Giant leap backwards or sideways?

[KeithDBMS]

It never ceases to amaze me how Microsoft continues to get involved with
products that give new features while removing other necessary ones.

We had hoped to move to BCM to offset the weaknesses in Outlook, but in fact
BCM is a step backwards or maybe sideways. We would like to have the built
in sales tracking activities supposedly featured in BCM, but not at the cost
of other already gathered important information on existing contacts.

Automatic history collection and display is a welcome addition since Outlook
"Activites" will not update public journal folders without user intervention
to copy them manually from personal journals. However, the offset is the
loss of all user-defined fields makes BCM worthless to our company.

Why can't Outlook automatically collect all activity for a contact
regardless of user and put it in the public journal to be displayed in the
Activites tab by those with permission to do so?

Isn't the point of centralized activity/history display to allow users to
immediately see what has "been going on" with a
contact/prospect/customer/vendor?

In our desire to use a Microsoft product that is tightly integrated with the
rest of Office the way Outlook mostly is, we have avoided ACT, Goldmine etc.
as incomplete or less complete.

At this point it still seems better to add user-defined fields into Outlook,
to "emulate" those collected in BCM, since the alternative is to be
restricted to the limitations of BCM.

Am I missing something?

 

[Tim Peterson via OfficeKB.com]

You might want to check out this contact manager add-in for Outlook found at:
www.avidian.com. They have a server edition that works very well.

-THP

 

[BigDog]

I feel you pain.

BCM is a joke.
It is NOT an integrated solution.
Shame on you Microsoft!

 

[Tim P via OfficeKB.com]

I believe the real reason for such unnecessary removal of certain functions
is likely based upon a desired strategy of putting BCM users on a track
toward Microsoft CRM. The thinking probably is that if BCM is too feature
rich and robust they will never be able to entice some users to step up with
yet another software purchase in order to get the application to perform
fully for your needs. Built in design limitation is all about marketing
strategy with Microsoft. They know how to design a good product. They just
want to affect your buying patterns as much as possible. In that sense I say
buyers beware and I urge everyone to carefully ponder using BCM both for what
it is and sadly, for what it is not. This add-in does what it is supposed
to do. The problem lies in the details of so many limits that it cannot do
because it was never intended to. This is a great add-in with much
potential to be designed into it and perhaps future versions of regular
Outlook itself will be fully SQL based (like the ACT 2005 rewrite is). I
think Microsoft is missing a big market segment if it assumes all small
business will migrate toward their full CRM. That kind of "corporate-think"
is likely behind BCM's rudimentary design functions. My biggest beef with
version 2 is:

-No field customization allowed among any of the record form items.
-Limited sharing of data (peer to peer only vs. server based).
-Limiting only 1 Account linkage per Business Contact.
-No easy way to send group emails other than the multi-step Word Mail merge
hassle.

Think about it. Each one of these functions is available among competitive
software applications such as ACT or Prophet. The capability is there.

The strategic desire from Microsoft to include these is currently not.

-THP

 

[Ed Marmon]

Think about it. Each one of these functions is available among
competitive software applications such as ACT or Prophet. The
capability is there.

The strategic desire from Microsoft to include these is currently not.

The all-powerful wizard of oz has spoken.

Wow. Well said. You should be published. NIce summary of what's bad about
what's otherwise pretty good....

 

[Tim P via OfficeKB.com]

Ed,

I thought that Big Dog was being a bit harsh even though a lot of us here can
relate to the frustration behind his comments. I for one wish that BCM was
more close (as fully) featured to Microsoft CRM. Who wants to pop for the
higher price if they don't have to? I would migrate to the full Microsoft
CRM application readily if it were priced more competitively. I guess in the
eyes of Microsoft it comes back to the strategic question of how much are you
willing to pay for how much performance? Whining away for features that
aren't included by intention may be of some interest to BCM's designers but
only if it reflects a measurable demand trend in the marketplace as perceived
by Microsoft's product marketing planners. There is a LOT of room for BCM to
evolve in functionality with future releases but this may likely be slow in
coming given that it took almost 2 years between version 1 and version 2.

Who knows?

Are there any MVP's in the loop that care to weigh in on this one?

-THP

 

[Luther]

A couple of comments.

(1) All the literature available indicates that BCM is clearly aimed at
small businesses and CRM at mid-sized businesses. So I would expect BCM
to grow to have all the possible features a small business can handle;
i.e. short of formally requiring any form of IT staff to install of
maintain it. Hosting on a server is clearly a grey area by this
criteria. I suspect MSDE is the largest db BCM will ever work with,
because the bigger SQL Server brethern all require some amount of DBA
support.

(2) I don't think custom fields is a small/mid-sized business
differenciator. If you look at the v1 database schema, there are
certain unused tables and fields that indicate there was support for
custom fields at one point. Also note how in v1 you can import new
values into picklists. Even though there's no way to add new picklist
values through the UI, the database supports them. I suspect custom
fields were removed from v1 late in the development cycle and they
didn't have time to clean up their detritus. In v2 all those traces are
gone--importing new values into a picklist results in logged errors. If
custom fields show up in BCM v3, rumoured to ship with the next version
of Office, that might indicate that there was something in Outlook 2003
that kept BCM from shipping that feature. As a corollary, I would point
out that it was a fix in Outlook and not BCM that resolved the
notorious form cache corruption problems.

 

[Parker]

I love the posts - they reflect my frustrations. One thing that I am certain
of: BCM is NOT targeted at Small Businesses - if it was, it would be a lot
more flexible.

The inability to use custom fields is incredibly short sighted - contact
management 101 type stuff.

I can't imagine using BCM to help keep track of professional service clients
(insurance agents, financial planners, CPAs, etc.) It is more geared to
calling on business customers and not individual clients.

If the answer is in CRM, hmmm....small business owners with limited budgets
(they like to make money, not spend money), an enterprise customer
relationship manager....this doesn't seem to make any sense.

Surely all of these downsides have been overcome by someone. Please?

The status field is a joke - unless the two un-editable choices are all you
need.

I'm sorry I upgraded to BCM, it turns out that it has no redeaming value
other than a way to link different pieces of information about a contact, but
no way to track specific, common information that is needed for each contact.

 

[Tim P via OfficeKB.com]

Parker,

Your comments sum it up pretty well. Microsoft always says they are very
interested in end user feedback but it seems like they then turn it all over
to the tech nerds who are more concerned with the underlying programming
stuff. The empathy for the end user experience often gets lost. A project
manager with more of a contact management 101 perspective could sheperd a
product like this through its design cycle quite easily without such an
embarrasing lack of really basic features. Again, my only conclusion is that
Microsoft is well aware of this and the greater agenda is to steer most users
into their higher priced CRM regardless of whether they are "small", "mid-
sized", or whatever. Luther's comment about IT staff required for set up is
well taken but that is not what I believe we are referring to with respect to
these built in BCM design limitations. For example, a contact manager like
ACT allows the user to easily customize fields, form layouts, etc. WITHOUT
any IT help required. If someone like me can do this it is pretty easy.
Sales Force.com has a hosted full CRM that is extremely end user friendly in
its ability for customization without IT. I have nothing against IT and
support partners but this is an old enterprise based (ie: big budget) model
of implementation that is out of step with the dynamic realities of the
entrepreneurial marketplace. Small business is usually involved in a
survival march and good software design and pricing models support that
rather than hinders it.

I am very pro Outlook and like the advantages of using just one information
management platform for my small business. I also need to call a spade a
spade when I see it. BCM works well but its current feature options for
whatever reasons are somewhat limited.

-THP

I love the posts - they reflect my frustrations. One thing that I am certain
of: BCM is NOT targeted at Small Businesses - if it was, it would be a lot
more flexible.

The inability to use custom fields is incredibly short sighted - contact
management 101 type stuff.

I can't imagine using BCM to help keep track of professional service clients
(insurance agents, financial planners, CPAs, etc.) It is more geared to
calling on business customers and not individual clients.

If the answer is in CRM, hmmm....small business owners with limited budgets
(they like to make money, not spend money), an enterprise customer
relationship manager....this doesn't seem to make any sense.

Surely all of these downsides have been overcome by someone. Please?

The status field is a joke - unless the two un-editable choices are all you
need.

I'm sorry I upgraded to BCM, it turns out that it has no redeaming value
other than a way to link different pieces of information about a contact, but
no way to track specific, common information that is needed for each contact.

A couple of comments.

[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]

out that it was a fix in Outlook and not BCM that resolved the
notorious form cache corruption problems.

 

[Luther]

Just a few points about the comments above.

Although ACT, Salesforce, and Quicken can create apps that have custom
fields and other features that BCM doesn't have, they haven't managed
to integrate into Outlook as an Add-in to the extent BCM has. And there
aren't new companies jumping in and creating better CRM add-ins either.

There's a trade-off there: Total control in your own app, or work
within the
limitations of the APIs Outlook exposes to Add-ins.

If you write your own Outlook add-ins, the reasons for some of the
counter
intuitive behavior in BCM become apparent. Hopefully the next version
of Outlook will allow BCM the features people have been asking for.

There's only so much work Microsoft can do on BCM given the price
it charges. It comes bundled with Office and there's no cost for
the v2 upgrade.

I hope MS people actively posting on this forum, like SSinha and Larry,
and the MVPs will get some recognition, but I don't think anyone there
is actually paid to answer questions and get grief from this forum.

It certainly helps to send suggestions and make noise about BCM's
problems so that they get attention. Griping in the dark won't lead
to a better BCM, but at least constructive suggestions are listened to.
I've received mail from MS following up on items I've posted here.

Microsoft also pays support people to answer the phones, so
if the volunteers here can't answer a question, call up Microsoft.
Isn't there free tech support for the first X days after you install
a product?

With over a million users, one BCM user's gripes may not get much
attention, but if you guys organize into a proper users' group you
will have some effect. At least you'd have more visibility.
Typically software user groups are driven by large corporate customers,

so it'll be interesting to see if small businesses can also get
together
and organize.

You could also sign up for the next Office beta, and send your feedback

early.
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/default.mspx

I don't know for certain that BCM is shipping with the next Office, but
I
know there will be a new version, and I strongly suspect Office will be

the delivery vehicle.

 

[Tim P via OfficeKB.com]

Great thoughts Luther,

I have done whatever I can over the past 2 painfully long years (between BCM
version 1 and 2) to provide much contructive written feedback to Microsoft.
I was initially encouraged to do so by Patricia Cordoza (MVP and author of
Que publishing's special edition "Using Outlook 2003"). As only 1 voice I
realize how a thread such as this can easily take on a seemingly negative
tone and not be very constructive.

Because we are talking about the mighty Microsoft here I don't wish to see
Outlook features and functions designed and released in what seems to be such
a vacuum sometimes. It is the easiest thing in the world for a design team
to fully review the features that other competitor's software applications
offer. After 2 long years waiting between BCM version 1 & 2 I guess I was
hoping for something more robust than they were willing to release.
Integration with Outlook is indeed the issue here and in many respects I wish
Outlook itself were redesigned so that add-ins like BCM weren't even
necessary to meet basic business CRM needs. If the core features of
Outlook's contact management were improved upon to provide greater basic CRM
like functionality (very hopeful with next Office release in 2006?) Microsoft
could create a far more powerful draw into the Small Business Edition of
Office among the 14 million ACT user base alone out there. I have posted
links numerous times on this forum to www.avidian.com not to cause mischief
but rather because it will only be through the competitive incentive provided
by alternatives from 3rd party vendors like this that will perhaps force the
hand of Microsoft itself to more rapidly make improvements. Necessity is the
mother of invention and innovation in most things. I am very interested in
constructively participating in other user groups or forums like this if I
knew where they existed. If Microsoft has a site of this nature I would like
a link to it. Also, how does one participate in Beta projects? I am not of
a programming background but I am a fairly astute end user with a willingness
to offer my 2 cents on occasion. I like what I see among the Small Business
sites at Microsoft.com. The giant may be slow to awaken but there seems to
be huge potential market value among smaller users like myself if they can
pay attention and adapt quickly enough in their application design and price
offerings.

-THP