Is there a central database for sharing contacts?

[Chris]

We're looking for a simple CRM system. We'd like to share contacts, leads,
emails, and customer notes in a small office. We currently have MS Small
Business Server, and we use Exchange and Outlook for email.

I read in one place that Business Contact Manager is a single-user solution,
and I read elsewhere that you can do peer-to-peer sharing. That would
probably not cut it for our situation -- we'd really like everything to be
in a single, central SQL database. Is there a newer version that could keep
everything on our Small Business Server, preferably in MS SQL?

 

[Chris Schatte]

Since you posted to the BCM group here is more information:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/outlook/contactmanager/prodinfo/default.mspx
Latest service pack for BCM:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...05-568B-41B0-9F45-045876CBE9A3&displaylang=en
Search the BCM group for user infomation on BCM and SBS 2003:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...dg=microsoft.public.outlook.bcm&lang=en&cr=US
For further information:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/suites/smallbusiness/overview.mspx

Chris Schatte

--
use the Office Online web based newsreader here:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx
In Office System 2003 applications:
Help/Assistance Pane/Communities
SBA Spotlight

 

[mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com]

Chris,

Your question deserves a direct and easy to understand answer. It has been
often asked here in many different ways. The current version (and also
likely future version) of BCM is not officially supported by Microsoft to be
used in a single, central SQL database. It uses an MSDE (SQL Lite version)
that runs on one of your client machines. The only data sharing that it is
intended to support is via a peer to peer network with other users access
permissions set accordingly. BCM version 2 can co-exist now on a client
machine as an Outlook add-in in an Exchange environment but BCM does not
itself share data via Exchange public folders like native Outlook alone does.
If you want to have a robust central server based application you will have
to use Microsoft's full CRM. This in my opinion is exactly why BCM is
limited in this way. (By intentional design) They have positioned this add-
in as something they believe most small business will be drawn to. I have
long differed from this belief because centralized data that is easy to
access from remote locations data is something most of us in business desire
regardless of whether they are large or small. It is a false choice to
explain this away as an Enterprise vs. Small Business issue.

-THP