ACT2006/V8 Conversion to BCM

[svrep]

1. Based on your experiences, is this a good thing to do at the current
release of BCM? Or are other options out that are there better?
2. Where can I find the detail about how Groups are converted from ACT to
BCM by BCM? I know there was an upgrade with the recent SP release, but can't
seem to find any details related to how they are converted. I know there are
people out there who do it too, but I would like to understand BCM first.
3. Is anyone using the multi-user hosted version of BCM which I'm told is
available thorugh MS Live? Would like to hear your experinces. And would
like to know if it synchs online/offline data.
4. I read somewhere along the way that there were conflicts using Outlook
Exchange and BCM requiring manual movement of info. Is this still true?
5. Is it just me, or is info on this product spewed all over the place,
difficult to find, high level rather than detail, and you have to pay to get
questions answered (except through this method)? I prefer to evaluate as
much as I can before installing Outlook 2007 + BCM.

Thanks for any insights.

 

[Lon Orenstein]

svrep:

I'll answer your questions by number:

1. The conversion from ACT to BCM supplied by MS has two big problems --
the date of the notes gets changed to the date of the import, and a Call
scheduled for the future gets entered as a Phone Log in history instead of a
Task. The best conversion is done by www.act-to-bcm.com but they're pricey.
That said, given how much your data is worth, they get it all converted,
including groups, attachments, and emails.

2. Groups don't convert using MS's tool. See #1 above.

3. MS Office Live was supposed to synch with BCM but they dropped that out
before release. They're two different systems and should be thought of like
that. Using BCM as a multi-user shared database works fine.

4. Exchange handles emails, tasks, and appointments. BCM's data is synched
by BCM, not Exchange. There's not really a conflict, just two synchs.

5. MS has a fair amount of knowledge about BCM out there. I wrote a
Dummies book about BCM. This newsgroup is a great source of info...

Hope that helps,
Lon

___________________________________________________________
Lon Orenstein
pinpointtools, llc
(e-mail address removed)
Author of Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Author of the eBook: Moving from ACT! to Business Contact Manager
www.pinpointtools.com