Changes to reports in 2007

[Bill]

We downloaded Office 2007 Professional from the MSDN downloads site. It
should have contained BCM but it didn't. We then downloaded BCM 2007 from the
MSDN site and installed it. This version which is using SQL 2005 Express is
extremely memory hungry. On average it is taking more than double that of the
version with 2003. We then began a more detailed investigation of the product
and whilst there are many changes to it, there are also many issues. The
foremost is the way Microsoft have changed the standard reports. The new
report for Business Contacts by account is absolutely awful compared to the
earlier version and you cannot modify it back to the way it was. Why do this.
They repeat the title 'account' in front of every account, they repeat the
address for each of the contacts ((not always necessary)) and worst of all
they do not include the e-mail address as standard. What were they thinking
of? If you add it using the modify reports command it doesn't fit across an
A4 landscape page (the font size is already 8 points which makes it about as
small as you would want it for readability). Does anyone at Microsoft
actaully ever speak to their users?
This product is a very poor substitute for real contact management - it is
almost totally aimed at marketing (new marketing campaign) rather than
providing the basics of contact management. Where are the links from a
contact to creat a new document (not always a letter Microsoft !). Not sure
who is driving this product development but they need to get out amongst the
real users and find out what is really needed, rather than what they want to
include in the product.

 

[Chris [Microsoft]]

Bill, let me try to address your comments one at a time:
1. Memory. I not in SQL team, but my understanding is that SQL uses
free memory to maximize performance, and that it will give it up as
other applications demand it.

2. Reports, general. Please be as specific as you can (in addition to
what you've already said) about how you use reports, and how they do
and do not meet your needs.

3. "Account" before each account. It is possible we will modify this in
a future version.

4. Mailing address, email address, and fit on page: You have, I
believe, been able to modify the report to show the fields important to
you (remove mailing address, add email address). Do the fields now fit?
Besides our choice of default fields, is there anything else we should
have done differently?

5. Font: We chose a default font that looks good on most displays. You
have probably found that you can change it. Let me know if that is not
the case.

6. Real contact management: Please tell me what features are missing
that you would find useful, or which are in the product that you would
never use.

I appreciate your comments, and thanks in advance for any additional
thoughts you would care to offer.

Chris

 

[mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com]

Chris,

Restricting BCM's design to allow for only "One-to-Many" relationship linking
is simply an unforgivable oversight for real contact management. Ex: Once
you have linked a Business Contact to an Account, that Business Contact is
LIMITED from being able to link to any other Account. Even more apalling is
the Opportunity Record's needlessly restricted linking functionality. The
Opportunity record allows only either 1 Account or Business Contact record to
be linked at a time. This restriction does NOT square with the reality of
most real life business opportunity development processes.

You seem sincerely interested in responsible feedback about BCM and yet these
major oversights remain after 4 years of feedback from users (former) like
myself who could not operate their small business using this limited software
add-in tool. I regularly refer folks to BCM alternatives such as
www.avidian.com. While not perfect, the Prophet add-in for Outlook does not
impose as many unnecessary, limiting restrictions upon the user as BCM does.
Microsoft can do better than the current state of BCM release which includes
the upcoming version 3.0.

Constructively yours in feedback,

-THP

Bill, let me try to address your comments one at a time:
1. Memory. I not in SQL team, but my understanding is that SQL uses
free memory to maximize performance, and that it will give it up as
other applications demand it.

2. Reports, general. Please be as specific as you can (in addition to
what you've already said) about how you use reports, and how they do
and do not meet your needs.

3. "Account" before each account. It is possible we will modify this in
a future version.

4. Mailing address, email address, and fit on page: You have, I
believe, been able to modify the report to show the fields important to
you (remove mailing address, add email address). Do the fields now fit?
Besides our choice of default fields, is there anything else we should
have done differently?

5. Font: We chose a default font that looks good on most displays. You
have probably found that you can change it. Let me know if that is not
the case.

6. Real contact management: Please tell me what features are missing
that you would find useful, or which are in the product that you would
never use.

I appreciate your comments, and thanks in advance for any additional
thoughts you would care to offer.

Chris

We downloaded Office 2007 Professional from the MSDN downloads site. It
should have contained BCM but it didn't. We then downloaded BCM 2007 from the

[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]

real users and find out what is really needed, rather than what they want to
include in the product.