nothing anyone can get excited about now.

I would love to hear that this capability would be coming up in a
incrementeal patch in the next few months rather then several years along
with another expensive upgrade cost.


I apologize for this rant. I do like BCM and it is useful to me. There's
just a few kinks that need to get ironed out.

Best Regards,

Jim
 
Just passing by here and wanted to clarify for my own brain here:

BCM 2007 uses SQL05E and that has a 4Gig limit, not 2, yes?

Also, yes, archiving would alleviate the limit thrown in by SQL but
archiving is NOT available for many/all BCM items, in contrast to outlook
items. Implementing archiving capability for BCM would be a great idea,
and a natural flow of logic and intuativeness seeing as BCM is positioned
as a seamless outlook add-in...

jm 2c
 
Here's a solution that should address this issue:
1. Create an outlook folder called "All emails"
2. In Outlook create rules that place a copy of all emails sent and received
in the "All emails" folder.
3. In BCM Manage Email Auto linking, on the Folders tab, only check the "All
Emails" folder. This will cause the BCM history links to point to that folder
4. Never delete or archive any emails from the "All Emails" Outlook folder.
This should result in the BCM contact histories automatically filing all
emails by contact, AND being able to bring up the full email with all
attachments forever.
Hope this helps.
 
This solution sounds interesting. The only potential downside I can think of
is that the pst mail folder "All emails" will become quite massive. Are
there any significant storage limits or would there be any Outlook pst
performance related issues with this?

-THP
Here's a solution that should address this issue:
1. Create an outlook folder called "All emails"
2. In Outlook create rules that place a copy of all emails sent and received
in the "All emails" folder.
3. In BCM Manage Email Auto linking, on the Folders tab, only check the "All
Emails" folder. This will cause the BCM history links to point to that folder
4. Never delete or archive any emails from the "All Emails" Outlook folder.
This should result in the BCM contact histories automatically filing all
emails by contact, AND being able to bring up the full email with all
attachments forever.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for the reply Mukesh,
Click to expand...
[quoted text clipped - 47 lines]
Jim
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I don't know what the maximum pst file size is but someone in my office has
been running them up beyond 1gig without problems. Eventually, some of the
old emails would need to be archived, but with the windows desktop search,
that's is less of an issue because it is so easy to search for old emails
that have been archived.

mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com said:
This solution sounds interesting. The only potential downside I can think of
is that the pst mail folder "All emails" will become quite massive. Are
there any significant storage limits or would there be any Outlook pst
performance related issues with this?

-THP
Here's a solution that should address this issue:
1. Create an outlook folder called "All emails"
2. In Outlook create rules that place a copy of all emails sent and received
in the "All emails" folder.
3. In BCM Manage Email Auto linking, on the Folders tab, only check the "All
Emails" folder. This will cause the BCM history links to point to that folder
4. Never delete or archive any emails from the "All Emails" Outlook folder.
This should result in the BCM contact histories automatically filing all
emails by contact, AND being able to bring up the full email with all
attachments forever.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for the reply Mukesh,
Click to expand...
[quoted text clipped - 47 lines]
Jim
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Etchtec,

I really feel your pain. I too was "mislead" into thinking that BCM not only
saved the e-amil with autolinking but also the attachment. I have lost a few
months worth of documents thinking that BCM really simplified this process.

How does a user fall into this trap? Like me, they may have received an
e-mail within their inbox. They set up e-mail autolinking with BCM for the
first time. One wouldn't think of deleting the e-mail until it was verfied
that it was saved in the history. So, you look into the contact's history
and loh and behold there is the e-mail with the attachment. All is great and
you delete the e-mail from your inbox and work efficiently for days and weeks
until you find out much later that the only reason you saw the attachment was
because it was still in your inbox. Once you deleted it then "poof" it was
gone. Neat slight of hand MS. You fooled us and F@&* you very much. I once
again fell for the notion that maybe a product that has been out for a few
years might not pull such crap on its customers. Even if you can't fix it you
could spend a few bloody minutes and say something in the Help sections!!!!!

Eight years I was with ACT and thought they really screwed things up but I'm
learning that with all your billions of dollars you can't do it right either.
I still can't sync all my contacts in my smartphone. No help from you guys.
I still can't get a seamless backup of BCM onto my laptop. No help.

I wouldn't have a business if I ran it the way you guys do.
 
Read my June 18 post in this thread for a work around. I would also add that
once you have set up the "All Emails" folder and tagged it for linking, there
is a way to link emails to BCM records retroactively.

Good luck.
 
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