Don said "What I would like to do is use our exchange server and MS outlook
tasks to assign and track these projects."
Sorry, but I thought it was obvious what platform I was using. We are a
Microsoft shop, using Microsoft products. I would like to use Outlook 2003 as
the interface, and we are using Windows XP for our workstation platform.
Looking forward to your helpful input.
"Sigh. Sigh, all Sigh." And another rousing chorus from Patience.
I used to do Outlook custom form programming, which is where I originally earned
my MVP award. In fact, I did a salesman support project, in which I designed a
couple of custom forms with which a salesman, in a group, could open up a
contact, and see all the tasks and journal items that any member of the group
had done for that contact. I put it out in a public site for free distribution
to all who wanted it. As far as I know, only 2 or three people ever tried to
implement it. The problem with it was that, even though it was what sales
groups were asking for, it took a programmer to implement it and get it running.
Sales groups always want to do a project with existing resources, because
buying something, like an Outlook Add-in or a consultants time, takes a new line
in the budget, while doing something with Outlook was already covered in their
salaries. However, managers and salesmen are not good at understanding how to
implement custom forms and programming special functions.
Consequently, Microsoft has bought up a lot of third-party add-ins, and
integrated them into Outlook, and Exchange, and provided a user interface for
programmers to customize, but have not tried to make it manager friendly. That
effort has gone into products like Project 2003, and Business Contact
Management. Rock has described a simple project management, but says he wants
something simpler than Project. Man, oh man! Microsoft just can't win. They
build a product that captures what managers do, and then the managers say they
want to just say the name of the project and have it all laid out for them. If
Microsoft could design a mind to computer connector, to make this all happen,
the managers would complain that it forced them to think logically, and that was
too hard! Indeed. But all is not lost. It sounds like Rock is in the
web-design business, and he could just use the Task pane of FrontPage and a word
document in which he had already written out the "common" task descriptions, and
just cut and paste them into the simple task editor. Save it as a FrontPage
project on a server share, and everyone could see the tasks. I think FrontPage
will even send notifications using Outlook, though it may be a bit tricky to get
that to work. I've never done it, as I'm a one person shop.
For sales group management, Microsoft bought a third-party product and is now
offering it as Business Contact Manager. Again, it is probably more than you
want, and is still early in the development stage. It seems to be hard to
install and get working properly with Outlook. Not sure, as I haven't done
anything with it. Exchange server has had Events and Tracking capabilities, and
the Work Flow object, and routing maps since Version 5.5. I am pretty sure it
is still there, but no manager is going to get it working on their own in
decades. It is really less practical than Outlook, alone.
The product that is supposed to make all things easier for everything is
SharePoint Portal Server. And I have gotten some things to work, but not
everything, and it is very difficult to get help at fixing what doesn't work.
Just nobody knows the quirks, and the development team is not working the
newsgroups, like they do in Small Business Server.
The reason I suggested that you both spend some time looking through the
utilities in
www.slipstick.com, is that there are a lot of third-party add-ins
that may do enough of what you want that you would find them an attractive
solution. Only you can make that decision.
Hollis D. Paul [MVP - Outlook]
(e-mail address removed)
Using Virtual Access 4.52 build 277 (32-bit), Windows 2000 build 2600
http://search.support.microsoft.com/kb/c.asp?FR=0&SD=TECH&LN=EN-US
Mukilteo, WA USA
