BCM - is it suitable

[strebor44]

I have a group of about 15 staff who need to work and collaborate on sales
progression and BCM. These staff are in different offices, not all of whom
are linked to one mailsystem or WAN (although that is the plan longer term).
Is outlook with BCM a suitable solution. I can grant the 'remote' users
secure remote access to a central hub ?

 

[Lon Orenstein]

Yes, BCM could work by the guys logging into a VPN and working "live" online
to a PC with your master BCM database on it. This doesn't have to be a
server, just a robust PC with 2-4GB of RAM.

A better way would be to have them create an offline copy of the master
database, then synchronize once a day or week or hour. This also works
through the VPN but saves on bandwidth and gives them better performance
during the day.

HTH,
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

 

[sholson]

Yes, BCM could work by the guys logging into a VPN and working "live" online
to a PC with your master BCM database on it. This doesn't have to be a
server, just a robust PC with 2-4GB of RAM.

A better way would be to have them create an offline copy of the master
database, then synchronize once a day or week or hour. This also works
through the VPN but saves on bandwidth and gives them better performance
during the day.

HTH,
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 Managerwww.pinpointtools.com

Lon, I too have your book, it has been extremely helpful.
You wrote in the previous post to update once an hour or day or week,
any of those are fine, but when I looked at the Offline database
settings, the only options are; "Synchronize my data with the shared
and local database" the maximum setting is 30 minutes. How would we
achieve a longer timespan?
Scott Holson

 

[Lon Orenstein]

I like to do it manually (synchronize, that is.... this analogy is getting
away from me...). Those settings are only invoked if you also choose to
automatically synch. So, at the end of the day, the last thing the user
would do before shutting down is to connect via VPN and click the Offline
button. After synching, click it again to go Offline, shut down, and go
home.

HTH,
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

 

[strebor44]

I like to do it manually (synchronize, that is.... this analogy is getting
away from me...). Those settings are only invoked if you also choose to
automatically synch. So, at the end of the day, the last thing the user
would do before shutting down is to connect via VPN and click the Offline
button. After synching, click it again to go Offline, shut down, and go
home.

HTH,
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

This of cours assume that the remote users can vpn in in order to synch.
Out policy is not to use VPN clinet connectivity for non-WAN connected site,
but to use TS with RDP - I have just discovered that in order to install BCM
in outlook 2007 outlook must be configured in cache mode. Since you cannot
run cache mode outlook on a TS server, then this seems to rule this out for
me as a possible CM solution ??