Converting from ACT

[B Golden]

I am coverting to Outlook 2003 BCM after 12 years of using ACT and have a few
questions:

1. I am not grasping the process by which BCM tracks notes and histories
vs. ACT. Any thoughts on this?

2. How do you clear an activity and have it record to the history?

3. Can groups or folders contain their own data? In other words, in ACT,
Groups could have their own fields etc.

4. Can you add custom fields to BCM?

5. The ultimate question...am I going to regret the time spent changing??

I could go on and on....thanks for the input...

 

[Tim P via OfficeKB.com]

B Golden,

I will try to offer a fair and balanced response having made this leap myself
from ACT a few years ago.

1. BCM tracks notes and histories based on the native Outlook Journal folder
features. The BCM Business History Folder is a cousin to native Outlook's
Journal Folder. Each note or phone log that you create in Outlook is
"journaled" as a separate individual file item that can be linked to other
Outlook or BCM Record items. Viewing these history items is different than
ACT in that you have to open and close each "record-file" within a window vs.
scrolling down a single screen view in ACT. Whether this is better or not
better really depends on what you grow accustomed to. I have to admit that
it took me a while but now is really not that big of a deal.

2. The only "clearing" of an item in BCM that then also automatically
records to the history such as ACT does is with an email item whereby if you
delete the original email from the Outlook pst folder it will be written into
a Business History record file in the BCM database. Any other clearing of
items requires a manual entry to record the history in BCM if the original
Outlook item (such as a task or appointment record) is deleted from the
Outlook pst.

3. As I understand your question, this is not really possible in BCM because
most settings are global across the application vs. folder specific.

4. Not currently. Please refer to numerous other posts in this newsgroup as
to why that possibly might be and when and how that hopefully will change.

5. Man oh man is this ever the big question!! I feel your pain man. Whether
or not you regret the time spent changing to BCM depends entirely upon
whether or not you are able and willing to live with the various trade offs.
There are many. The big plus is that I like the promise of a relatively
seamless Office based experience in the use of software for my business but
the current reality is that there are some very nice features in ACT
(especially the latest v.8 2006 release) that I really wish BCM had available
and the next BCM v. 3 is currently in beta with anticipated release to be
sometime in late summer of '06 in conjunction with the new Office v. 12. BCM
has a lot of promise in my opinion but much of it remains unrealized yet and
it seems like a LOT of real world small business users such as yourself are
asking this question of themselves. I think a lot more users are in this
quandry than MS even may realize and I sure am hoping that they can do a good
job of catching up and not just match the features of other apps but also
surprise and overwhelm its intended user base vs. underwhelm. Make your own
conclusions based upon your own needs is always the best answer.

Best wishes,

-THP

 

[B Golden]

Thank you for the elaborate and thought out reply! I am being nudged by IT
to switch and have come the ultimate conclusion that the pros will outweigh
the cons.

Another questions - I have not researched or demoed the MS CRM. I
understand that it is a more robust sales tool. Do you know anything about
it?

 

[Tim P via OfficeKB.com]

I have viewed some demos and it has a very Outlook centric interface. I
would reccomend exploring the differences of ths vs. BCM so you have a better
idea if you get into limitations with BCM that frustrate you or not. There
is a fairly easy migration from BCM to CRM from what I have read.

-THP

Thank you for the elaborate and thought out reply! I am being nudged by IT
to switch and have come the ultimate conclusion that the pros will outweigh
the cons.

Another questions - I have not researched or demoed the MS CRM. I
understand that it is a more robust sales tool. Do you know anything about
it?

B Golden,

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