BCM for Outlook 2010

Functionality request: Instead of COPYING or MOVING a Contact to a BCM database, allow the contact to be SOFT LINKED to the database so changes made in either place are reflected back to the original Outlook contact. At the present time, if I COPY a contact, now I'm forced to make address and phone change edits in both places and when hundreds of contacts are involved, this is quite a bit of double work.

How do I display in the to do list only active tasks for selected days?

thanks

jorge

Request:

Re: Outlook 2010 BCM

Task: Using Project Tasks to track billable hours and report on the total hours worked on a set of completed tasks.

Problem: Project Tasks record Actual Hours & Total Hours, which is great for billing. The Project Task Report offers units of Days only and doesn't report Hours.

Question: Can the report be modified to report hours rather than days. And can the Project Task form be modified to include other fields?

My sales manager and I run BCM 2010 on computers that are not networked. How can we synch our two BCM databases so that changes made to one are replicated on the other. Is there a way to do this?? Thanks

Dear Sir/Madam:

I was running Office 2007 with Business Contact Manager and was working wonderfully. I purchased a Laptop and purchased Office 2010 Home/Business. I am now requiring Business Contact Manager for 2010 and was wondering what I would have to purchase to get the BCM for 2010. Any information would be appreciated. Thanks again for the information.

Where do I find some detailed instructions on how to install and configure BCM for Outlook 2010. I specifically am after:

1. How to install BCM 2010 without the SQL Server 2008 Express Edition being installed. I already have SQL Server 2008 R2 installed on the computer. My understanding is that the installprogram should not install SQL Server if a version already exists. (Does it only test for SQL Server 2008???)

2. How do I configure a single "master" and 5 "slave" BCM system. So have 5 users runing BCM locally on their laptops, and when I come into the office they can synchronise their BCM databases with the master.

Documentation seems to be very sparse for installation/configuration of BCM, that I have found.

TIA!

John, "Task: Using Project Tasks to track billable hours and report on the total hours worked on a set of completed tasks"  Capability was unfortunately deprecated.  I previously accomplished this using Outlook BCM and MS Accounting.  I have a write up on its effectiveness at www.intelarbgrp.org   It saved me dozens or man-hours which translated into hundreds of dollars.  

I had been working with the MS Accounting team a year or so ago to hopefully create a complete system for small business.  I know a lot of Small Service companies that like the almost out of the box solutions I was providing, knitting together Office Products using templates, etc.  The unfortunate thing about MS Accounting was its lack of access to the data without programming skill verses macros and wizards

I like the new Opportunity Tracking feature, but miss being able to manage billable time.

I have Office professional 2003, 2007 and now 2010.  I am just one user but I have used previously business contact manager.  I have followed your instructions.  I cannot get business contact manager for Outlook.  this means I will have to buy a stand alone contact manager from someone else.  This seems really dumb and is a major inconvenience and an additional expense for me.  Just nuts.

John, my simple solution for tracking billable hours in BCM 2010.

To track project hours in BCM 2010, I addded .25 hr incements from .25 to 12 hours as "Categories" under the Categorize button, Tasks, Business Project Tasks menu .

When I enter a project task in BCM, I "Categorize" the task by choosing the category that represents the time spent on the task, e.g. Category 2.5 to represent 2.5 hours spent on analysis.

To report on the billable time for a project, I select the "Project Tasks by Project" report under the Reports tab on the BCM main screen and add the Categories column to the report. (Save the modified report as a custom project tasks report so you don't have to add the column each time you run the Project Tasks by Project report)

Then I export the Project Tasks by Project report to Excel, convert the numbers that are stored as text in the Categories cloumn to numbers and  sum the  total hours by project.

Works well and my clients really like the format of the report when I attach it to my invoices for billiable time.

Well, I see that no one at Microsoft has updated this blog in over a year.  Not a surprise since this software barely functions, still doesn't work as advertised, and has no one avaialbe that knows anything about it to try and fix the numerous problems.

Some of the error messages are completely meaningless and could have been written better by a third grader.

I have never seen a more unprofessional software project in terms of design, coding, testing, implementaion, and support in my 40 years in the IT business.

MIcrosoft should be embarrassed and ashamed !

Keith: Not true about not updating this blog in over a year. This blog is updated a couple of times a week. (And I should know; I write for it.) Maybe this POST hasn't been updated but if you go to the Outlook blog home, you'll see plenty of new posts. Subscribe to the RSS feed and you might be pleasantly surprised.

I'm sorry that you're unsatisfied but what might be more constructive and helpful for you, is if you visit Microsoft Answers (answers.microsoft.com/.../default.aspx). There are some very smart and knowledgeable people who hang out there and just answer questions.

- Annik

outlook-annik@live.com

I use Outlook 2010 Business contact manager.  I have opportunities and have attached email to the opportunities in the history tab.  some of the email are the original email that i can forward, and others are ones that have turned into a business activity.  Im assuming it has someting to do with deleting the email out of my inbox.  

Is there anyway to prevent the email from changing to a business activity, without keeping the email in my in box.

why do some emails in outlook bcm get changed to "business activities" after being linked to an account?

When I try to run a "Sales Funnel" report from the Opportunities tab I get a message that reads "BCM of Outlook could not complete your last action or actions. Please try again." The program then tries to load the report but it never gets generated. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks