How to Link a Journal entry to contact in business contact manager

[JMS]

I'm moving my business contacts to BCM. I enjoyed the journal links that
showed and timed phone calls in regular Outlook. That feature doesn't seem
to link in BCM, plus the phone log is completely different and far less
useful. Can I see history in BCM the same way as Outlook?

 

[Tim P via OfficeKB.com]

JMS,

The identical cousin in BCM to compare to Outlook's Journal folder is the
Business History Folder. I had your same concerns when I migrated to BCM and
I am actually pleased with the similiarities. There are a few different
worklow feature requirements but the creating and tracking of the phone log
is very close. You still have a start timer button on the Phone Log form to
time your calls. The main difference is you don't create a Business History
record item by clicking Actions on the form. Instead you initiate a new item
by clicking on the New button in the Business History section of the form for
either an Account or a Business Contact. You also have a new tool bar
available with BCM v2 (default location in the upper right of your screen)
that has quick create buttons for a Business Note or Phone Log at anytime. I
found it helpful to keep a close comparative eye on the actual icons of
Outlook and BCM in order to become more accustomed to the paralell functions
between Outlook's Journal and BCM's Business History folders. The icons of
each folder will clue you how that BCM object record item relates to what you
are familiar with from using Outlook alone. Remember, the Outlook Journal
commands will not cross over to Outlook. There are separate, paralell
commands built into BCM that are equally useful in my opinion.

I found that the more I got used to navigating around in BCM the more I
recognized how to do what I could do previously with Outlook alone. This has
especially been true with my use of the Journal.

-THP

 

[Tim P via OfficeKB.com]

JMS,

An additional comment:

The more comfortable I have gotten with understanding and creating my own
view options has helped a lot with BCM. You can see history the same way in
both Outlook and BCM in addition to a host of other alternative ways as well.
Experiment a little and see what works best for your needs.

-THP

 

[JMS]

Thanks, Tim. I appreciate your time and response, but let me be more
specific, in hopes that I won't lose my old entries.

1. Can I link "old" phone log journal entries that were previously
associated with the contact to the same contact migrated to BCM? (Only the
emails show up now, when phone logs were there in Outlook) I'm guessing not,
based upon your response, but that seems unusually shortsighted for MS, since
the product was inevitably designed to leverage Outlook users.

2. The phone log in BCM tracks in hours, not minutes like Outlook, plus you
cannot overwrite the time or duration, so what if I take a call I want to
document, but not at my PC at the time?

Thanks!

JMS