Hi, again! I’m Chris Heydemann, Senior Program Manager on Business Contact Manager, back with more information on BCM.
One of the most important features in BCM 2010 is Customization. Being able to fit BCM to your specific business needs is a key to BCM’s flexible design.
Since our Office 2003 release, users have been asking for a more complete customization experience. We took some steps in the right direction in Office 2007, but with Office 2010 we’ve really stepped it up!
I’ll cover Customization in several posts. In this post, I’ll talk about modifying forms to reflect your business. In subsequent posts, I’ll talk about creating new record types and custom relationships between them, report customization, and finally scripting BCM.
Those familiar with BCM for Office 2007 will remember that you could not remove any fields from BCM forms, that you could add fields only onto the bottom of default pages, and that you were limited to 40 custom fields. BCM 2010 addresses these limitations and more.
Overview
Here’s what you can do in BCM for Office 2010 that was not possible in BCM for Office 2007:
- Complete form customization: Business Contact, Account, Opportunity and Business Project forms can be fully customized.
- Extended field support: Add up to 300 user defined fields (300 max across all record types).
- Visual form designer: Click and drag to rearrange fields and groups anywhere on the form.
- Multi-page support: Create and name up to 7 form pages: Overview, Details, Interests, Specifications… What you name each page is up to you.
- User defined record types: Define your own user-defined record types: Vendor, Cardiologist, Charity, Professor, Student … whatever works for your business. (I’ll talk about this capability in detail in a subsequent post.)
Form Layout
You can launch the form designer from the Backstage view, or by clicking the “Form layout” ribbon button on the form you want to customize. In either case, you’ll open the form in design mode:
This is where you’ll do all your form customization. There is no coding, no careful aligning of labels and fields. Everything is click and drag. Put groups and fields where you want them, and BCM will align them for you. Name them what you want, and remove those that are irrelevant to your business.
All changes made to any record type (say, Accounts or Business Contacts or Vendors) apply to all forms of that record type, and all users, including users who might be sharing the database, will see the new forms. And to prevent unauthorized changes, you do need to be a database administrator to customize forms.
Groups
In the image above, the “Source information” group is highlighted. With a quick drag of the mouse…
…we can place the group wherever we like. Cool, huh?
If a particular group of fields is not helpful to your business, hit the Delete key, and the fields are removed from the form, though the data in those fields is still in the BCM database.
To add an entirely new group, hit Add Group on the ribbon, give the group a name, and the group appears at the current cursor location.
You can also make groups “wide”, which means they take the entire width of the form. While this is most useful with groups that contain tables, it can apply to any group.
Fields
To add fields to existing or new groups, select Add Field. Name the field and select its data type (say, text, currency, drop-down list), and the field appears on the form:
And you’re done. Save the edits, and all Business Contact forms, including those of users sharing your database, will now look like this. Flexibility made easy!
Tabs
Another topic I’ll cover in the future is the personalization of the desktop. For now, I just want to point out that the “Bike configurations” group we created above can appear in the reading pane. No need to open the individual record to get information you need:
BCM 2010 goes a long way towards satisfying the needs of our customers. Our users now have complete form customization, up to 300 custom fields, a visual form designer, support for multiple pages within a single form, and user-defined record types.
You’ll learn a lot more about all of these capabilities, and how they’ll help your businesses, in subsequent posts.
And don’t forget to keep the feedback coming!
Thanks for your time, Chris
The previous blog post demonstrated how the new user experience makes BCM more usable and flexible. In the upcoming series of posts we will discuss how BCM can enhance the effectiveness of managing your sales processes. This first post in the series talks about managing your sales leads.
Lead Management
Business Contact Manager (BCM) for Office 2010 comes with a new record type called “Lead”. You can use leads to manage your prospective customers and identify those who are most likely to do business with your organization. Leads in BCM are lightweight Business Contacts, and include a lead score - an easy to use way to automatically rate the quality of the lead:
Lead Scoring
When you have a large number of leads and limited time, how do you manage your leads? Do you start at the A’s and work your way down? You would probably prefer to start with the people most likely to buy from you. BCM makes it easy to do just that. We have added a simple way to score each lead so that you can spend your valuable time on the most important leads.
We know that there isn’t one style of lead management that fits all customers, so BCM allows you to score them manually or automatically. If you want to assign a score directly (say, you know someone is a 5-star lead) then you can simply select 5 stars from the drop down. Or, you can have BCM automatically assign the score based on the criteria that you define.
For example, it’s more likely that you’ll win business from a lead referred by a friend, than one you met at a conference. You can define criteria like “Referral” and “Met at the Conference”, and give higher weight to “Referral”. When you check the criteria, BCM will automatically assign higher score to the referral than the one you met at the conference.
As you work with your leads, simply check the criterion checkbox and Business Contact Manager will automatically identify the leads most likely to buy from you. (Note: Lead Scoring can be applied to any Business Contact. Look for more about this in an upcoming post.)
Modifying Scoring Criteria
The Lead form comes with default criteria, and you can easily change the criteria to suit your business needs. Just click the Scoring Criteria button on the lead form:
A new criterion simply requires a name and the importance. A “High” importance criterion gets more weight when BCM automatically scores leads. Simple and powerful!
Using Scored Leads
There’s a lot you can do with scored leads. For example, you can select 5 star leads and send them marketing material, or initiate a call list to talk to them (look for a post on Call Lists in the near future). And, when you are ready to close the deal, you can convert leads to business contacts.
Managing your leads with lead scoring is another example of how we are making Business Contact Manager more useful and flexible while keeping things simple.
If you are participating in the Office 2010 Technical Preview program, install Business Contact Manager and manage your sales leads more effectively and efficiently. And, keep the feedback coming.
-Mukesh Agarwal
Hi, all! My name is Chris Heydemann, a Senior Program Manager on Business Contact Manager.
We’re very happy to be able to show off Business Contact Manager for Office 2010. In the coming weeks, look for posts that talk about Business Contact Manager’s new and improved features, why we made the changes we did, and how these improve business productivity and effectiveness.
Background
We had three top-level user interface goals for Office 2010:
- Make BCM more flexible. Show the records and fields you want, whatever your role.
- Increase usability, so that BCM is more pleasant to use, easier to use, and faster for your common business tasks.
- Visualize business data, so that you can see at a glance how your business is performing.
You’ll be hearing more about what we did to meet these goals in the coming weeks. But for now, let’s start with the top-level user interface.
In Office 2007, we gave you a single list or Accounts, one for Business Contacts, one for Opportunities, and so on. To create custom lists (say, Opportunities assigned to me) you needed to create search folders. In Office 2010, we wanted to provide multiple views, each flexible enough to meet your small business needs. Each view should provide a way to visualize your business data, to list the records you need to do your job, and show detailed data about the selected record.
Workspaces
To meet these needs, we created 4 role-centered Workspaces, one each for Sales, Marketing, Project Management and general Contact Management. Here’s the Sales workspace:
Let’s take a brief look at the different components:
- The Folders in the Navigation Pane allow you to navigate between BCM Workspaces.
- Of course you’re familiar with the Ribbon, which Business Contact Manager has had since Office 2007. The Ribbon puts all the commands at your fingertips to allow you to work faster and more effectively.
- You can choose from a variety of Gadgets. There are Gadgets for Sales, Marketing, Project Management and Contact Management; choose the ones that show information that matter to you. You can use gadgets to monitor the effectiveness or your entire team, or focus only on your own contribution. And if you want to provide more space to the Tabs, just select Hide Gadgets in the upper right of the Gadgets area.
- The Tabs (here, Opportunities, Leads and Stores) show lists of BCM records and information about each record. You can create up to 20 Tabs, naming them whatever makes sense to you. Each Tab contains a List and, optionally, a Reading Pane
- The List of records can be filtered to show only records you care about: Opportunities likely to close, Business Contacts in my state, and so on. They can also be grouped (here, Opportunities are grouped by Sales Stage) and sorted, and you can select the fields that matter to you.
- The Reading Pane shows detailed information about the current record, without having to open the inspector. As you scroll down through the List, the Reading Pane shows detailed information about the currently selected record. You can select and rearrange the information shown in the Reading Pane.
Dashboard
While the workspaces are where you will spend most of your time in BCM, we’ve also provided a Dashboard:
The dashboard shows you how your business is doing. As on the Workspaces, you can choose from a variety of Gadgets. The Gadgets are the some ones shown on the workspaces, though most will expand to take advantage of the extra room. Gadgets are arranged in up to 4 columns, and you can drag them into whatever order you like.
I hope this provides an idea of the amount of effort we’ve put into improving the flexibility and usability of Business Contact Manager. I’m looking forward to hearing your feedback on the elements of the user experience that you like, and those that need more work.
Thanks for your time, Chris
You have probably seen Office 2010 Technical Preview announcements in the press. Microsoft released a preview of Office 2010 yesterday to a limited number of users. Technical Preview is invitation only program. Office 2010 also comes with a brand new version of the Business Contact Manager. If you have received Technical Preview invitation, we highly recommend that you install new version of the Business Contact Manager, try new features, and give us feedback. You can download and install the Business Contact Manager from Microsoft Connect site (it's listed along with Office 2010 Tech Preview download)
Here is a list of some of the top features. We will be writing more about these and many other features in the coming weeks.
1. New User Interface: BCM features a completely redesigned user interface. The new UI is task oriented, and features activity dashboards, business metric gadgets, configurable tabbed views, and customizable preview panes. The User Interface is fully customizable and allows end-users to select the view elements that fit their business needs. The new UI also integrates with the Office Ribbon and the BackStage.
2. Dashboard: BCM offers a fully featured dashboard that enables users to manage their entire business and daily activities. The dashboard is fully customizable and can include a large number of sales, marketing, project management and utility gadgets. The dashboard will help users get a high level picture of their business and manage their priorities and tasks.
3. New Form Designer: BCM provides a new visual form designer that allows users to completely modify all BCM forms. Users can add up to 300 custom fields, remove fields (including default form fields) and add pages to forms. Customizations can be exported, imported, and shared across the organization.
4. Custom Entities: With BCM 2010 users can better model their business processes by defining custom “contact” and “account” type entities. For instance, healthcare companies will be able to create “doctors”, “patients”, “practices”, etc. The custom entities benefit from all business functions such as aggregating communication history, reporting, and so forth.
5. Sales Management: Business Contact Manager will allow users to define and track sales processes in an easy and straightforward manner. Users will be able to define multiple sales activities in multiple sales stages. Execution of sales activities is tracked directly on the opportunity and various dashboard gadgets and reports provide comprehensive analysis of sales status.
6. Lead Management: Business Contact Manager for Outlook 2010 helps users track their business leads and the process of converting those leads into contacts and/or business opportunities. Leads in BCM are lightweight (customizable) contacts that also include a lead score which is either manually assigned or calculated based on a set of scoring criteria. Users can set scoring criteria that makes sense in their business, helping track the quality of the lead and optimizing the sales process
7. Call List: With Business Contact Manager 2010, users will be able to manage the process of calling multiple contacts. This feature offers an easy to use user interface that takes the hassle out of tracking the calling process and analyzing its results. Call List will also provide the ability to define a call script that can be used when conducting the call, guiding the caller and providing a template for capturing responses.
8. Improved Reporting: Business Contact Manager will include enhanced business reporting. Reports will offer improved customization, sorting, and filtering, and custom reports can be defined and shared across the organization.
9. Performance & Reliability: Business Contact Manager comes with significant performance improvements.
You can also follow the Office 2010 buzz @ the social community of your choice:
Visit this blog often as we will write more about Business Contact Manager for Outlook 2010.
Thanks,
Mukesh
If you haven't done so, please checkout the "Office2010 The Movie" trailer at http://www.office2010themovie.com/. You can also sign-up for an Exclusive Ticket to Technical Preview by following the link at the bottom left corner. The 2010 version of Office comes with a new version of Business Contact Manager with many exciting new features.
-Mukesh
We are pleased to announce that Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Business Contact Manager for Outlook 2007 is released. The scope of SP2 was limited to fixing product bugs reported by customers through various channels like this blog, newsgroup and watson.
We have also released Service Pack 2 for Office 2007. Outlook team has done tremendous work to improve the performance. Both BCM and Office service packs will improve overall experience and stability of Outlook + BCM.
You can get SP2 through Windows Update or directly download from the links shown below.
The list of issues fixed in Business Contact Manager SP2 are listed here. List of Outlook issues fixed in SP2 are listed here.
Other resources:
Q: How can I search an item in Business Contact Manager?
A: Business Contact Manager provides three different ways for you to search you business data
a) Windows Desktop Search
You can learn about Windows Desktop Search from:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/default.mspx
b) Search Folders
You can learn about Search Folders from:
http://blogs.msdn.com/bcm/archive/2007/02/14/using-outlook-folder-views-and-search-folders-with-business-contact-manager.aspx#8555568
c) Instant Search in Outlook
You can learn about Instant Search from:
http://office.microsoft.com/training/training.aspx?AssetID=RP100647441033&CTT=6&Origin=RP100647831033
Q: Is Windows Desktop Search the only search product that indexes Business Contact Manager Content?
A: As long as an indexing product can index MAPI data providers, Business Contact Manager Content will be indexed. Windows Desktop Search does the same. In addition to Desktop search Business contents could be searched using Search Folders and Instant search in Outlook.
Q: Is there a way to quickly create an e-mail merge from specific Accounts or Business Contacts?
A: You can use Search Folders to find the Accounts or Business Contacts that you want, and then you can use Outlook Mail Merge to send a personalized e-mail to each recipient. Search folders can also be used to find other types of business data too.
You can learn about Outlook Mail Merge from:
http://blogs.msdn.com/outlook/archive/2008/09/23/mail-merge-how-to-send-a-personalized-e-mail-to-many-people-at-once.aspx
Q: How can I Search more than one folder at time in Business Contact Manager?
A: Search is restricted to the current folder view. For example, to search for a Business Note, switch to the Communication History view and user instant search box to search for your item. To search for a Business Contact, switch to the Business Contact view. The search from the Business Contacts view doesn't search the Communication history, just the data fields in Business Contacts.
Q: Can I drag and drop items into a Search Folder?
A: No. This is not currently supported.
Q: Does Search Folders include the contents of files or e-mail messages that are included in the Communication History of records?
A: No. You should try Windows Search; this allows you to search the contents of your BCM Communication history just by including the folder in the Windows Search folder index:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/desktopsearch/default.mspx
Q: Is it possible to search user -defined fields?
A: In the Instant Search box, type the user -defined field name followed by a colon (:) and the value you are searching for. For example, if you have a user-defined filed called “Contract terms” and you are searching for”4”. You would type:
Contract terms: 4 in the Instant Search box.
Q: How does Search work when users are connected to a Business Contact Manager database that is stored on a remote server?
A: Each user who connects to the Business Contact Manager Database on the remote server must also have Business Contact Manager installed on their local computers. Users can search the database on the remote server, but the search capabilities are determined by the settings on the local computer. For example, one user may have Windows Desktop Search installed and another doesn’t. The user with Windows Desktop Search can search for anything, while the user with the default search can only search by folder.
Creating Distribution list shows Business Contacts with Fax numbers, how do I avoid it?
This behavior is due to a feature that Business Contact Manager inherits from Outlook.
A Fax number is considered an electronic communication number and hence it shows up in the distribution list wizard.
Updating Multiple Contacts at once
There is currently no feature in Business Contact Manager to directly support this.
But this can still be achieved by changing the “View by” to the field you want to edit and then drag the desired contacts to the group.
Can I delete the Outlook Contact entry from Outlook, and make Business Contact Manager the default Contact Folder?
Folder removal is not supported by Outlook, and hence you will not be able to delete it.
Cloning a Business Contact?
When you try to copy and paste a Business Contact into a folder, Outlook displays an error message, saying
'The folders you are trying to change do not support this operation.
Could not complete the operation because the service provider does not support it”
Currently cut and paste to clone a contact is not supported.
A form of cloning of the Business Contact can still be achieved by copying Business Contact to Outlook Contact, and then copying it back to Business Contacts. However, some properties, such as History Items associated with the Business Contact, will be lost when it is copied to Outlook Contacts folder.
How can I auto populate some fields in an Account associated with a Business Contact?
With the Business Contact Form open, click on the "Account" button.
This action will open a dialog box, enabling you to create a new Account, or to link an Account to the open Business Contact.
Click on the "New" button on this dialog box and BCM will automatically create a new Account record linked to the Business Contact with most of the data fields populated from the Business Contact's record
Can a Business Contact be linked to more than one Account?
No, a Business Contact cannot be linked to more than one Account. A Business Contact can only be an unlinked stand-alone item, or linked to just one Account.
I mistakenly deleted my Business Contact, how can I retrieve it?
Under you Business Contact Manager Folder, select the Deleted Items folder.
Your deleted Business Contact should be displayed there.
You can right click and move it back to Business Contacts folder.
How do I set Business Contacts to be my default Address List while sending emails?
Under the Tools Menu Item, select Address Book.
Click on the Tools menu and select Options.
There you can control the order of Address list in Outlook.
When receiving an inbound e-mail, what is the difference between using the ‘E-mail Auto link’, and the ‘Link to record’ options?
Once turned on, E-mail Auto Linking should automatically link the e-mail to the contact with that e-mail address as soon as they arrive in the inbox.
How do I copy or move individual Outlook Contacts in to Business Contacts?
Please refer http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/hp011455511033.aspx for more information.
Why can’t I right click an e-mail address in an e-mail and create a Business Contact?
This is currently not supported, but may be considered for a future release.
Can I set up a BCM database on SQL 2005 64-bit edition?
Database Tool is not supported on 64-bit SQL 2005. However you can try a manual workaround by following the instructions in the document given bleow.
http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/innovateon/officedeveloper/Developer%20Documents/Outlook2007BusinessContactManager.doc
After deploying the database, how do I add and remove users?
The BCM database sharing wizard handles adding and removing users.
On the client side, BCM installs SQL Express even if you have no
intention of using it. Is it necessary?
It's not necessary to have sql installed on a client that will only
ever connect to a shared database on a server, but it is recommended to have it installed.
On our SBS server, I would like to change the location of the BCM database
files (MDF, LDF, BAK) to something other than the default "Application Data"
folder in "Documents and Settings".
Download SQL Management Studio from Microsoft Website (if it's not already on your SBS
server)Open SQL Management Studio, expand the Databases section in the left navigation bar, right click on your database, choose Tasks > Detach. To ReAttach, right click on Databases and choose Attach, then browse to the location of the MDF file on your hard drive..
Need to setup Accounting 2008 Pro and Office 2007 Pro linked to
Business Contact Manager on Small Business Server.
Database Admin tool can help you setup database on your SBS server. Also you do not need Office installed on the SBS server.
I am switching from ACT 6.0 to BCM 2007. During the importing process I get the error message "Some errors occurred while your data was being imported. Wrong file version”
Open the “.bcm” file converted from ACT File, change its header's version from "3.0" to "3,0" (or the correct format according to the Windows locale, you can check that in control panel->regional and language options -> Standards and formats)and try to import that “.bcm” file again.
I would like to convert ACT 9.0 to BCM.
The SP1 release supports conversion of ACT 9.0 to BCM
I have ACT 6.0 on an XP machine. My new Vista 64 computer has BCM 2007 but will not allow me to install ACT. Do you have any ideas on how to migrate to BCM on the new computer?
On the Vista 64 machine, copy the ImportUtility folder from C:\Program Files\Microsoft Small Business\Business Contact Manager and paste it into the XP machine. Run BcmImportUtility.exe on the XP machine, and convert ACT data into a bcm file. Bring this .bcm file into the Vista 64 machine and convert all your ACT data.
Converting ACT 6.0 gives the choices: Contact, Group, and Product. I would like to convert "Company"(ACT) to Account"(BCM), but it's not listed.
Company Field in ACT started from ACT 7 onwards. It is not there in ACT 6.
I have Business Contact Manager 2007 Integrated with MOA in a sharing scenario on Small business server with SQL 2005. One of the shared user changed windows password and now cannot access the database.
SQL Database should be set to log on as local system account
In a shared scenario, files that are linked or files part of an email are not being stored in the database?
Email and attachments cannot be currently stored in the BCM db to avoid consuming all the database space.
SQL Express using lot of memory on my system
Install free download “SQL Server Management Studio Express” for setting Max
Memory
Info on why this is helpful:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/mgsqlexpwssmse....
Download Source: “Managing SQL Server Express”
(SQLServer2005_SSMSEE.msi)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=C243A5AE-4BD...
Installs to Program Files/Microsoft SQL Server 2005
User Instructions:
Open SQL Server Management Studio Express
Connect to SQL database
At Object Explorer, right click on Server Name to provide Properties Dialog
box
Select Memory
Enter desired Maximum Server Memory (Recommended not less than 100MB)
Where my database is physically located?
Databases are physically created at
C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Local Settings\Application
Data\Microsoft\Business Contact Manager
I recently upgraded my machine from XP to vista with office 2007. How do I get my old BCM on office 2007 using my backup files?
You need to back up BCM database on XP and restore it after upgrade to VISTA. If the user accounts are different after upgrade, you need to run Outlook as “Run as Administrator”.
Can I use BCM 2003 to connect to a shared database created by BCM 2007?
All the BCM clients needs to be of same version
What is SQL server instance Name for BCM 2007?
It’s MSSMLBIZ
What is the difference between “.sbb” and “.msbcm” back up files and SQL “.bak” files?
“.sbb” or “.msbcm” files are the compressed version of “.bak” file. “.sbb” file also contains an xml file to keep some generic database information such as language and the version of the database.
Where to find Business Contacts Application for Pocket PC(touch Screen device) and SmartPhone (Non-Touch Screen device)?
There are two separate applications
Pocket PC- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=7BC78C14-7143-41D9-84A9-BD628DB7B6A0&mg_id=10118&displaylang=en
SmartPhone- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d9620097-e8f9-41f3-ae66-a7067dac7ace&DisplayLang=en
In order to install BCM mobile, you device should be connected to a computer which has ActiveSync (for Windows XP) or Windows Mobile Device Center (for Vista).
How do I sync my Palm/ Blackberry/ other non-windows mobile devices with Business Contact Manager
Business Contact Manager for PPC/SmartPhone is only compatible with Windows Mobile Devices.
Can I configure how many history items I can sync to the device ?
Yes, you can. Follow these steps:
- Make sure that you device is connected to ActiveSync/Windows Mobile Device Center on the computer.
- In the application list View , double click on the Business Contacts icon at the bottom. You will notice Business Contact Synchronization Settings dialogue.
- Click "History Settings" button that opens up various filter options for you to select.
- Configure what history items you want to sync..
My device is connected to the desktop but Business Contacts doesn’t sync?
If you have your device connected to the desktop and it seems to show “Synchronizing” in active sync list view for Business Contacts for ever, please disconnect your device and connect it again.
Can I sync both Business Contacts and Outlook Contacts?
Business Contact Manager for mobile devices only supports syncing Business Contacts. Outlook contacts can be synced independently through ActiveSync/WMDC.
I uninstalled Business Contacts for Pocket PC / SmartPhone from the desktop but why is it still on the device?
Uninstalling Business Contacts for Pocket PC/SmartPhone on the desktop doesn’t uninstall Business Contacts from the device. You have to do it separately by going to Active Sync’s Menu Item Tools | Add/Remove Program. On the dialog window Uncheck the Business Contacts option on the Application List View and follow the instructions on the device.
Why don’t I see caller ID for my Business Contacts on my PPC/Smartphone?
The Caller ID feature is currently not supported. In order to workaround, you can duplicate your Business Contacts with Outlook Contacts, and sync Outlook Contacts to the device. In the future version of Business Contact Manager for mobile we will look at improving this functionality.
What history items get synced to my mobile?
Following items are supported by mobile version of Business Contact Manager.
- Opportunity Summary
- Phone Log
- Business Notes
- Email
- Tasks
- Appointments
Please note that history items can't be modified or created on the device.
Can I store Business Contact Manager data on external device storage such as SD card?
Current version of Business Contact Manager doesn't support external storage.
Since we released Business Contact Manager in January 2007, we have constantly received requests from our customers to make BCM available with Outlook standalone. We are pleased to announce that now you can buy Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager. The product is available in major retailers and online stores. The new product offers all the great features that are offered by BCM in Office suite.
More information about Outlook with BCM is available here. You can buy it from Microsoft Online for $149.95.
BCM is now available in the following retail SKUs.
- Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager (New) (Includes Outlook 2007 and Business Contact Manager)
- Microsoft Office Professional 2007
- Microsoft Office Small Business 2007
- Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007
This post explains how one can change the polling interval in BCM. Please note that this is suggested only for advanced users and for the environment where BCM is used in shared mode.
What is Polling Interval?
When BCM is used in shared environment, all BCM clients poll the server machine to see if there are any changes to BCM data. This allows BCM client to display the most up-to-date data. By default, BCM clients polls server every second in order to ensure that any changes to data made by any client are available to all the clients immediately. Although a short polling interval is desirable so that new data are immediately available, server and client machines pay the cost of frequent polling. In certain BCM usage scenarios (for example, many clients are connected to server), you might get improved performance if polling interval is set higher than default of one second. If the polling interval is set too high, clients will process the changes less frequently but they will have to process more changes at a time. So, you might have to experiment with different values and set the one that works for
How to Change Polling Interval?
In BCM SP1, we have added a registry key that you can tweak to increase the polling interval. Make sure to close Outlook with BCM before changing the registry key value.
The setting is controlled by “HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Business Solutions eCRM\PollingInterval” registry key. The key should be a DWORD (32-bit) value, the number represents the interval in milliseconds. By default this is 1000 (1sec), changing this to some higher value could help reduce the load on the database. This reg key needs to be added on each BCM client machine. We don't have any recommendation for what value to use because every user's requirements might be different (For example, one might prefer getting updates more frequently than system overhead). But you could try out with 30 seconds and see if you notice any difference. By default "PollingInterval" key value might not exist. First create a DWORD key in “HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Business Solutions eCRM” and then set its value.
I hope it helps answer some of the comments about polling interval.
-Mukesh
Happy holidays from BCM team. Many people in the team are on vacation so we are unable to reply to the post for the next two weeks. I will try to respond to the remaining posts before I take off for the Christmas.
Enjoy the holidays!
-Mukesh
