bcm, Opportunities needs more

nI have just started using BCM07 and like it very much. However there are a
couple of things that are missing for the way I use the application.

In the Opportunities form there is only space to link to one contact and one
space to link to a person who has refered the opportunity. However, I need to
link to an account and to several different contacts exactly the same as I do
in Projects. I would like to see the table added that permits links to
addiitonal contacts

Also, I submitted a post earlier and I want to repeat it ihere that it is
important to be able to convert an Opportunity to a Project. If I am good at
what I do I will turn the Opprotunity into a Sale and then a Project. I need
all of the communication generated while I working it as an Opportunity to be
available to view in the Project. I can, of course, create a new Project and
go down through every item in the Opportunity and link them to the Project
but that seems like something that a computer should be able to do really
well. Thanks

Murf:

I can't speak for Microsoft but I doubt they'll make your enhancement since
the two types of records are mutually exclusive. A suggestion for you is
this: use Opportunity records throughout your process and use the Sales
Stage (or another field you add to the Opp record) to show you where you're
at with this deal: Prospect, Negotiations, Sale Closed, Project Ongoing.
Then, setup Views to show active Projects and you'll just remember that an
Opportunity with a Stage of "Project" is really an active project. You can
then use regular tasks and link them to the Opp. and all your prior items
that lined to that Opp will still be there in History for you to review.
Will that work?

HTH,
Lon

___________________________________________________________
Lon Orenstein
pinpointtools, llc
XXXX@XXXXX.COM
Author of Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Author of the eBook: Moving from ACT! to Business Contact Manager
800.238.0560 x6104 Toll Free (U.S. only) +1 214.905.0401 x6104
www.pinpointtools.com

Lon,

I realize that you can't speak for Microsoft. Pertaining to Murf's "other"
question, do you think that Microsoft will ever be willing to enable
additional linking capability to the Opportunity record? Limiting the Link
items field to allow for ONLY 1 item does negate its usefulness for
navigation convenience. There are some work arounds to this but I have been
requesting correction of this oversight for 3 years and it has not changed.
Any thoughts?

-THP



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im:

I know you've been beating the drum for additional links and I agree with
you that it would be great. However, I'll play "devils advocate" on this
for the sake of conversation...

First of all, linking an Opportunity to a Contact, which in turn links to an
Account, gives the user a way to see a "roll up" of all the activities with
that account in the account's Communication History. So, if the goal is to
get an overview of who's doing what with an account, this is accomplished by
looking at the History view on the account record. The user could customize
the views there and select from several different views of History. So, by
linking to one contact, you automatically link to the account that contact
is associated with. Many users may not understand that hierarchy, and not
understand that the data rolls up, and therefore think they need to link to
both. So, that's one group of users...

Secondly, my experience after implementing ACT! for 15+ years is that people
want to link things to multiple records so they can find stuff easily.
Looking in the history for an account or contact and seeing everything
you've ever done with that contact is handy but it's becoming less critical
now that there are better search options. Office 2007, Vista, and third
party programs like Google Desktop Search and X1 make it infinitely easier
to find data than in years past. When you take into consideration how often
people look for data (really, not that often), and how little time it takes,
I could argue that linking isn't as important now as in the past because you
can find data more easily. However, for reporting to a boss on "all the
activities I've done with this account", I agree that it's easier to have it
all in one place.

Mini-Rant: I wish BCM had a better reporting engine that allowed for easy
modification of grouping and math. This could solve some of the user's
needs in the paragraph above.

Thirdly, again after 15+ years of working with users of contact management,
sales force automation, and big CRM software packages in lots of different
industries, my experience is that all the hyperlinks and quick jumps from
one record to another record are used by no more than 20% of the users.
This really is the 80/20 rule and I know that you, me, and maybe Murf are in
that 20%. But, that shouldn't invalidate BCM as a useful tool by the 80% who
don't care what we're talking about. Just because we measure frustration of
navigation and response times in nanoseconds instead of seconds doesn't mean
BCM 2007 isn't a worthwhile investment for people's efforts. The "average"
user can see big productivity gains using BCM compared to other more bloated
applications... If they could just make BCM work for them, they'd be WAY
ahead of where they are now.

So, bottom line for Murf, I'd be interested in hearing exactly why you want
to link and see if we can find some workarounds for you. My bet is that a
better reporting engine, better searching functions, better views of data,
or a better understanding of how BCM works might solve your problem and ease
your discomfort with BCM.

Thanks for listening,
Lon

___________________________________________________________
Lon Orenstein
pinpointtools, llc
XXXX@XXXXX.COM
Author of Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Author of the eBook: Moving from ACT! to Business Contact Manager
800.238.0560

hank you for your thoughtful response Lon.

I am looking forward to reading your "BCM for Dummies" release.

One Opportunity linking workaround option I have advocated in the past here
involves an Opportunity workflow process where the user permanently links (to
each necessary Opportunity Record item) a native Outlook "working task"
record whose next follow up date is always manually re-set into the future
per the next task to be done after completion of the existing task subject.
This will always maintain the place of this linked task item at the top of
the list of history items that "roll-up." By doing this a user can maintain
a constantly linked-in-place "secondary" record through which multiple
additional BCM Business Contact & Account record items can be linked to.
This is possible because inside each Outlook task is the "Contacts" field
where you can display these additional linked items. This does make for some
less than ideal navigation but it can help.

You also wrote:

[Secondly, my experience after implementing ACT! for 15+ years is that people
want to link things to multiple records so they can find stuff easily.
Looking in the history for an account or contact and seeing everything you've
ever done with that contact is handy but it's becoming less critical now that
there are better search options."]

Being "handy" with respect to navigational ease of use and "finding stuff" is
always preferred. This is what great user friendly software is supposed to
be all about. It goes without saying that a user can always go to the bother
of doing a search for something but well designed software should always have
the user's experience more incorporated in its design. I would contend that
your 80/20 rule is valid for the impatience factor among some users. There
is more to my concern however than the issue of mere convenience and speed.

Numerous common real world scenarios of exactly how a business opportunity
unfolds in its development process from Lead stage to closing very often has
MANY different people and many different organizations involved and not just
only 1 person or organization. I am not so concerned about how fast,
convenient, or handy the additional linking contributes to the process rather
I just want to be able to "REMEMBER" exactly who is who with respect to the
opportunity. It may sound like my real world usage issue is a statistically
dismissable, theoretically remote occurance and this certainly never occured
to me either up front in my BCM adoption as a user but it wasn't until I got
into the real live "meat of daily usage" with this tool that I discovered
this workflow limitation.

It is is great that finally with the improved BCM v. 3 you can now click on
the (only 1 allowed) linked Business Contact or Account Record as a hot link
and be able to navigate directly from the Opportunity Record to that 1 only
linked data item. In past versions this was always a dead link that only
displayed item without allowing the convenient navigation to it. Again
though, more than just navigation convenience of nano seconds vs. seconds,
there remains a basic need to be able to record and track ALL of the players
(often separate individuals and separate organizations) involved with one's
current opportunities more completely. I have used the Avidian Prophet
application (competitive 3rd party develper alternative to BCM found at
www.avidian.com) and this fe

dditional Comments:

I agree that some users do not fully understand the "roll-up" hierarchy of
the BCM Business Contact to Account Record and accordingly they may mistake
the need to link both Record items separately in what is ultimately a
redundant manner. Setting that matter aside, I reiterate that my primary
concern is with the very common scenario where entirely separate Business
Contacts from entirely separate organizations are often involved with closing
an opportunity. Many times this is the case with referring vendors,
secondary re-selling partners, etc. The traditional response from MS to this
scenario might simply be that I should migrate to their fuller functional CRM
solution with its additional roles assignments to meet my needs. Such a move
would be overkill however because I am after all just a "small business" with
far less than 25 users, etc. I sit right within BCM's intended target user
base yet there is little flexibility to allow for this common opportunity
development reality which definitely exists not just for large enterprise
level opportunity development but also a smaller organization's everyday
opportunity activitiy. My particular small business opportunity workflow
usage needs are not really that rare. That is why BCM's "one-size-fits-all"
restrictive linking functionality just won't "fit" for me unless I choose to
compromise and adapt myself needlessly into just "living-with" this
limitation.

Also setting aside the Opportunity Record linking restriction, this linking
limitation additionally exists between the relationship of Business Contact
Record to Account Record. Many users would realize powerful business tool
benefit (vs. mere convenience) from multiple linking of additional Account
Records to a single Business Contact Record. With BCM v. 3 this is still
only 1 Account Record allowed to be linked per Business Contact Record. I
view posts here regularly with an all too familiar innocent request for help
with how to accomplish this only then to receive replies explaining that this
feature is "not supported" etc. Again, rather than putting so much energy
into explaining away why something is not supported or not needed, etc., why
not just evolve the changes necessary in future release updates to simply
SUPPORT this kind of functionality? Adding value to the user is always a
preferred option vs. excuses.

BCM has some excellent design features and conveniences but because of some
important usage oversights it serves more as a basic customer manager that
can work restrictively for some users but also leaves out many other common
small business users who also really do not need to move into the MS Dynamics
CRM solution. I have maintained for over 3 years that there is much
additional room for more robust functionality with BCM in order to more
effectively accomodate the most basic needs of its intended user base target.
I also maintain that this could be easily accomplished without infringing
upon the targeted user base potential that would need and migrate on to MS
CRM.

I realize that my comments here may read as somewhat lecturesome. They are
consistently offered however in the spirit of constructive discussion and
feedback.

Thanks for listening.

-THP




mrtimpeterson wrote:

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im:

I second your emotion (in the immortal words of Smokey Robinson)! Having
spent years railing at the ACT! product managers to improve and expand its
functionality, I've got lots of scars on my fingers and psyche...

I'd like BCM to evolve into what you're advocating also. Please don't think
I believe that BCM is "done". Cakes and baked chicken get "done"; software
is a live animal that grows and develops. I think that BCM 2007 is the best
they've done, by far, and it has a ways to go to do what we'd all like it to
do. I look at BCM 2007 as really the first viable version and the platform
for future improvements. These kinds of discussions are good for the
product managers to hear what is needed for the next versions, and I know
they're listening closely. I think that they would like to hear from more
Murfs and less "old farts" like us who have too much history and a distorted
view because we've studied and used many more programs, especially more
sophisticated programs.

As a software designer, I have to constantly resist the urge to put in
features that would be cool for guys like you but would overwhelm other
guys. And, the reality is, there are infinitely more guys NOT like us than
like us. A perfect statistic is from Microsoft -- when they questioned
users about features they wanted added to Word 2007, 70% of the requests
(repeat, 70%) were for features already in the product that the users
couldn't find.

So, my point for Murf, and future Murfs out there trying to get BCM to do
what they want, is to find out what they REALLY need to do and let's you and
I suggest workarounds for them to accomplish that. In those conversations,
the BCM product managers will be able to count how many users want better
linking or better reporting and can get those features into BCM's next
releases.

Thanks for the discussion at a good level,
Lon

___________________________________________________________
Lon Orenstein
pinpointtools, llc
XXXX@XXXXX.COM
Author of Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Author of the eBook: Moving from ACT! to Business Contact Manager
800.238.0560 x6104 Toll Free (U.S. only) +1 214.905.0401 x6104
www.pinpointtools.com


"mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com" <u8453@uwe> wrote in message
news:6e108a9a1fc9b@uwe...

Lon:

Wow. That 70% figure with Word 2007 that you mentioned provides evidence of
a very sizable disconnect between the product design and the end user
experience. Let's hope that continues to change for the better across the
entire Office System. Great thoughts.

-THP





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Message posted via http://www.officekb.com

ep! That 70% was used as the justification for the new ribbon bar
interface in Office. The features were there but users couldn't find
them...

Lon

--
___________________________________________________________
Lon Orenstein
pinpointtools, llc
XXXX@XXXXX.COM
Author of Outlook 2007 Business Contact Manager For Dummies
Author of the eBook: Moving from ACT! to Business Contact Manager
800.238.0560 x6104 Toll Free (U.S. only) +1 214.905.0401 x6104
www.pinpointtools.com


"mrtimpeterson via OfficeKB.com" <u8453@uwe> wrote in message
news:6e186f346c67e@uwe...

Lon,

It is so very good to have you actively posting in this newsgroup. You seem
to bring a great blend of tech know-how plus real world user experience.
Your many years with ACT are impressive. I look forward to lurking here and
monitoring your most helpful comments further among users as they occur.

For more information about charter membership subscriptions to the Lon
Orenstein fan club please call me at: 800-...

-THP





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