What are the best ways to organize and store contact information?

[mattvanhill]

I want to know the best way to use Office 2007 for use of recording and
storing information with contacts. I will be a pastor and will want to keep
records of different conversations and other information regarding a
particular contact. I have thought about using my contacts in Outlook and
within that linking a particular person with Journal, OneNote, or even using
Developer to make a hybrid page in my contacts.
I need the best system possible within Office 2007. I do have Business
Contact Manager also, but that seems a little overkill as my contacts aren't
a Business or anything. Also, I would like privacy setting depending on
sensitive and confidential material.
Thanks!

 

[Diane Poremsky]

Either the journal or notes field of the contact. Journal would probably be
better for meetings and longer 'notes' while the notes field of the contact
for shorter notes or 'reminders' about the person (kids, hobbies, dislikes
etc). The advantage of using journal over OneNote is the files are all
together in your pst. The advantage of OneNote is you don't need outlook
open. It's more like using a paper journal to record notes.

 

[mattvanhill]

Thanks Diane,
That does seem like a great way to go (using the Journal and notes). If I
were to do that I have just a few more questions.
1) Would it make sense to create a brand new Journal for those types of
contacts? (which could also be password protected?)
2) When I have a Journal entry open, I do not see on the actual entry the
name that I have connected to it. How can I have it set so I can see that in
the journal entry?
3) I noticed that if I click on Activities in a contact I see various
instances I have this contact tagged (example. to a journal). How do I tag a
contact in a note? I see that option in the "show:" drop down box but I do
not know how to use my notes in this way.
4) IS Business Contact Manager highly advantageous for my purposes as you
understand them?
Thank you
Matt