Evaluating BCM as a Possible Solution Epsilon 3/28/2007 10:40:00 PM I am helping a small organization (12 users) evaluate options to provide a contact management capability. They currently use Outlook 2003 on a Windows XP pro platform. They use a hosted Exchange service. A few fundamental questions: 1) Is BCM compatible with a hosted Exchange server environment? 2) Is there a practical limit to the number of contacts that BCM can manage? 3) They have no server. So I assume that one user would host the "master" DB and the others would share the data via a Workgroup connection. I assume that each user would then have a "client" version of the DB resident on their machine and could operate in an "off line" mode? 4) With 12 users on line, would the updating process cause any significant degradation to the network? 5) Does the Activity function capture email/communication from all of the users to the contact? Or just communication from the "master"?

Re: Evaluating BCM as a Possible Solution "Mukesh Agarwal [MSFT]" <mukeshag[ at ]online.microsoft.com> 3/29/2007 1:19:13 AM 1. As long as Outlook is connected to Exchange in Cached mode, you can use BCM in Outlook. Note that BCM datastore is seperate from Exchange store and there is no datasync between two. 2. It's limited by the size of SQL DB. However, if you have large data set and large number of concurrent users, the client experience will depends on the hardware and network speed. 3. Yes, that's how BCM 2007 works. 4. Depends on the network speed and hardware. Note that at 12 concurrent users you are stretching the limit of BCM. 5. Email from all clients are linked. However, when BCM is shared by multiple users, automatic link is turned off for privacy reason. Every user has to check the contacts he/she wants to enable for automatic linking. This list is stored per user. -- Mukesh Agarwal [MSFT] Visit team blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/bcm This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights "Epsilon" <Epsilon[ at ]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:3BFFA06F-F3E7-4334-B539-B68A39AD77F7[ at ]microsoft.com... [Quoted Text] >I am helping a small organization (12 users) evaluate options to provide a > contact management capability. They currently use Outlook 2003 on a > Windows > XP pro platform. They use a hosted Exchange service. A few fundamental > questions: > 1) Is BCM compatible with a hosted Exchange server environment? > 2) Is there a practical limit to the number of contacts that BCM can > manage? > 3) They have no server. So I assume that one user would host the "master" > DB and the others would share the data via a Workgroup connection. I > assume > that each user would then have a "client" version of the DB resident on > their > machine and could operate in an "off line" mode? > 4) With 12 users on line, would the updating process cause any significant > degradation to the network? > 5) Does the Activity function capture email/communication from all of the > users to the contact? Or just communication from the "master"?

Re: Evaluating BCM as a Possible Solution william.bicknell[ at ]gmail.com 5/11/2007 12:51:30 PM Hi I am really interested in finding out if BCM 2007 will work for us. We have SQL2005 on a powerful box. We have 30 users, 15 of these will be looking up contacts all day long. I am running it as a test with little data in it and the initial forms etc. are slow to open but then the speed is acceptable, will this get worse when more users try to connect? Will.

Re: Evaluating BCM as a Possible Solution "Lon Orenstein" <Lon[ at ]pinpointtools.com> 5/11/2007 10:18:11 PM William: If you've got SQL Standard on a powerful box, that's step 1. Step 2 is probably a gigabit network (100mps). Step 3 might be 2GB of RAM on each workstation. Step 4 could be to have each user work Offline and synch once per hour. There's not a lot of real world examples like this since BCM 2007 is so new... HTH, Lon ___________________________________________________________ Lon Orenstein pinpointtools, llc Lon[ at ]pinpointtools.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 <william.bicknell[ at ]gmail.com> wrote in message news:1178887890.650429.64570[ at ]n59g2000hsh.googlegroups.com... [Quoted Text] > Hi I am really interested in finding out if BCM 2007 will work for us. > > We have SQL2005 on a powerful box. > We have 30 users, 15 of these will be looking up contacts all day > long. > > I am running it as a test with little data in it and the initial forms > etc. are slow to open but then the speed is acceptable, will this get > worse when more users try to connect? > > Will. > >