Microsoft Business Contact Manager | Microsoft Dynamics CRM | Consulting, Training, from pinpointtools Using Business Contact Manager

Updating contacts with new information

AdminAnn — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:52:08 GMT

I have an excel list of new emails for about 100 of my BCM contacts. How do I
import that info and update the already existing contacts? It seems like
importing is only set up for creating new contacts.

And on a related note, I have a list of contacts I want to remove from BCM.
Is it possible to remove them all at once, or do I have to manually do it one
by one?

Upgraded to SBS 2008 and Windows 7 and cant connect to BCM database anymore

Stephen — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:59:11 GMT

Hi we have recently upgraded to Small Business Server 2008 and Windows 7 for the pcs and now cant connect to the BCM database situated on the server. I suspect this is probably a permission issue but I dont know how to check, can you offer any help? Also very often when I click on the button to apply plan to contacts the window that you select BCM database in does not appear, I think that it is appearing behind the main window but I cant get access to it. Is there an update that fixes this? If so how do I download it as our version is the Financial Adviser one and the site does not give access to a trial download and I cant find where to download an update. I would appreciate a bit of help with this as well please. Thanks Stephen

Converting Act 6.0 contacts

Mike C — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:03:04 GMT

I recently purchased a Vista 64-bit laptop and have Office 2007 with BCM. My XP laptop has my database in Act 6.0. I'm a single user outside sales rep and understand the conversion is not easy. The notes in my database are really important. Before I pay someone to convert the information I wanted to ask about two methods. On the BCM Team Blog I saw this note about conversion: I have ACT 6.0 on an XP machine. My new Vista 64 computer has BCM 2007 but will not allow me to install ACT. Do you have any ideas on how to migrate to BCM on the new computer? On the Vista 64 machine, copy the ImportUtility folder from C:\Program Files\Microsoft Small Business\Business Contact Manager and paste it into the XP machine. Run BcmImportUtility.exe on the XP machine, and convert ACT data into a bcm file. Bring this .bcm file into the Vista 64 machine and convert all your ACT data. Also, Windows 7 professional has just come out. It has a Windows XP mode with Virtual PC. In your ebook you mention having both Act and BCM on the same computer as the best way to convert and keep the old notes. Do you have any knowledge of pasting the import utility into the XP machine working or do you think upgrading to Windows 7 and somehow using the XP mode might work. I'm really wanting to get beyond the conversion and into the real working world again as quickly as possible. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Mike

Adding BCM contacts via ODBC from MSAccessDB

fleethaul — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:08:08 GMT

Do you have some pointers on how to add new BCM contacts. I have created an MSaccess table that has the mapped fields that can be imported using the import function in outlook. The staff I am training to use the product as a CRM tool struggle with the import process. I am hoping to be able to append data to the appropriate tables/fields in the BCM database. So far limited success. Obviously PMT appends data into some tables so some suggestions would be appreciated. Jeff

BCM and Google Outlook Sync

TimK — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 06:02:50 GMT

I currently use Google Apps to host my email, and use POP to download my messages to Outlook BCM. This has been a good solution for me. The SPAM filter is great!

I recently upgraded to Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE), which includes a Outlook Sync tool.

More info at http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/outlook_sync.html

The sync tool is billed as an exchange server alternative, and uses a Google protocol to sync messages between your Google account and your local files.

There are some compelling benefits, but I want to make sure that Outlook sync is compatible with BCM. I'm worried that the contact history could become corrupted using this tool.

Does anybody have experience using Google Outlook Sync with BCM? Does MS Exchange work with BCM?

Thanks,
TimK

BCM Crashes - Upgrade to Windows Server?

Gary Pollack — Wed, 20 May 2009 08:49:16 GMT

Hi there, We've been using BCM 2007 for 10 months and things are generally great. However, we have encountered some issues with the business contacts database. Our dataset is enormous, with close to 13,000 entries, and at times, during lengthy bouts of data entry/editing (~2 hours), it will crash, losing most of the data we spent such precious time entering. We are running BCM off of a networked XP PC, 2.6 ghz processor, 2 gb ram, our 4 workstations are the same. I was wondering if installing a server PC would alleviate this issue - any thoughts? Thanks, Gary

Syncing BCM with Palm Treo 800w

Myth — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:55:26 GMT

Does anyone know if Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager will sync with a Palm Treo 800w running Windows Mobile 6.1. This phone has a touch screen and 320x320 screen resolution. Microsoft has a few plugins that may work. I am trying to figure out if this phone will work for me. Definitely need to be able to get my business contacts on the phone.

Possible Solutions
1) Chapura make Pocketmirror Pro for Pocket PC. http://www.chapura.com/pmp_wm.php But not sure if that would work with the smaller screen and if they have upgraded the software to work with 320x320 screen.

2) This is a Microsoft provided plugin for Smarphones. Although it says that it will not work with devices with a touchscreen and refers them to another site. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D9620097-E8F9-41F3-AE66-A7067DAC7ACE&displaylang=en

3) Refers touchscreen devices to this site for Pocket PC's. However, not sure if it will work with Treo 800w. Anyone have any experience with BCM syncing with a Treo 800w? http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=7BC78C14-7143-41D9-84A9-BD628DB7B6A0&displaylang=en

Using BCM and MS CRM together

Ericjv — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 03:02:51 GMT

I have been a user of Outlook 07 with BCM for some time now, though my BCM data was separate from (though not incompatible with) the contact management data in my company's server-based CRM tool.

My company has just migrated me to MS CRM 4.0 for server-based contact management. As soon as I used the installer to integrate Outlook with MS CRM, my Outlook crashed and cannot be reopened. Is it possible that this is just a simple technical glitch that reinstalling Outlook will solve? Or, worse, is it possible that Outlook cannot run alongside BCM and CRM 4.0 at the same time?

I'd love any solution you might be able to suggest...

BCM for Outlook Last action problem

Rudolf — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 07:56:57 GMT

I just reloaded BCM for Outlook and geting message :BCM for Outlook could not complete last action or actions. Please try again" every time I started the program. Any ideas what is wrong and how to fix it?
Thanks.

Faxing from BCM

psacch — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 08:44:37 GMT

Hi,
Can anybody tell me whether they have worked out a way to fax to contacts in BCM. I used Winfax with ACT 6 and was able to fax to groups that I created however unfortunately I don't think Winfax is compatible with Vista ??
In ACT 6 I had groups with 20-100 customers in each and would use the integrated Winfax feature to fax to the entire group with the touch of a button. Can I achieve the same outcome with BCM ?
Is there an alternative to create the same type of fax automation that I had with ACT in BCM??

Thanks in Advance

Duplicate Email History Links Created

jrychlak — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:58:41 GMT

Lon,

We have deployed BCM on a machine in our network and we have two users of BCM so far, who connect to the database via their own machines using 2007. We are just getting started and we have limited records in this shared database. We have been exploring the auto email linking feature and have notcied that we now have duplicate references to the same email on a particular contact's record; one reference was "created" by one user and the second link was "created" by the other user. This can't possible be the way it's supposed to be. Any thoughts? Need more info?

Thanks,
John

How to make BCM & Outlook 2007 NOT CRASH?

Tom M — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 07:27:04 GMT

Hate to say it, but after watching Outlook 2007 crash (on average) 4 times per day (that's average crashes per day)...I am considering ditching Outlook 2007.

Clearly not a knock against your product...pinpoint tools ROCK.

But I am exhausted from watching these daily crashes as I navigate between email, folders, BCM...all Outlook products!
I've spent several afternoons on the phone with Microsoft over the course of this year. Their strategy is always the same: reinstall Outlook 2007.

After reinstalling (now five times), Outlook (and BCM) seems to work for a few days (or a day), then slides into the crash mode, again.

The add-ins I'm using are Pinpoint tools, and SpeedFiler, that's it.

I also created a page in each record in BCM (user-created) to hold additional contact information. The page does no longer displays all the information (like a string of data, numbers, text, etc). It's all there...the space for the data can only be partially seen.

I'm worried about the stability of the product in general.

When I installed Outlook 2007 I installed additional RAM, going from 2 GB to 4 GB.

The biggest problem I have is this: if I ditch BCM, then what?
I use it to link all my email, keep client contact information and notes from conversations.
Yikes!

Tom

accounts vs. categories in BCM

Susan — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 09:28:20 GMT

I'm just starting to use BCM as more than a glorified address book and calendar. I'm stuck on how to use accounts versus how to use categories. I'm used to ACT!, where there was a hierarchical groups and subgroups structure. I agree that a hierarchical view is NOT the way to look at and organize 21st Century business--I get that. But I'm not sure what the relative functions of accounts and categories should be in my case. I don't have accounts in the traditional sense--big companies who I interact with as customers or prospects or suppliers or whatever. I actually am involved in several businesses.

I am a real estate investor, doing marketing mailings to various types of seller lists--new Notice of Defaults, post bankruptcies, probates, out-of-town owners, free-and-clear owners, etc. I also need to maintain buyer lists, and to keep track of resources--real estate agents, mortgage brokers, various types of repair services.

I am a writer. I need to keep track of the people and organizations who buy my services; my sources of information; fellow members of various writers' groups I participate in; etc.

I am in the travel business. I need to keep track of travel vendors, potential customers, target affinity groups, etc., and manage marketing mailings.

SO....how should I use categories, and how should I use accounts? Is there a white paper or the like out there that covers this? I have read Lon Orenstein's Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager for Dummies cover to cover, and he makes some suggestions, but the examples don't fit what I'm dealing with (which, admittedly, is not very typical).

Any advice or information sources would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Notes in BCM

Susan — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 11:33:58 GMT

I recently moved my Outlook contacts to BCM. I moved them all; I didn't put copies in BCM. I had made considerable use of the notes box on the lower right portion of the Outlook contacts interface. Where did those notes go? If they weren't transfered to BCM, is there some way to retrieve them so they aren't lost?

Also, when I use the history function in BCM to create a new note about a contact, how do I then access that stored note? Outlook/BCM help tells you to go to the BCM menu and click on communication history, and the notes should be in that folder. But that folder contains nothing but e-mail messages. The old notes that were part of the imported Outlook contacts are not there, and the new notes I created inside BCM are not there.

Thanks!

Juts me and my contacts!

Rex Ashcroft — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:32:13 GMT

OK Lon!
I keep jumping from using ACT! to OBCM in frustration.
ACT! is driven by me, so when I want to make an appointment with A Client I go to that client's record and make the appointment and up it pops in my diary saying A Client - Meet to talk Biz. Brilliant. Ditto with tasks and Phone calls A Clients - Prepare Trust Deed or A Client - call for decision - easy peezy!
Outlook/BCM is driven by Microsoft's assumption that everyone in business this side of the Orion Nebula is a huge corporate machine, so when I want to make an appointiment with A Client I go to their record and it asks me for Subject and Location. So I type Meet to talk Biz and His London office. This then pops up in my diary as subject and location with no mention whatsoever about who with........
Surely all you clever software wizards by now could have sorted out some way of automatically inserting the client's name at the front of this subject box as an option to chose in Settings somewhere, so us mere one man band mortals and all the ex-ACT! users in the universe (well this side of the Orion Nebula anyway) know who we are going to do whatever with or for....? Or give us an auto key combination that when executed will pop the client's Full Name field in where the curser is resting....? Ditto in Task and everywhere else where one needs to be able to ID who the dikcens we are supposed to be doing whatever with or for
Arghhhhhhhhhhh!
Or did my geriatric brain miss something here......?
Yours in sheer exasperation - otherwise known as "He of the Three concurrect Databases" (Outlook Contacts, BCM, ACT!)

Database Owner / Administrtor

jrychlak — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:57:22 GMT

Greetings,

I am the onwer and administrator of a local database that I created. Is it possible to share the database and make another user the administrator, so that this user can perform tasks restricted to administrators, such as create user defined fields?

Thanks,
John

Customize Main Entry Forms

jrychlak — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 05:14:24 GMT

Greetings,

I know that I can create user defined groups and fields, etc. for Business Contacts, Accounts, etc. But, is it possible to modify and/or customize the main screen? For example, in the Business Contact main screen, I want to remove the fields listed under the Classification area (bottom right) and replace these field with a set of user defined fields....can this be done?

Thanks in advance,
John

Moving contacts from My Contacts to BCM

Jim — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:57:26 GMT

I recently had to restore my VISTA OS and MS Office Outlook 2007 with BCM.

Although I was previously able to move contacts to BCM, now when I try to move a contact from the general My Contacts to Business Contacts (or Accounts), I get a popup - "Cannot move the items. The folders you are trying to change to not support this operation. Could not complete the operation because the service provider does not support it."

I am signed on with permissions for both Owner and Administrator. I work from home on a freelance basis and have tried everything I can think of. Searched the MS BCM forum to no avail.

By the way, I love your book, Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager for Dummies. Keep it right here by my PC. I will purchase your pinpoint Marketing Tool once I get things working smoothly again. Thanks in advance for any assistance you provide. Jim

BCM 2007 Error converting ACT! 2007/9 database during import process

Kurt Goodenberger — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 01:40:57 GMT

I've got a case open with MS support on this issue. At first the MS tech said that Sage had a patch to resolve the issue. When the MS tech conferenced in Sage support the tech checked with senior support and development, twice, to confirm that no such patch existed. The Sage tech suggested trying to convert the ACT! demo DB which worked without issue. Sage tech also suggested running ACT! DB maintenance on the production DB which I had already done, but did again any way. The issue persists. ACT! 2007/9 is running the latest update/build. All MSUpdates have been installed for Office 2007 including the update for BCM that allows it to show ACT! 2007/9 as a choice during the import wizard. Prior to getting the latest MSUpdates I noticed that ACT! ver 2007/9 was not a choice. So I start the import to BCM wizard which in turn spawns the BCM conversion utility. We choose company and contact records to bring in and then select some specific fields for each including 10 user defined fields on the contact record. The conversion starts and one thing is noticeably different between the production DB and demo DB. When converting the production DB only 1 company record is processed before the conversion moves on to 3100+ contacts. When converting the demo DB all company records were converted before the process moved on to the contact records. The conversion of the production DB consistently gets to contact record 765 and then fails. Earlier last week the process went to contact record 763 before failing. At that time we opened the production ACT! DB and deleted contact 763 and 2 others from the same company. After the conversion utility fails the BCMImportUtility.log file reports "Error during conversion: Type,Message,RowKey Contact, System.OutOfMemoryException: Exception of type 'System.OutOfMemoryException' was thrown." I've monitored the available memory during the entire conversion process and memory is never an issue. The MS tech created a new Outlook profile with a new/empty .PST file and tried the BCM conversion from that profile, but the process still failed at contact record 765. Our production Outlook profile is connected to an Exchange 2003 account. That's the whole story. I'm waiting to hear back from the MS tech after he sent me the pinpointtools.com "Moving from ACT! 6.0 to BCM 2003" to review last Friday. While the document was very informative and well done, it of course assumed that all of the ACT! and BCM processes work without issue. After reviewing the document I emailed the MS tech to request that the case be escalated to a tier 2 BCM tech. I've also requested the newer "Moving from ACT! to BCM 2007" doc, but have yet to successfully receive it from pinpointtools.com via email. Oh, one last thing. I MUST have ACT! notes and history come over to BCM. So exporting from ACT! to a .csv file and then importing that into BCM is not an option as notes and history are lost using this method. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Multi-Line Address Imports/Exports

956King — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:07:42 GMT

Hi Lon, I have your BCM for Dummies book, but I am still stumped. BCM help is hard to come by, so I am glad to have looked up your site.

I am really excited about using BCM -- I am drowning in contacts. However, I cannot figure out how to import my contacts which require multi-line street addresses from Excel to BCM's street address field and avoid creating custom fields for those subsequent street lines. I intend to share this contact database with my coworkers, so even if I could establish a work-around for my needs, they wouldn't be able to follow.

In Excel, I have them lined out by columns (Address 1, Address 2, Address 3) and although I found a formula tip online how to merge them into one column, that solution only works for half of my problem. You see, I frequently need to export these contacts to a US Mail software application my company uses, and exporting doesn't keep the once-merged addresses in the appropriate format. It shifts all the fields and gets very messy for a frequent export operation.

I am currently maintaining both systems (Excel and this US Mail application, plus ANOTHER one for email), which I thought BCM could help me overcome. This multi-line merge issue is really causing me fits and dashing my hopes at contact salvation. Do you have any suggestions?