Custom Relationships

[Vbasiccode]

Can you have and or build a new 1 to many relationship? example what i would
lobe to build is a new tree
Business Contact Manager
1 Account many Groups (Custom item)
1 Group many Benefits (Custom item)

q1 can you create custom items?
q2 can those custom items have 1 to many relations ships
q3 can those custom item exist of FormRegion customizations as stand alones


I am trying to get outlook to act as close as possible to MSCRM3.0

 

[Hollis Paul]

I am trying to get outlook to act as close as possible to MSCRM3.0

A fools errand if I ever heard of one. If you want something to work
like MSCRM3.0, then you should by MSCRM3.0. Unless, of course, you
count your development as $0.00/hour. If you value you time that
little, then you clearly are not capable of such development.

 

[Vbasiccode]

That was a pretty nasty remark.
I have a product fully developed for MSCRM3, but due to costs involved some
of my smaller clients can't afford the costs involved with the server. I am
doing R&D on the development of my product as it related to other much
cheaper CRMs, (Maximizer, Act, etc) Outlook BCM came up as a possibility, and
i have come up with a possible solution, however it would be nice since the
data seems to have a basic structure and they have now allowed the making of
Form (Form Region 'Seperated') . To add to this they currenly have a relation
for Account to Contact. Knowing all this, then i do not beleive that was
thought of by the builders of the new Outlook to allow for custom
entities(items). Remember they are touting this as the light CRM!

 

[Hollis Paul]

I am
doing R&D on the development of my product as it related to other much
cheaper CRMs, (Maximizer, Act, etc) Outlook BCM came up as a possibility, and
i have come up with a possible solution,

So, you are not one of the great unwashed, whose fabulous idea needs to be
nipped in the bud. My apologies. Way back in Outlook 95, I built a couple of
forms that allowed all outlook users in a sales group to post journal items in a
public folder. Did sales groups beat a path to my door? Nooo. They waited till
MS built MSCRM and paid big bucks for an additional share of problems. The
little guys never had a clue. Good luck. I gave up on Outlook development a
long time ago.

 

[Vbasiccode]

Hello Paul
I have never wanted to be a Outlook developer and certinatly not VBA. But
after a long and sometimes inventive job keeping tacttics i have learned that
you sometimes have to do things you may not have jumpped up for joy for. But
if you are going to do it then do it as good as you can because all we have
is our good name and quality workmanship.
Due to VS2005 i don't have to write VBA.

Enough soap box.

If there is a way to create a new item(entitiy/object) and then link it to
another item(entity/object) such as the relationship between Account and
Business Contact then I could do an amazing amount of things for a much lower
cost.

I have only been looking at office and outlook as a development enviroment
for 2 weeks now so i am still missing some of the base structure information.

Any help or hints would be great

Thanks all
Gary

 

[Sue Mosher [MVP-Outlook]]

AFAIK, BCM isn't designed to accommodate new relationships or new data record types. Any such linking would have to be of your own design and your own coding, perhaps through custom properties (read up in the BCM 2007 docs on MSDN about those).

Also, there is a separate microsoft.public.outlook.bcm forum where folks with more BCM experience can be found.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Author of Configuring Microsoft Outlook 2003

and Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for
Administrators, Power Users, and Developers

 

[Vbasiccode]

I have discovered the BCM forum thanks to you other help and have now moved
my qestions over their.
Thank you for you time