The Business Contact Manager in Office Outlook 2007 is a bit different from earlier versions, so this chapter starts with explaining the new interface. Business Contact Manager has a set of folders relating to its core components and items: Accounts, Business Contacts, Business Projects, Communication History, Project Tasks, Opportunities, and Marketing Campaigns. These folders and the Home page are the starting point for working with Business Contact Manager.
The Business Contact Manager folders are displayed in the Outlook 2007 Navigation Pane, although sometimes most of the subfolders are hidden. To display all the subfolders of the Business Contact Manager, start by clicking the Folders List icon in the Navigation Pane, and then select Business Contact Manager (as shown in Figure 19-7). When you select the Business Contact Manager folder, the default Home page is displayed.
You can configure Outlook so that it starts up on the Business Contact Manager Home page when it opens. To do this, follow these steps:
The Business Contact Manager Home page, shown in Figure 19-7, provides links to tutorials and services (in the Online Spotlight section) that you can use in combination with Business Contact Manager. The Start A Task section of the page contains options corresponding to the related Business Contact Manager items:
Accounts
Business Contacts
Opportunities
Business Projects
Project Tasks
Marketing Campaigns
Selecting one of these options is effectively the same as clicking the folder of the same name in the Navigation Pane—the same item-related page is loaded (that is, clicking on Accounts loads the Accounts page). (The content and use of each of these folders are covered in their respective sections later in this chapter.) Below these folder options, the page includes a section to select and configure reports and displays opportunity summaries.
Clicking the Sales tab displays the Sales page, shown in Figure 19-8, which contains the same Spotlight section providing links to the tutorial and services. This page consolidates sales-related links of Business Contact Manager items such as the following:
New Account. Opens a new account form
New Opportunity. Opens a new opportunity form
New Business Contact. Opens a new business contact form
Set. Up Connection To Accounting Opens a dialog box with links explaining how you can interconnect your accounting software and Business Contact Manager
The Sales page includes a Reports section as well as a section linking sales-related accounts information.
To assist you with coordinating your marketing efforts, Business Contact Manager’s Marketing page (see Figure 19-9) links you to options to starting and monitoring a Marketing Campaign. In addition to the standard Spotlight section, the Start A Task section supplies links to the following:
New Marketing Campaign. Opens the new Marketing Campaign form, assisting you with starting your new marketing efforts
New E-Mail Marketing Service Campaign. Opens the new Marketing Campaign form with the List Builder selected as the delivery option
Below the standard Reports section, the Marketing Campaigns section displays the status of all your ongoing Marketing Campaigns.
In addition to the standard Spotlight and Reports sections, the Projects page provides links to start new projects and project tasks. It also displays the status of current projects in the Open Business Projects section (see Figure 19-10).
As described in this section, the Home, Sales, Marketing, and Projects pages come with default selections and displays, yet you can add items to the display of a page using the Add Or Remove Content link. The Add Or Remove Content dialog box enables you to select any of the available content information items and set the order in which they appear in the page display (see Figure 19-11).
Using this dialog box, you can add the Business Project Recent History to the Projects page, for example. Thus, in addition to the Open Business Projects information, you can review the recent tasks related to the projects.
In addition to the options available in the Business Contact Manager folders or the Home, Sales, Marketing, and Projects pages, you can select these and other options from the Business Contact Manager menu on the Outlook 2007 toolbar (see Figure 19-12).
Figure 19-12. You can select Business Content Manager options from the menu on the Outlook 2007 toolbar.
The Accounts, Business Contacts, Opportunities, Business Projects, Project Tasks, Marketing Campaigns, and Communication History options do the same thing as clicking the folder by the same name—that is, taking you to the default display for that item.
The Reports option links you to the array of reports available in Business Contact Manager. These reports include the following categories:
Accounts
Activity
Business Contacts
Leads
Opportunities
Business Projects
Marketing Campaigns
Each category of reports can be printed according to different sort criteria—the Accounts report, for example, can be printed by City, Rating, Payment Status, Source of Lead, and so on, as shown in Figure 19-13.