Customized Views

[yepp]

Hate to beat a dead horse but...I really want to use BCM due to the tight
integration with other Microsoft projects and the automatic history log of
the emails that I send and receive. Although, I absolutely need to add
additional fields to each Account, populate them, and then view them. I am
missing something here, or is what I am trying to accomplish a futile
attempt. I also have been at this for about 4 or 5 hours. Can BCM do what I
want ? Any suggestions? Would Microsofts CRM software work? How hard is
the installation - I would be the only user.

 

[Luther]

Customizing forms is not supported in BCM.

Outlook wizards have been known to add custom fields to BCM, but you
really have to have some detailed know-how about Outlook, its forms
engine, and MAPI (the API Outlook uses to store data) types.

Microsoft CRM is a "mid-range" multi-user system, intended for largish
organizations with a certain amount of IT expertise or installation by
a systems integrator, and does not come free with Office.

 

[yepp]

thanks luther. I realize Microsoft CRM is at least $499 and they suggest
buying a server as well.
I'm a very competent ACT user now but want a solution that is scalable and
tightly integrated with all Microsoft Products. If I'm just using the
product for myself, could it be easily installed on a desktop and used
without a server?

 

[Luther]

The supported installation is on a desktop. There's an option to then
share that desktop installation (database) with other users, when they
logon to the same machine and run BCM with their Outlook profiles, or
from another PC.

There is no support for running it on a server. Although that is
possible to install the database on a dedicated server machine, it's no
a trivial task as some as discovering. It's interesting comparing v1
and v2. v1 was easier to install on a server, but didn't have any real
support for multiple users (some things didn't not update in the UI
until BCM was restarted. With v2 they improved the responsiveness (all
users UI update simultaneous with updates in the db, and the
performance is much improved) but they locked down several things so it
is harder configure in unsupported scenarios. That seems to be the case
with many new Microsoft apps in general, as they make them more secure.