What is the point of even having BCM?

[[ a m z ]]

I get the distinct feeling that we're all test subjects and that BCM is
really BetaBCM.

I can't even get a single response on this NG or m.p.outlook.contacts to my
problem with BCM not importing Act Notes/History fields. Then I read in the
post just ahead of mine that you can't manually link e-mails to accounts...

I thought BCM would make my life simpler and easier by eliminating a
third-party program. Now I'm wondering why I shouldn't just go back to Act?

 

[Rob Schneider]

works for me.

 

[[ a m z ]]

Act?

works for me.

What are you saying "works" for you? Are you able to import all of the
Notes/History from an Act 2000 (aka Act 5) record into a BCM record? If so,
how are you doing it? The standard Import in BCM gives the following
results:

Tried importing a small Act 5 database into Outlook 2003's
Business Contact Manager, but...

1. All my custom fields just bulk-imported into
the "Comments" section.

2. The Notes/History notes are gone. The "Business
Contact History" in BCM contains the "Activities" from
Act. If I tell it to "show fields" and select "notes," I
get a few random Notes/History from all kinds of records
(as reflected in "Parent" column). The same dozen notes
show up in every BCM contact for which I show notes.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Your question: "I thought BCM would make my life simpler and easier by
eliminating a third-party program. Now I'm wondering why I shouldn't
just go back to Act?"

BCM works for me.

I don't, and never used Act.

BCM isn't perfect. I have a list of things I wish for. But it's better
than Outlook for managing Business contacts.

If you need help importing Act data ... then ask that as a question. You
were asking about the "point of even having BCM". That surely for only
you to decide.

If it doesn't work for you, don't use it.

rms

 

[John Christian]

[a m z]:

I would agree, BCM *does* seem more like BetaBCM. I didn't need to import
from ACT, so I can't help you with that. Like Rob said, while there are
*many* things I would like to see improved, it is more or less doing the job
for me now. I guess I'm hanging on for BCM v2, and hoping most of this gets
addressed. I don't want to jump to something else, like ACT, and then come
back.

From reading a lot of different things on the MS site regarding BCM, I get
the feeling that many of the things people are pining for were planned for
BCM - maybe they just weren't finished in time for the ship date of Office.
For example, the BCM tours talk about customizing the forms for your
business. Another tutorial talks about having a unified view of many
different peoples Opportunities. Even the Business History view has a view
option for "[By Created By]" - indicating that you would be able to view
items created by different people w/in your Business History.

BTW, Best Software just announced ACT 2005 - it looks pretty nice. If you
consider ACT as BCMs main competition, then ACT has really raised the bar...

John

Your question: "I thought BCM would make my life simpler and easier by
eliminating a third-party program. Now I'm wondering why I shouldn't
just go back to Act?"

BCM works for me.

I don't, and never used Act.

BCM isn't perfect. I have a list of things I wish for. But it's better
than Outlook for managing Business contacts.

If you need help importing Act data ... then ask that as a question. You
were asking about the "point of even having BCM". That surely for only
you to decide.

If it doesn't work for you, don't use it.

rms

[ a m z ] wrote:

I can't even get a single response on this NG or m.p.outlook.contacts

to

my

problem with BCM not importing Act Notes/History fields. Then I read

in

the

post just ahead of mine that you can't manually link e-mails to
accounts...

I thought BCM would make my life simpler and easier by eliminating a
third-party program. Now I'm wondering why I shouldn't just go back to

Act?

works for me.

What are you saying "works" for you? Are you able to import all of the
Notes/History from an Act 2000 (aka Act 5) record into a BCM record? If so,
how are you doing it? The standard Import in BCM gives the following
results:

Tried importing a small Act 5 database into Outlook 2003's
Business Contact Manager, but...

1. All my custom fields just bulk-imported into
the "Comments" section.

2. The Notes/History notes are gone. The "Business
Contact History" in BCM contains the "Activities" from
Act. If I tell it to "show fields" and select "notes," I
get a few random Notes/History from all kinds of records
(as reflected in "Parent" column). The same dozen notes
show up in every BCM contact for which I show notes.

 

[[ a m z ]]

The point of my frustrated comment was... What is the big selling point of
BCM vs. other contact managers? To me, it was the fact that I could
potentially get rid of a 3rd party program and that integration with e-mail
should be better.

However, it seems to me that Act, a far more mature product, has activity
(notes/history/reminder) tracking that BCM doesn't. One would think that
should be an if-it-does-nothing-else feature. From the posts on this and
other NG's, BCM seems lacking.

Also, one would think that the Act import features would be FAR more
sophisticated. Or if they are, far more intuitive.

So... to restate for non-former-Act people...

What is/are the thing(s) you like best about BCM? (Why) would you recommend
it?

Your question: "I thought BCM would make my life simpler and easier by
eliminating a third-party program. Now I'm wondering why I shouldn't
just go back to Act?"

BCM works for me.

I don't, and never used Act.

BCM isn't perfect. I have a list of things I wish for. But it's better
than Outlook for managing Business contacts.

If you need help importing Act data ... then ask that as a question. You
were asking about the "point of even having BCM". That surely for only
you to decide.

If it doesn't work for you, don't use it.

rms

[ a m z ] wrote:

I can't even get a single response on this NG or m.p.outlook.contacts

to

my

problem with BCM not importing Act Notes/History fields. Then I read

in

the

post just ahead of mine that you can't manually link e-mails to
accounts...

I thought BCM would make my life simpler and easier by eliminating a
third-party program. Now I'm wondering why I shouldn't just go back to

Act?

works for me.

What are you saying "works" for you? Are you able to import all of the
Notes/History from an Act 2000 (aka Act 5) record into a BCM record? If so,
how are you doing it? The standard Import in BCM gives the following
results:

Tried importing a small Act 5 database into Outlook 2003's
Business Contact Manager, but...

1. All my custom fields just bulk-imported into
the "Comments" section.

2. The Notes/History notes are gone. The "Business
Contact History" in BCM contains the "Activities" from
Act. If I tell it to "show fields" and select "notes," I
get a few random Notes/History from all kinds of records
(as reflected in "Parent" column). The same dozen notes
show up in every BCM contact for which I show notes.

 

[John Christian]

I guess, right now, the biggest selling point of BCM for me is that it is
free. It does enough of what I need to keep me from moving back over to ACT
or Goldmine or On-Schedule or whatever. Like I said, I'm hoping the version
2 of BCM fixes most of the issues I have (what the heck - I'm hoping it
fixes *all* the issues I have). I have ACT 2000 and don't want to either
install it again or pay to upgrade to the latest version, copy what data I
can from BCM to it, use it for a while, then port everything back to BCM v2.

ACT, like any program, also has its issues, at least for how I want to use
it. And btw, BCM does have activity tracking - are you not seeing that?

Compared specifically to ACT (v6 - the latest shipping version), I like
BCM's generally tighter link with Outlook. I like the automatic email
linking, the Opportunities form and views, and the Accounts form. For me it
primarily needs to allow customization of the forms and VBA capabilities so
that I could customize it for my particular work flow, since MS is unlikely
to produce a version specifically optimized for my needs. There are many
other things that I would like to see, but that is it in a nutshell.

ACT, having been around for 10 to 15 years, is clearly way ahead of BCM in
terms of features and functionality. I am somewhat suprised that I am able
to generally get by with BCM without all those things, but in my current job
I am. If I was selling something different, I might find the current
version of BCM unusable.

John

The point of my frustrated comment was... What is the big selling point of
BCM vs. other contact managers? To me, it was the fact that I could
potentially get rid of a 3rd party program and that integration with e-mail
should be better.

However, it seems to me that Act, a far more mature product, has activity
(notes/history/reminder) tracking that BCM doesn't. One would think that
should be an if-it-does-nothing-else feature. From the posts on this and
other NG's, BCM seems lacking.

Also, one would think that the Act import features would be FAR more
sophisticated. Or if they are, far more intuitive.

So... to restate for non-former-Act people...

What is/are the thing(s) you like best about BCM? (Why) would you recommend
it?

Your question: "I thought BCM would make my life simpler and easier by
eliminating a third-party program. Now I'm wondering why I shouldn't
just go back to Act?"

BCM works for me.

I don't, and never used Act.

BCM isn't perfect. I have a list of things I wish for. But it's better
than Outlook for managing Business contacts.

If you need help importing Act data ... then ask that as a question. You
were asking about the "point of even having BCM". That surely for only
you to decide.

If it doesn't work for you, don't use it.

rms

[ a m z ] wrote:

I can't even get a single response on this NG or m.p.outlook.contacts to

my

problem with BCM not importing Act Notes/History fields. Then I read in

the

post just ahead of mine that you can't manually link e-mails to

accounts...

I thought BCM would make my life simpler and easier by eliminating a
third-party program. Now I'm wondering why I shouldn't just go back to

Act?


works for me.


What are you saying "works" for you? Are you able to import all of the
Notes/History from an Act 2000 (aka Act 5) record into a BCM record?

If

so,