Office 2003 BCM, got report-maker?

[George]

Another question about upgrading from Office2002Prof to Office2003Prof,
which includes Outlook with Business Contact Manager. (Available to general
retail customers end October 21, I hear).

Has anyone used a version already released maybe to corporate customers, or
a beta version...who can tell me if Outlook2003/BCM has a good
REPORT-maker...like ACT! has, where I can design a format, then tell it
which Outlook contact info to pull, and generate/print the report.

For instance, I could design a report named "Contact profile" with name,
address, phone, and all notes...then run it on all contacts where
state=Florida, or run it on type=Retailer, and so forth... then print each
report.

Thanks

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi George,

You can get a general idea of the features in
MS Office Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager

http://microsoft.com/office/preview/editions/contactmanager/
(including the FAQ page link from the 'Product Overview' page

It's report writing capabilities may not be as strong as
those in Act!(although you can import Act! contacts <g>).
Basically it comes with a selection of 'canned' reports
that you can apply filters and sort criteria to (BCM is
basically an Add-in to Outlook) and you can tailor
the header and footer, but there isn't a built in
'create a report' choice in the menu.

You can export the results into Word or Excel for
additional feature/layout work and it's designed as
a single user tool, with a 'move up' target by MS of
using its CRM (Customer Relationship Manager)
offering for collaborative needs:
http://microsoft.com/BusinessSolutions/Customer Relationship Management/default.mspx


Note the restriction BCM - from the MS website:
"The Business Contact Manager functionality is not enabled when Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager is used in combination
with Microsoft Exchange Server or Microsoft Small Business Server configured for Messaging Application Programming Interface
(MAPI)-based e-mail"


=========
Another question about upgrading from Office2002Prof to Office2003Prof,
which includes Outlook with Business Contact Manager. (Available to general
retail customers end October 21, I hear).

Has anyone used a version already released maybe to corporate customers, or
a beta version...who can tell me if Outlook2003/BCM has a good
REPORT-maker...like ACT! has, where I can design a format, then tell it
which Outlook contact info to pull, and generate/print the report.

For instance, I could design a report named "Contact profile" with name,
address, phone, and all notes...then run it on all contacts where
state=Florida, or run it on type=Retailer, and so forth... then print each
report.

Thanks>>
--
I hope this helps you,

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

The Office 2003 System parts explained
http://microsoft.com/uk/office/preview/system.asp