BCM & Reports

[just tere]

Although this program is for a business, and we ARE a business, our clients
are NOT businesses; they are individuals. We are a law firm. However, we DO
need the ability to see all the people on a particular "account". I have had
success (it looks like I'm one of few who have) getting BCM installed and
working. Now, I need to get a REPORT (MS says there's over 100 to choose
from? HA!) which will have all the contacts for that account. For example:

Client -- all information
Opposing counsel -- phone number
clerk of court -- phone number
state agency involved -- phone number

If, for example, the client is a business, all well and good. If the
client, however, is an individual, and I stress most of ours ARE individuals,
I don't get their phone number, because I have it in the home phone.

Another example: if I am opening a closing file (with buyer and seller and
LENDER) and don't have a person's name in the lender's payoff department, I
don't get the information printed on the Account/Contact report.

How can I modify this report to be actually USEFUL? I know that there are
many, many ways to modify/create reports in Outlook, do these reports work in
BCM?

TIA, I hope (I've noticed there's weeks here where no one answered the
questions!)

Tere

 

[Leonid S. Knyshov]

Although this program is for a business, and we ARE a business, our
clients
are NOT businesses; they are individuals. We are a law firm. However, we
DO
need the ability to see all the people on a particular "account". I have
had
success (it looks like I'm one of few who have) getting BCM installed and
working. Now, I need to get a REPORT (MS says there's over 100 to choose
from? HA!) which will have all the contacts for that account. For
example:

Client -- all information
Opposing counsel -- phone number
clerk of court -- phone number
state agency involved -- phone number

If, for example, the client is a business, all well and good. If the
client, however, is an individual, and I stress most of ours ARE
individuals,
I don't get their phone number, because I have it in the home phone.

Another example: if I am opening a closing file (with buyer and seller
and
LENDER) and don't have a person's name in the lender's payoff department,
I
don't get the information printed on the Account/Contact report.

How can I modify this report to be actually USEFUL? I know that there are
many, many ways to modify/create reports in Outlook, do these reports work
in
BCM?

TIA, I hope (I've noticed there's weeks here where no one answered the
questions!)

Tere

Well, for one thing, you are fortunate to have all of this information
inside a standard SQL database that can be manipulated using standard data
analysis tools rather than trying to extract that data from a non-standard
file such as a PST. That presents a beildering array of options.

Obviously, the Home Phone field is being omitted from the reports as it's
not a common field in this context.

I'd suggest retaining a SQL reports consultant to write you a report that
will query against those numbers. As much as I dislike using Access, it's a
decent report generating tool. Alternatively, we can run a SQL query to copy
Home Phone to Business Phone on existing records and then you'll be able to
run a report.

There is another option - why not try using an Outlook View (and table view
in particular) instead of a report? One of them is called "Phone List" and
if you use categories on your contacts and filter it by category such as
client, you should be OK.

Lastly, an Excel consultant can set you up with a PivotTable Report that
uses the BCM SQL database and then you'd be able to manipulate data as you
see fit. You will either love it or hate it, and eventually love it anyway.
Pivot tables are my preferred way to analyze mass quantities of data.

Post with exact details of what data you are trying to report against,
specific to field names and we can figure out what is the best course of
action going forward.

It sounds like your needs may be more complex than this tool can address,
and there is a growth path from BCM to Microsoft CRM, should you require it.

 

[just tere]

If my firm could and would hire any of these consultants that you suggest,
perhaps we would. However, we cannot afford, as most SMALL businesses
cannot, to do so.

I'll stick with Amicus. And, won't buy the other software we had been
eyeing if BCM could do what we wanted. I don't have a clue why anyone would
think this is a grand program if it isn't more adaptable.

 

[Leonid S. Knyshov]

This program is designed for very limited purposes - track and improve a
sales team's productivity or to provide an overall consolidated view on all
business contacts associated with a particular company rather than relying
on "Activities" tab presents performance issues due to its real-time
operation. This works for me and some of my clients, and others require
either custom reports or simply more robust software.

In fact, I think it is because of this BCM was designed to use an outside
database in order to complete sidestep the Activities tab on standard
Outlook contacts and to present snapshots of that information instantly.

Amicus costs $600 initially and then $500 per seat for the premium edition.
For the sake of completeness of this message, they will unlock the feature
to work with a full SQL server for another $100. That cost per seat actually
is in line with Microsoft CRM 3.0 Small Business.
http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusin...customer-relationship-management/pricing.mspx
The challenge with CRM ist that you'd then have to have someone customize it
for you anyway. Amicus might be a better fit for your needs if they have all
the features you require. Should you outgrow that product, we can always
migrate data from a SQL database to a SQL database.

 

[just tere]

Then, why, please tell me, does M$ market this as BUSINESS contact manager,
and not SALES contact manager? This is an absolutely serious question.

I do wish to apologize for my hotheadedness yesterday in my reply to you. I
was unforgiveably rude, and I am sincerely sorry. Sigh. My Amicus database
was lost when my network crashed. The backups that were supposed to be done
daily weren't (the Amicus was not backed up; everything else was, go figure,
sigh).

Amicus is paid for. CRM is not. That's the biggest difference. As *I* am
the only one in the firm who bills -- well, my boss and myself -- and the
rest of the firm is using a DOS version of a case manager, there is NO WAY I
will get them to cough up more than the almost $40K they just spent getting a
new server and all the licenses and all the overtime, ect. And, I got my eye
on another piece of software that will increase my productivity more than
three fold and which will actually pay for itself in less than a month . . .
.. and I have to get what I can.

So, I'll just use a hodge-podge of what I have and hope one day I make a
killing on a real estate deal and can pay for what I need.

Again, I am very sorry for my hotheadedness yesterday.

 

[Leonid S. Knyshov]

Then, why, please tell me, does M$ market this as BUSINESS contact
manager,
and not SALES contact manager? This is an absolutely serious question.

I do wish to apologize for my hotheadedness yesterday in my reply to you.
I
was unforgiveably rude, and I am sincerely sorry. Sigh. My Amicus
database
was lost when my network crashed. The backups that were supposed to be
done
daily weren't (the Amicus was not backed up; everything else was, go
figure,
sigh).

Hold on, maybe not all is lost in your case. How long ago did Amicus crash?
It's a standard SQL database, so if nothing was done that would damage the
recovery efforts, it may be possible to recover it without backups. The only
thing that would irreparably damage the odds is a successful full backup of
that SQL database. I know how that sounds, but a full backup commits
transaction logs of the database, which literally erases them from a disk.
In a practical case of this - a client of mine with too much access to the
SQL server accidently dropped wrong SQL tables which is recoverable, and
then did a full backup, which is not recoverable. Drop table means all data
in that part of the database is gone. However, SQL provides us with a way to
roll back incorrect actions up to the point of last full backup.

I have a nifty little $1400 tool called Log Explorer that I use to rummage
through SQL instances or their remains rather than attempting to do that
manually, which I also can. My contact information is on my website and I am
in Pacific time zone typically reachable from 11am until about 3am.

As we speak at 2am I am piecing together a corrupt mailstore on an Exchange
server that, according to my tools, has not been properly backed up since
August of last year. That's after the client spent a bundle on a backup
solution, it still got corrupted by a mirror failure.

 

[just tere]

The last backup was in October -- and all the stuff that was added since is
just gone. Since I only started using it in AUGUST -- that's more than half
of the data that's gone. Period. Thanks for the thoughts . . . but at this
point, I'd just rather start over with SOMETHING that works, and works the
way *I* need it to, rather than try and recover something that old, if that
makes sense.

So, I've been over at the M$ site, looking at CRM. If I have to buy it for
ME, I will. That's how desparate I am at this point for having SOME sort of
database that will work. Or, I can go ahead and do an Access DB (I
personally own my own copy of Office 2003, that's how desperate I get, sigh)
.. . . and work on it for a year, and then I'll have something I can use that
works for ME.

If MY particular boss would do JUST one or even four types of law, it would
be easy. Only he doesn't. Thankfully, I have been able to put my foot down
and say: NO MORE BANKRUPTCIES . . . and that got one huge load off my
shoulders, LOL.

Anyway, you appear to be the kind of person *I* want to be: rummaging
around figuring out why and how and what happens if I do this . . . .

 

[Leonid S. Knyshov]

The last backup was in October -- and all the stuff that was added since
is
just gone. Since I only started using it in AUGUST -- that's more than
half
of the data that's gone. Period. Thanks for the thoughts . . . but at
this
point, I'd just rather start over with SOMETHING that works, and works the
way *I* need it to, rather than try and recover something that old, if
that
makes sense.

Tere, I understand your frustration. Desperation leads to unfortunate events
and there are simple steps we can take to attempt to bring you back online.

My offer is risk-free to you to attempt to restore most of the missing data
without backups so you have nothing to lose since you wouldn't get charged
if I am not successful. I hate wasting time, by the way.

I realize that you think there is no point in restoring something that's 6
months old, but SQL works differently from what you think and we'd be able
to attempt to restore the newer entries as well. My technology enables me to
help clients literally all over the world without leaving my office. Some
turnaround experiences I have - 20 minute recovery of Exchange back to onine
state after a 6 months of neglect, 3hr recovery of Goldmine to online state
due to Active Directory corruption after 4 months of neglect, 15 minutes
recovery of a laptop to full operation after it wouldn't run virtually
anything without crashing

I'd suggest you e-mail me or call at 510-282-1008 and we go from there.
It would be far more cost-effective than implementing yet another system.

Incidently, Neocase is one of my customers who needed data recovery. They do
have an excellent case management product built on top of MS CRM and they
are a Microsoft CRM Launch partner.

 

[just tere]

Unfortunately, there isn't ANYTHING to recover. That's the problem. The
drive is gone, the backup is now gone, and I am starting over with a fresh
database.

 

[Leonid S. Knyshov]

Unfortunately, there isn't ANYTHING to recover. That's the problem. The
drive is gone, the backup is now gone, and I am starting over with a fresh
database.

On the other hand, I'm STILL trying with BCM. Sure, there's limitations,
but not as many as I was thinking at first.

Does the drive gone mean removed from the server, reformatted, reformatted
and reused, or disposed of?

Just because you didn't backup this database properly may not necessarily
mean that you don't have a backup of it as part of the overall system backup
in the form of MDF/LDF files.

I do like BCM and I am sure with the right combination of views - setup each
attorney as a category and then assign attorney to the client in a category,
for example, we can overcome the limitations.

I think I found a topic to write a book (or at least a series of articles)
on

 

[just tere]

The drive is gone, gone, gone. The tape backup had failed almost four months
previously and no one thought it was important (I didn't know). What do I
mean by gone? I don't give up easily and I did. Drives (array failed) in
trash, along with the rest of the old network.

On the better side, we now have redundancy after redundancy in our network.
Next step is more redundancy. Tis a good thing, I never want to go through
what I just went through again. Ever. A baby with colic is easier to deal
with than a catastropic network failure, LOL.

And, yes, I am thinking of ways to get around the seemingly
un-get-aroundable problems with BCM. I don't have anything better to do.
(TIC and incredibly so not true, but it is 3:48 a.m. and I'm still up, LOL).

Thanks for your continued assistance. I really, REALLY appreciate it.

 

[Leonid S. Knyshov]

The drive is gone, gone, gone. The tape backup had failed almost four months
previously and no one thought it was important (I didn't know). What do I
mean by gone? I don't give up easily and I did. Drives (array failed) in
trash, along with the rest of the old network.

On the better side, we now have redundancy after redundancy in our network.
Next step is more redundancy. Tis a good thing, I never want to go through
what I just went through again. Ever. A baby with colic is easier to deal
with than a catastropic network failure, LOL.

And, yes, I am thinking of ways to get around the seemingly
un-get-aroundable problems with BCM. I don't have anything better to do.
(TIC and incredibly so not true, but it is 3:48 a.m. and I'm still up, LOL).

Thanks for your continued assistance. I really, REALLY appreciate it.

Well, good luck.

If the drives were still there, I'd argue that recovery was still possible.

Onto to database backup.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q325003 will give
you some background on this matter.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/241397/EN-US/ will give you some specific
instructions that I find cumbersome .

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>osql -E -S
cpsserv\microsoftsmlbiz -Q "backup database MSBusinessContactManager to Disk
= '\\cpsserv\backup\bcm.bak'"
Processed 1224 pages for database 'MSBusinessContactManager', file
'MSBusinessContactManager_dat' on file 1.
Processed 1 pages for database 'MSBusinessContactManager', file
'MSBusinessContactManager_log' on file 1.
BACKUP DATABASE successfully processed 1225 pages in 2.914 seconds (3.441
MB/sec).

Once you are satisfied that the command line works correctly, you can then
schedule this task with Scheduled Tasks to run unattended. This beats having
to manually backup BCM (hint, Microsoft...).

Start -> Programs -> Accessories -> Scheduled Tasks
File -> New Task
Paste the command line, altered for your server name
Set the schedule to daily at 4pm
You may want to keep appending to existing backup for a week and then
overwrite it.
Adding another task with an additional clause WITH FORMAT inside the command
line will accomplish just that.

CPSSERV is the name of my server. Replace that with yours.

Then, run NTBACKUP on the server and schedule it to backup the whole thing,
including these bcm.bak files, automatically.

Be sure to test your backups.