Business Contact Manager for Outlook

[Bobert]

Anyone use this?
What do you think?
I had it at one time but never used it and I tried to redownloaded it and said it couldn't create a DB.
I think that is because it didnt install fully and I cant figure out why.
I don't have the disc but I downloaded it from the MS site using my old registration key.

[GreNME]

Anyone use this?

Yes.

What do you think?

It's okay. It's useful when using it in conjunction with other group- and business-based contact lists. Since I don't use Outlook to manage business contact groups and am not using Outlook in conjunction with any CRM or ERP system, BCM is superfluous and an unnecessary resource draw for me, while my better half (who is a freelancer) uses it and finds it worthwhile.

I had it at one time but never used it and I tried to redownloaded it and said it couldn't create a DB.
I think that is because it didnt install fully and I cant figure out why.
I don't have the disc but I downloaded it from the MS site using my old registration key.

You need to make sure SQL 2005 is installed and that everything is installed together properly.

[OffLead]

Hi. I'm GreNME's "better half". (He said it, I didn't!)

There are a couple of versions of BCM, and the older ones are way glitchier than the newer ones. I did use it for a couple of years, but when I reformatted my system and did clean installs of everything over the last Thanksgiving holiday, I chose NOT to reinstall BCM, even though I did reinstall Accounting. (BCM is the bridge piece between the two, keeping contacts synced between Outlook and Accounting, and allowing you to do some job tracking, time tracking, etc from within Outlook.) My reason for not reinstalling it was that it continues to leak memory like a slotted spoon. It's atrocious, really. I already have to keep an eye on Outlook and keep certain add-ons disabled. (This used to hold once it was set, but two different recent automatic updates from Windows re-enabled the add-ons that were causing memory leaks, and I found Outlook running at 1,000,000+ K of memory after less than 48 hours.) But with BCM, there was no way to stop the leakage that it causes. It's actually the SQL stuff that is the problem, but Outlook *had* to be restarted at least once every 24 hours or it would choke up. I finally just got sick of the problems.

Another issue with it was that any time I had to try to restore a database, after setting up a new system, it was nearly impossible to get accomplished. The hoops required to get this sort of simple task accomplished was too much, and it was confusing and annoying. I honestly don't remember all the steps, but it was never intuitive, and always took me a few days to get everything restored, or set up fresh. (Accounting is just as bad in its own way about this. I've got so many copies of my database it isn't funny.)

Now I just use one set of contacts, and am using Outlooks "categories" to keep things assigned as either business or personal. As much of a pain as that is, it's still easier than coping with BCM.

My main reason for using it was an effort to keep Outlook and Accounting synced, so that I was only running one set of contacts. But this year I've moved back to Quickbooks, which has improved its synching with Outlook since I last used it, and is just generally easier to deal with than MS Accounting. (And, again, less prone to bad memory leaks.)

[GreNME]

I swear I did not prompt that response, and I stand corrected.

[OffLead]

I may have been overly cranky when I replied last night. *G*

BCM does do some pretty useful things, and I did use it for 2 or 3 years or so. If you have a work flow that includes shutting down Outlook and other applications when not in use, the memory leaks will not be nearly as big of an issue. And it may be slightly less bad when not used in conjunction with Accounting, though I'm not sure about that. (I did have memory leaks with both types of setups, but can't recall if it was worse one way or the other.)

As for installation, I seem to recall that I always installed the full Office suite (most recently Office 2007), and then when installing BCM that it would actually uninstall Outlook and reinstall it. I believe that the discs we have from MSAP include the full suite, and then one disc that specifically is "Outlook with Business Contact Manager". My setup of the database files is also non-standard, as I keep all data files on a physically separate drive than the one applications are installed onto. This did complicate the installation and setup process of BCM. And as I said, there are a couple of versions of it, not all compatible with all versions of Outlook. But there's not a whole lot of information that can help you figure out if you've got the right combination. The best sources of info I found were on MS support newsgroups.

But for some reason BCM has never received the development support from MS that I think it actually warrants. It does remain glitchy, even in its most recent form. I think it is an excellent idea, and the most recent version is certainly a vast improvement over the first release, but it just never quite worked as well as I wanted it to, and I kept running into complications either with BCM itself, the installation or backup process, or that darned memory leak. In the end, I gave up on it, though if MS ever gets around to really working on the application, I may give it another try.

[Ducky]

:popcorn1

[GreNME]

I'd say OffLead's assessments are going to be better than mine, because I've only had a little bit of experience with it personally, and while a few at work have it installed it never gets used for much of anything.

[Ducky]

I may have been overly cranky when I replied last night. *G*


You're in the Computers section of a skeptic's forum. Go for the throat.

[Ducky]

To throw in my two cents, I prefer to use Xobni for things like this. Mainly for the stats functions it does.

http://www.xobni.com/


YMMV.

[Bobert]

To throw in my two cents, I prefer to use Xobni for things like this. Mainly for the stats functions it does.

http://www.xobni.com/


YMMV.
Thanks I will give that a shot!

[Bobert]

Thanks OffLead!