How to connect one contact to multiple accounts using Outlook BCM

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If you have one conact person that is involved with more than one account
(e.g. Mr. X is the president of Comapny A and Company B) is there a way to
link Mr. X with both of these accounts (i.e. without having to create 2 Mr. X
contact records)
Anyone know if this is possible? It seems strange that you cant' associate
one contact record with multiple accounts.
Thanks.
 
irudyk,

To quote you ... "It seems strange that you can't associate one contact
record with multiple accounts."

This is so honestly spoken by a normal everyday business user and I whole
heartedly agree with you but I am sorry to say that apparently it does not
seem strange to the seemingly clueless designers of BCM because this
limitation has been built in to this application since version 1 over 2 years
ago! It is not possible to directly link more than 1 account to a Business
Contact even though almost every other basic contact management application
on the planet will let you do this. This limitation has to be one of the
lamest most inane things that annoy me the most about BCM. It so defys the
reality of so many scenarios that a salesperson faces on a regular basis. I
suppose there could have been some programming complication that would have
required a little extra work and someone decided in the design phase that we
should just have to live with this as is. Either that or this was (as I
prefer to believe) intentionally designed as a built in limitation to create
the incentive to get you to move up to the more expensive and robust CRM
application. I just cannot believe that no one thought this was important
enough to change. It displays a horrible disconnect between design team and
end user. Such lack of empathy will prevent more successful adoption of BCM
by a lot of the potential marketplace of users out there. Anyway, as you
might guess by now ... this really annoys me!

The above being as it is, I have adopted my own work around for this that
gets me by. I always maintain a linked follow up Task item to each of my
Accounts. This dated task record will show up on my task list to prompt me
for the next intended follow up action relating to the Account. Once the
task is completed I simply change the date of the Task on this same linked
record item to some date projected forward in time while always keeping this
same Task record constantly linked to the Account. In essence, maintaining
this constantly linked task item serves as a constant extension of the
Account object to the task object as well. This connected extension allows
me to use the feature of the Contact field (in the lower left of the Task
record) to attach additional Business Contacts to this Account that are
already directly linked to a different Account. This indirect way of linking
relys upon navigating through the Task item to connect the extra Business
Contacts to the Account and I can also (indirectly through the task item)
link an Account to another Account. It is NOT ideal but it is the best I can
think of to do for now.

Hope this helps.

-THP
 
Thanks for the reply and for the work around you suggested - it seems to make
the best out of an annoying situation.
 
THP,

Could you please present the scenario where the same contact would be
associated to different Accounts?

Thx,
AJS
 
AJS,

Hopefully the following is succinct and not confusing. My crude workaround
is to create and maintain a permanently linked Outlook Task item to each
Account Record. On the subject line of each of these permanently linked
Task Records I simply type the same name as the Account it is linked to so
the association is easy to recognize. This constant link effectively then
makes available the additional Contact link field found in the lower left of
each Task record for linking additional Business Contacts. Thus, an
individual Business Contact Record can me linked to more than just 1 Account
record. It is NOT a direct link to the Account record rather, it is an
indirect one that links via the extended Outlook Contact field made available
through the permanently linked Task record. It is easy to Navigate back and
forth between the Account record and each additonal multiple linked Business
Contact record if I need to. Instead of trying to picture this in your head
I would recommend that you actually try it by direct experimentation in order
to comprehend what I am hopefully communicating here.

Let me know how it works for you or if I need to try again to explain it a
different way that connects for you.

-THP
 
An additional comment:

If you keep the date of this permanently linked Task record adjusted to the
future (More recent than all of the other linked Account Record Business
History items, this linked Task record will always display at the top of all
the other linked Business History Records on the Account Record. This keeps
it handy for easy navigation to those additional "Extended-Multiple-linked"
Business Contacts available on the Task Record Contact link field.

-THP



Tim said:
AJS,

Hopefully the following is succinct and not confusing. My crude workaround
is to create and maintain a permanently linked Outlook Task item to each
Account Record. On the subject line of each of these permanently linked
Task Records I simply type the same name as the Account it is linked to so
the association is easy to recognize. This constant link effectively then
makes available the additional Contact link field found in the lower left of
each Task record for linking additional Business Contacts. Thus, an
individual Business Contact Record can me linked to more than just 1 Account
record. It is NOT a direct link to the Account record rather, it is an
indirect one that links via the extended Outlook Contact field made available
through the permanently linked Task record. It is easy to Navigate back and
forth between the Account record and each additonal multiple linked Business
Contact record if I need to. Instead of trying to picture this in your head
I would recommend that you actually try it by direct experimentation in order
to comprehend what I am hopefully communicating here.

Let me know how it works for you or if I need to try again to explain it a
different way that connects for you.

-THP


THP,
Click to expand...
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
Thx,
AJS
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Tim, I know the question was asked above so that the user wouldn't have to
create duplicate business contact records. I've tried both ways now and
found it takes about the same amount of time... that is whether I'm linking
tasks or creating duplicate records. Am I missing something? Has your
experience been different. The only downside I see to this is extra space
consumed in the database.

Tim P via OfficeKB.com said:
An additional comment:

If you keep the date of this permanently linked Task record adjusted to the
future (More recent than all of the other linked Account Record Business
History items, this linked Task record will always display at the top of all
the other linked Business History Records on the Account Record. This keeps
it handy for easy navigation to those additional "Extended-Multiple-linked"
Business Contacts available on the Task Record Contact link field.

-THP



Tim said:
AJS,

Hopefully the following is succinct and not confusing. My crude workaround
is to create and maintain a permanently linked Outlook Task item to each
Account Record. On the subject line of each of these permanently linked
Task Records I simply type the same name as the Account it is linked to so
the association is easy to recognize. This constant link effectively then
makes available the additional Contact link field found in the lower left of
each Task record for linking additional Business Contacts. Thus, an
individual Business Contact Record can me linked to more than just 1 Account
record. It is NOT a direct link to the Account record rather, it is an
indirect one that links via the extended Outlook Contact field made available
through the permanently linked Task record. It is easy to Navigate back and
forth between the Account record and each additonal multiple linked Business
Contact record if I need to. Instead of trying to picture this in your head
I would recommend that you actually try it by direct experimentation in order
to comprehend what I am hopefully communicating here.

Let me know how it works for you or if I need to try again to explain it a
different way that connects for you.

-THP


THP,
Click to expand...
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
Thx,
AJS
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
John,

My suggested work around is intended to AVOID having to create duplicate
business contact records which would indeed consume extra space in the
database. With my workaround you do not consume extra database space because
each linked Task record is an Outlook based object that is stored in the
Outlook PST and not the BCM database. The Outlook Task records are merely
linked to the database. I am not able to comment on how much comparative
time it would take doing this my way vs. creating duplicate business contact
records. Creating and using duplicate business contacts for this purpose
just seems out of the question for me. Which one gets updated when, etc.
That would seem like too much of a hassle to track for me. To each their own
with this I guess. Again, my lament is that this thread is one that
shouldn't even have to exist with such a stupid design limitation as this.

-THP



John said:
Tim, I know the question was asked above so that the user wouldn't have to
create duplicate business contact records. I've tried both ways now and
found it takes about the same amount of time... that is whether I'm linking
tasks or creating duplicate records. Am I missing something? Has your
experience been different. The only downside I see to this is extra space
consumed in the database.
An additional comment:
Click to expand...
[quoted text clipped - 37 lines]
Click to expand...
 
I'm a Realtor and have the same escrow agents, inspectors, lenders, and
surveyors for many transactions (accounts).
Matt
 
Accounts are organizations and Business Contacts are the people that
work for them.

BCM v3 has a Project entity. A Business Contact can belong to multiple
projects. That should work better for modeling real-estate
transactions.
 
Luther said:
Accounts are organizations and Business Contacts are the people that
work for them.

BCM v3 has a Project entity. A Business Contact can belong to multiple
projects. That should work better for modeling real-estate
transactions.
Click to expand...

Matt,

BCM V3 beta release is imminent. The general non-beta release is in the
Office 2007 release schedule.

Please register at http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.mspx to
get early access to this product.
 
I have one client who owns seven real estate ventures. Each venture is a
separate company and, by definition, a separate account. Each has its own
projects that are unrelated to any of the other accounts other than the fact
that , recieves and pays its own bills, has different architects, contractors
etc. But each company has a single owner and is the primary (but not the
only) contact for each company.

BCM seems to think that a business contact can only own one business.
 
What do you think about using Business Project for each joint venture. You
can define custom fields to track the legal info on each venture, then link
multiple contacts to each venture, and a contact can belong to many
ventures? You can also link opportunities, tasks, notes, et al to that
Project.

Will that handle it?

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
 
ocbizlaw,

Lon offers some good suggestions with the BCM Project entity. In trying to
use BCM, I have learned the hard way not to get too hung up on what MS
actually calls their various software data record items. I am not at all
confident that the BCM designers are yet fully clear in their own minds how
everything actually should be best defined. Just look at how often the MS
bureaucracy renames things such as Windows Mobile Professional, Standard,
Classic, etc.

Always remember that just because some MS geek design team decides to call
something "X" does NOT mean that it has to fully relate to its assumed ideal
function. Look no further than the lame BCM Opportunity record for evidence
of that. Don't even get me started on the whole so-called, BCM-OA
integration fiasco. I would really like to hold someone to "Account" for the
various meanings of what the "Account" actually is!

BCM is an evolving work in progress. One of these years, things will start
to match up a bit more sensibly. Until then, don't try to apply too many
real world logical expectations by thinking too much. It will only confuse
and frustrate you. This forum is full of juicy work arounds to navigate you
into a possible way to make BCM (kinda) fit your business usage.

Best wishes,

-THP



Lon said:
What do you think about using Business Project for each joint venture. You
can define custom fields to track the legal info on each venture, then link
multiple contacts to each venture, and a contact can belong to many
ventures? You can also link opportunities, tasks, notes, et al to that
Project.

Will that handle it?

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
I have one client who owns seven real estate ventures. Each venture is a
separate company and, by definition, a separate account. Each has its own
Click to expand...
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
Click to expand...
 
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