Used ACT and Outlook-BCM? Comparison, suggestions, please.

[Jonathan]

I need` to maintain contact data for colleagues, families, and students in my
5th grade classroom and have my letters, notices, created and logged in that
same contact database. I used to be in sales and used ACT all the time, so
the functions and benefits offered by ACT are my model for a good contact
manager (up through ACT v5-something…) I was good at creating forms and
reports from scratch in ACT.

Will upgrading from Outlook2007 to Outlook2007 with BCM make my Office2007
contact management like that of ACT? I already use Outlook2007 Beta2, and
plan to download the trail version in a week or so when available. I will
order the appropriate full Office suite, so I ask, with, or without, BCM
version of Outlook?

For example, I liked creating and storing much-used forms -- having ACT fill
in the fields as the form was opened. I liked having a trail of paper and
dates for these contacts. I expect to sync this with my Dell Axim v51x

I also need to make reports about what I did in EACH appointment scheduled,
including day-to-day info written into a recurring appointment. This would be
used to report what I taught in Math that day, for instance.

Other scheduling and reporting promised by Outlook is also useful, although
we do not work on an Exchange server at my school. This will all be
self-contained in my laptop.

Lastly, what extra productivity can I achieve working on a tablet with
BCM2007? I will be contacting TEO's parent company to ask them where they are
in their cycle for BCM specifically. (re: TEO3.0)

Thanks, in advance, for help with this comparison. Please add ANY
suggestions you have.

Jonathan Rawle

 

[Leonid S. Knyshov]

I need` to maintain contact data for colleagues, families, and students in
my
5th grade classroom and have my letters, notices, created and logged in
that
same contact database. I used to be in sales and used ACT all the time, so
the functions and benefits offered by ACT are my model for a good contact
manager (up through ACT v5-something.) I was good at creating forms and
reports from scratch in ACT.

Will upgrading from Outlook2007 to Outlook2007 with BCM make my
Office2007
contact management like that of ACT? I already use Outlook2007 Beta2, and
plan to download the trail version in a week or so when available. I will
order the appropriate full Office suite, so I ask, with, or without, BCM
version of Outlook?

If you have Beta2 already, you can download BCM 2007 right now at no extra
charge. Please update to B2TR actually as there were many bugs fixed and
it's much faster. I linked to all files you will need on my site.

You can customize forms and fields in BCM 2007. You can use the mail merge
engine to create documents based on forms.

Tablet won't add much beyond Outlook's built-in support.
--
Leonid S. Knyshov, CEO
Crashproof Solutions, LLC - http://www.crashproofsolutions.com
MCP Exchange 2003/Small Business Server 2003
Microsoft Small Business Specialist Partner
See the tips and tricks section on my website for video tutorials on BCM
Send a smile to Microsoft (Office 2007 Beta feedback tool)!
http://tinyurl.com/m4omy

 

[mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com]

BCM does not allow you to do any "many-to-many" linking like ACT does. If
you need to associate any single Business Contact record with more than only
1 Account record, you are limited from being able to do this with BCM.

-THP

I need` to maintain contact data for colleagues, families, and students in
my

[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]

order the appropriate full Office suite, so I ask, with, or without, BCM
version of Outlook?

If you have Beta2 already, you can download BCM 2007 right now at no extra
charge. Please update to B2TR actually as there were many bugs fixed and
it's much faster. I linked to all files you will need on my site.

You can customize forms and fields in BCM 2007. You can use the mail merge
engine to create documents based on forms.

Tablet won't add much beyond Outlook's built-in support.