Outlook Business Contact Manager needs editable phone records

[Doc Keith]

The Business Contact Manager Phone Log seems to have a fatal flaw that I
can't figure out how to get around: I cannot log a phone call I made, say,
yesterday, or while on the road. The date and time fields should be
editable, not just the time you click "Add" -- which could be much later than
the call really occurred (suppose I am reviewing last week's activities on
the road and want to enter my phone calls and notes regarding discussions).
I could enter the real time in the "Comments" area, but it's not as accurate
(e.g., will still occur in the wrong place in the history pane) or valuable
(I need to open each call to get the truth).

Without this ability, the "Phone Log" feature is a very limited if not
useless feature, which is sad/unnecessary.

Am I missing something?

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http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...-e165fd2ce650&dg=microsoft.public.outlook.bcm

 

[Tim P via OfficeKB.com]

Doc Keith,

I don't think that you are missing anything. This has endlessly annoyed me
as well because I will often need to go into a previously created phone log
record to add some additional information pertinant to that specific phone
conversation and when I close out the date and time is automatically altered
to the most recent occurance in the History items list eventhough I would
rather the date and time of this History remain back where it originally
occurred. If anyone has a solution or workaround to this annoyance please
post because it makes a mess of my history items. Other contact management
programs like ACT easily allow for this so I know that it is possible.

I guess the designers believed that (from a workflow perspective) every phone
log record would be created as a one-shot event with out ever any additional
editing to be done later. Accordingly, I have had to learn to adapt my usage
pattern to this built-in "one-size-fits-all" limitation resulting from this
design oversight. Why don't they just temporarily hire some real-life
salespeople or small business types to test run this kind of thing first
before release because many of these BCM quirks are very embarassing

I don't wish to be perceived as constantly negative. I am just passionate
about dramatizing day to day real life examples of how BCM needs to become so
much better for its intended user base. That base will remain very small if
this doesn't change because most small business users will not be able or
willing to tolerate such laughable limitations.

This is NOT the stuff that makes for great software.

-THP

 

[Doc Keith]

Thought so. To be honest, when I ran into this problem, I basically wrote
Business Contact Manager off as not ready for prime time. Then I happened to
note my test case had built up a nice e-mail history, and thought, "that's
cool, let's try this again -- without phone calls." Well, then it turns out
that the e-mail history is not ready for prime time, either (see my other
post thread). Sigh.

In general, one should be able to add phone calls, historical e-mails (e.g.,
pre-BCM -- I've been using Outlook for over a decade), etc., to the history,
and, yes, edit your phone call entries without changing the date of the phone
call.

The integration with Outlook would be really cool, but I'm afraid I need to
move on. Again, I suspect you are abslutely right: I'll bet a very high
percentage of folks who install this puppy abandon it very quickly. That's
disappointing -- I'd prefer it succeeded.

 

[Tim P via OfficeKB.com]

I truly hope that key individuals who can be effectively influential within
the Microsoft design and develoment bureacracy are monitoring this type of
real-life user feedback. One would assume this to be the case ... for their
sake.

-THP

Thought so. To be honest, when I ran into this problem, I basically wrote
Business Contact Manager off as not ready for prime time. Then I happened to
note my test case had built up a nice e-mail history, and thought, "that's
cool, let's try this again -- without phone calls." Well, then it turns out
that the e-mail history is not ready for prime time, either (see my other
post thread). Sigh.

In general, one should be able to add phone calls, historical e-mails (e.g.,
pre-BCM -- I've been using Outlook for over a decade), etc., to the history,
and, yes, edit your phone call entries without changing the date of the phone
call.

The integration with Outlook would be really cool, but I'm afraid I need to
move on. Again, I suspect you are abslutely right: I'll bet a very high
percentage of folks who install this puppy abandon it very quickly. That's
disappointing -- I'd prefer it succeeded.

Doc Keith,

[quoted text clipped - 51 lines]

 

[Doc Keith]

Well, one favor deserves (maybe) another: once you pointed out the "Link to"
box added by BMC to e-mails -- and Calendar and Task entries -- to me, the
light slowly dawned on Mt. Marblehead, and I realized a work around for the
phone call issue is to enter them in Calendar and link them. Since I don't
make lots of calls in the course of an hour, that is doable. It'd cerainly
be better to have a viable Phone Log, but this will do for tracking what are,
in essence, phone Meetings -- just need to title "Phone re. ..." or such.

I truly hope that key individuals who can be effectively influential within
the Microsoft design and develoment bureacracy are monitoring this type of
real-life user feedback. One would assume this to be the case ... for their
sake.

-THP

Thought so. To be honest, when I ran into this problem, I basically wrote
Business Contact Manager off as not ready for prime time. Then I happened to
note my test case had built up a nice e-mail history, and thought, "that's
cool, let's try this again -- without phone calls." Well, then it turns out
that the e-mail history is not ready for prime time, either (see my other
post thread). Sigh.

In general, one should be able to add phone calls, historical e-mails (e.g.,
pre-BCM -- I've been using Outlook for over a decade), etc., to the history,
and, yes, edit your phone call entries without changing the date of the phone
call.

The integration with Outlook would be really cool, but I'm afraid I need to
move on. Again, I suspect you are abslutely right: I'll bet a very high
percentage of folks who install this puppy abandon it very quickly. That's
disappointing -- I'd prefer it succeeded.

Doc Keith,

[quoted text clipped - 51 lines]

http://www.microsoft.com/office/com...-e165fd2ce650&dg=microsoft.public.outlook.bcm

 

[Tim P via OfficeKB.com]

Now that is some creativity in action!

I assume you are using the Notes field on the Calender appointment record
item to log in your phone conversation comments. What is interesting about
your suggestion is that the Calendar item does indeed "sit still"
chronologically among the other linked Business History items that are
displayed (on either the linked Business Contact or Account record) when you
go back into these phone call notes for further editing later. This is
probably because the Calendar Appointment record is a native Outlook object
vs. being native to the separate BCM database application. Phone Log and
Business Note records do not exist as individual objects in Outlook by
themselves eventhough they are derived from the default Journal Folder items
in Outlook. The native Outlook Journal folder records are fully editable
but these BCM History Folder items are not without the date and time changing
too. This is likely MSDE database related but should be fixed nonetheless.

As for your so-called "Mt. Marblehead" I can only relate that the ol linking
light bulb eventually went off for me previously at one point also and
everything made a lot more sense. I remember BCM as so bewildering at first
either because I was a bit slow or due to it not being very intuitive. Some
of these linking nuances could probably be better explained also to the
novice user because the overlapping appearance in the user interface with
Outlook can leave much room for confusion eventhough something might seem
very obvious to a program designer.

Good luck with using your newly thought of work around!

-THP

Well, one favor deserves (maybe) another: once you pointed out the "Link to"
box added by BMC to e-mails -- and Calendar and Task entries -- to me, the
light slowly dawned on Mt. Marblehead, and I realized a work around for the
phone call issue is to enter them in Calendar and link them. Since I don't
make lots of calls in the course of an hour, that is doable. It'd cerainly
be better to have a viable Phone Log, but this will do for tracking what are,
in essence, phone Meetings -- just need to title "Phone re. ..." or such.

I truly hope that key individuals who can be effectively influential within
the Microsoft design and develoment bureacracy are monitoring this type of

[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]