Looking to talk with someone that uses MS Business Contact Mngr?

[Guest]

I'd like to hear from anyone with experience in using/installing Microsoft
Outlook Business Contact Manager with an Exchange Server (SMTP email) and
Citrix? We'd like to start using this at our office but are running into
difficulties and need to ask some questions.

Thanks, Sean

 

[mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com]

Sean,

BCM is not designed to work "with" Exchange. With BCM version 1 there was
initially a limitation that did not even permit you to have BCM in use with
an Outlook profile in an exchange environment at all. Version 2 of BCM can
now "co-exist" on a machine networked on Exchange but none of the BCM items
are
shareable via Exchange like the rest of native Outlook is. They do not work
together for sharing or collaboration. There are no public BCM folders, etc.

The only official sharing of BCM data that is supported by Microsoft is via a
peer to peer network
with appropriate user permissions, etc. BCM is a separate SQL db add-in to
Outlook and it shares the same user interface as Outlook thus appearing to be
the same application. I am not able to comment on Citrix because I am not
familiar with it. If your organization has the need for robust collaboration
and sharing of data among many users both in the office and remote from the
office, you will be frustrated with BCM's design limitations in this regard
and would likely be better served to consider Microsoft's CRM Dynamics
solution instead.

-THP

 

[Guest]

When it comes to sharing data in a peer to peer situation, all we have are
three people who must share data. If sharing is authorized, is it possible
for any of the three to not only see the data, but make changes to the data
base? What step or requirements are necessary to establish such a network?

 

[Luther]

When BCM is shared, all users can make changes to the data: add
contacts and activities; edit fields.

All three PCs must be able to "see" each other (e.g. they can mount
each other's shared folders). One user installs BCM and shares the
database with the other two users (i.e. gives their logons permission
to use the BCM database). Then the other two users, when they run BCM
for the first time, specify that they want to use the shared database,
instead of creating their own private databases. Note that the machine
that shares the database needs to have Windows XP Professional. XP Home
does not support acting as a server.