 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
| HomeDiscussionsAccessExcelInfoPathOutlookPowerPointPublisherWordDirectoryUser Groups Related Topics Outlook ExpressInternet ExplorerWindowsMS Server ProductsMore Topics ... |
MS Office Forum / Outlook / Business Contact Manager / January 2008How do I add a field to Business Contact Manager?
Hi, Microsoft does a good job advertising the fact that you can customize fields within Business Contact Manager, but then doesn't give step-by-step instructions. I want to add fields to a form and then use that form as my default. I have spent 2 hours looking for help on this, but to no avail. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Don I don't know where you might have seen anything like that since Microsoft, in fact, does not officially support customizing BCM forms. But Patricia Cardoza explains how at http://blogs.officezealot.com/cardoza/archive/2004/05/12/652.aspx  SignatureSue Mosher, Outlook MVP Author of Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for Administrators, Power Users, and Developers http://www.outlookcode.com/jumpstart.aspx > Hi, > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Don Thanks Sue. I thought for sure I heard somewhere that once can add/modify fields within Outlook. I guess I must have been thinking of something else. At any rate, I will give this a shot. Thanks again for taking the time to show me the way. Kind Regards, Don > I don't know where you might have seen anything like that since Microsoft, > in fact, does not officially support customizing BCM forms. But Patricia [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > > > Don Adding fields in Outlook and adding fields in BCM are two quite different issues. SignatureSue Mosher, Outlook MVP Author of Microsoft Outlook Programming - Jumpstart for Administrators, Power Users, and Developers http://www.outlookcode.com/jumpstart.aspx > Thanks Sue. I thought for sure I heard somewhere that once can add/modify > fields within Outlook. I guess I must have been thinking of something [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] >> > >> > Don Don: The "Business Contact Manager Tours" that are installed w/ BCM (and that I think are/were available online) strongly imply (to me at least) that you could customize the forms. For example, at one point it says "Store standard information in Account and Business Contact records or customize the records to capture information that's important to your business". There are some other BCM related docs I've read that imply the same thing. It seems to me that MS at one point (correctly) considered allowing user customization and then by the time the product shipped (wrongly) disabled it. Based on what we're hearing about v2 we may have to wait for v3 before they allow it. John > I don't know where you might have seen anything like that since Microsoft, > in fact, does not officially support customizing BCM forms. But Patricia [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > > > Don Thanks for that, John. So, I'm not going crazy (at least as far as this is concerned). Cheers! Don > Don: > [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > > > > > > Don IMHO, the one crazy here was MS for not allowing any customization in BCM. It would be nice to at least change some of the drop-down values, and/or they could have provided 8 or 10 generic fields that could be customized, if providing full-blown customization was too much for the initial release. Sadly, it sounds like v2 will also be un-customizable as well... John > Thanks for that, John. So, I'm not going crazy (at least as far as this is > concerned). [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] > > > > > > > > Don This is an old stream but I thought I'd ask anyway. Besides wanting to customize the forms, there are a bunch of fields already defined in BCM but I don't see any way to enter data into them - they don't show up on any form, you can include them in a list but you cannot enter data there? Any ideas ? > IMHO, the one crazy here was MS for not allowing any customization in BCM. > It would be nice to at least change some of the drop-down values, and/or they [quoted text clipped - 43 lines] > > > > > > > > > > Don Hi samg, While I don't have an answer for you on this, your post made me think of another functionality that I have not been able to figure out -- pictures! What happened to the ability to add a photo to your contacts? I can do this within the standard contact, but not within business contacts. Why is that? Don > This is an old stream but I thought I'd ask anyway. Besides wanting to > customize the forms, there are a bunch of fields already defined in BCM but I [quoted text clipped - 48 lines] > > > > > > > > > > > > Don The fields you can't see on a form are probably "hidden fields"; fields used internally by BCM or Outlook fields BCM decided not to support. I bet Outlook is showing you the list of fields, and BCM has no way to tell Outlook to hide them. The non customization of forms within BCM is completely inexcusable for this application to fully meet the most basic of needs for most users and unfortunately continues to annoy so many users. While Sue Mosher's link to Patricia Cardoza's instructions above are well intended to be helpful this route seems like a risky ride on the Beta experimental work around roller coaster with a likely guarantee of error messages and subsequent data loss related headaches. There is probably a good reason why forms customization is not officially supported and that is simply that this feature (by design) is not intended to work. Why should end users be left to their own devices to try to concoct such attempted solutions around such an ill thought out or intentional oversight? For anyone still wondering, BCM is a distinctly SEPARATE (though similiar in appearance) add-in database application to Outlook. It has different and more limited functionality as compared to using regular Outlook by itself. Things like contact photo fields and customized forms and fields layout customization are NOT currently designed to be available in the BCM record items eventhough they are somewhat available in Outlook. These limitations are the current state of reality with BCM and it probably serves users best to remain well aware of this fact so as to proceed accordingly with either adapting to, or abandoning BCM depending upon what your needs are and the trade offs with what you can live with in regard to these current limitations. -THP >The fields you can't see on a form are probably "hidden fields"; fields >used internally by BCM or Outlook fields BCM decided not to support. I >bet Outlook is showing you the list of fields, and BCM has no way to >tell Outlook to hide them. I agree! I've spent hours trying to customize the account form to no avail. I'm giving up on BCM until they can make it more user friendly! Kim > The non customization of forms within BCM is completely inexcusable for this > application to fully meet the most basic of needs for most users and [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > >bet Outlook is showing you the list of fields, and BCM has no way to > >tell Outlook to hide them. I managed to add two new fields and the data entered appears ok However please tell me how I can get the field values to show through when creating new views on theBusiness contact front page. I am able to expose these new fields in the top title line of the "View" area but cannot get the values to show through. Thank you Eileen > I don't know where you might have seen anything like that since Microsoft, > in fact, does not officially support customizing BCM forms. But Patricia [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > > > Don This is mostly for Sue, I know you can customize the business contact form. However, that being said. It is irritating when you do something in outlook and cannot translate to BCM. I need to customize a form, simply with 2 date fields and a 3rd field using a calculation or formula to the end result of the date period. In Outlook this is not a problem. You can create the fields in BCM, you just cannot have a formula or calculation. If you Stretch this out and go to Visual Basic ( and I have) you can create the module there, however, there is not way to import back in. Perhaps, you have to go and open the bcm form in visual basic or visual studio and do it there. Can you import it back in. It seems that if Microsoft wants to have BCM compete with ACT and Goldmine, customizing would be the name of the game. Especially with Office Ulitmate. If you have all your office, accounting, project, planning functionality in one place great. However, you cannot make work for your business (I suspect that many would) why would we use it? Please help. > I don't know where you might have seen anything like that since Microsoft, > in fact, does not officially support customizing BCM forms. But Patricia [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > > > Don Someone at MS just needed a job and created a very poor excuse for a product. The marketingo of the product compares it to products like ACT and GOLDMINE yet when you contact MS they tell you it is not to compete with those. There literature says it will do many things that it cannot dpo. But MS does not support or apparently have any dialog with their marketing department. Why they created Outlook and BCM as two but one product is just ignorant. BCM should be an add-on to Outlook which does not do anything but add features. Instead hae have two differnt products that each have one good features but they do not share those features. Case in Point. I cannot place a Job Number paramount inthe Database in BCM wher eit is viible and usable. This is hte most important item for all out work Point two: I can no longer send a letter to a contact. Though I can merge an email to my 3500 contacts. The latter is geared toward an all email company - not the real work - and not considerd very professional where ime is wasted and emails are too impersonnal. Point Three: BCM To-Do's tell you what to do but not for whom or what project. So I see thirty to-dos 6 which are "complete floor plan one" but I have no idea who for. MS Hire me and I'll help you make money by producing a real product within 6 months. > This is mostly for Sue, > [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] > > > > > > Don |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.