I had to get a new computer, and I got stuck with Vista. Yes, I suppose I could have shelled out more money and had XP installed on it, but Vista did come with the new service pack that seems to make it work. However Vista didn't work with Office 2000, a program I've been using for almost 9 years. Although this didn't make me happy,  one program that I've already made the decision to buy is Microsoft Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager.  

First, What is OUTLOOK with Business Contact Manager?

Outlook is the heart of my office. It is my office manager. Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager is Microsofts all in one program for a small business managing e-mail, contacts, to do list and calendar.  Outlook holds all the info and notes on all my clients and other contacts (courts, other attorneys, creditors, even friends).  You can set tasks for each contact and schedule appointments and keep track of everything by either looking at your calendar or TO DO list.  Contact is meant as an all in one organization program. Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager replaced my Outlook 2000 program.  The Business Contact Manager adds back in all the stuff that got left out of the basic Outlook 2007 program.

How Does Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager improve Outlook 2000?

You can now color code your categories, so if tasks and appointments are assigned categories, they show up in the colors you assigned to those categories.  So if you look at your calendar it will be fillled with colors showing what category your days tasks and appointments include.  The color assignment does NOT work with Contacts. Unless you actually open up a contact, you won't see what color it is.   If you scroll through contacts and have assigned them to different categories, they all still show up the same.  You may add as many categories as you want, and use 17 colors (16 colors plus clear). Nevertheless, I like it, I am a visual person so seeing my to do list and calendar color coded is quite helpful.

I was quite upset that Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager lacks the ability to customise the tool bars. Under Outlook 2000, I could add or subract buttons from the tool bar, based on the ones I used the most, and hiding ones I hardly ever used.  That functionality has been removed from Outlook 2007.  Now I don't need to be bothered to try to make Outlook work the way I want, I just have to learn to use it Bill Gates way.   In many instances what was one button click in 2000 is now two or three button clicks in 2007 Outlook.  

Some examples of increased carpal tunnel risk. Outlook with Business Manager has both contacts and business contacts. However, only business contacts allow you to assign appointments that automatically show up on your calendar. Only Business contacts allow  you to assign tasks that show up in your contact history.  It is even easy to assign all your old regular contacts to be business contacts. Whats the problem? When you open the program,  you have to hit contacts to see your contacts. No problem there, but guess which contacts show? The regular ones, you have to hit ANOTHER button to get the business contacts to show. No, you can't change that either.

In the Old Contacts screen one button would allow you to assign a task or create an appointment. Now you have to hit a create button, then select task or appoinment from the list. You don't get to add either button to the tool bar, you don't even get to have them at the top of the list.  Now you have to click more to do what you could with one click in the first program.

Since you can only automatically add tasks and appointments to business contacts, I don't fully understand having contacts and business contacts.

Cross Functionality

Office 2007 Home and Student Edition comes with a program called OneNote. It is a multipurpose note taking program, and Outlook 2007 lets you store notes for each regular contact using OneNote. This allows for more complex notes than just the note taking box within each Contact field.  However, you take business notes within business contact manager which isn't dependant on the separate OneNote program.

Outlook 2007 will also link to other Office programs, and I was happy to see will also link to Open Office files!  This is a handy way to have any documents, spreadsheets or presentations linked to a particular contact.

Requirements

Donations to Bill Gates are required as are a computer running XP with service pack 2 or Vista.  You should have at least 512 megs of RAM and a Pentium II. Todays computers should have no problem running this program. I had to update an older computer running XP with service pack 2, but after I did that, it worked just fine on it.

You also have to have the ability to open the box.  Yes, I know this sounds easy, but it was not. The program comes in a hard plastic box and it tooked quite a while for me to figure out how the %##* to open it.  It doesn't open like a book, the inner part swings out, sort of like the doors of a Lamborghini Diablo.  


Various Views - How to Organize Your To Do List!

Like previous incarnations of Outlook, 2007 with Business Contact Manager offers various views. You can start the day with Outlook Today which shows you the days calendar events plus to-do list. You can also focus just on the To Do list seeing what you have to do by due date, category or day or week.  You can also check out your calendar and see what appointments or court dates you have in the coming days or months. I do like the way Outlook lets me see my tasks and appointments in color on the calendar or by category.

I use a two category system, one for type of task (for me, as an attorney, my categories are bankruptcy, divorce, personal injury etc.), and for how the task is to be accomplished.  IE is it a phone task, an online task, a Court task? That way, I can use the category list to see just what needs to be done for all my bankruptcies or I can see all the phone calls I need to make. I learned the Action step tasks trick from a book Take Back Your Life with Outlook. Not only are my tasks categorized by what they are, they are categorized by how or where they will be accomplished.  If I am going to the Plymouth Probate Court for example, I can run a task list of all my to dos that can be accomplished there. I can check files there, file a deed next door at the Registry and return library books at the Plymouth Public library.  No regular to do list can do that!

Keep a couple panes open, your calendar and to do list, and you can drag and drop items from your to do list onto your calendar. This lets you quickly see how much you can really accomplish in a week. Seeing your calendar view also allows you to say NO when someone wants to know if you can do them one small favour.  I used to over promise and under deliver, and Outlook helps me not to allow that to happen. Outlook 2007 does improve this.

Should I get Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2007 with Business Manager?

I tried Outlook 2007, but I bought Outlook 2007 with Business Manager. Why?  If you make all  your Contacts Business Contacts, you may assign tasks from the Contact screen. They show up under the contact history list and your to do list. For some reason, you can't do that with the regular contacts.  If you schedule an appointment for your client, and it appears on his history list and on your calendar. It doesn't in regular Outlook.  If you use the Meeting button for a client with e-mail, it will open the email program so you can email an invite or confirmation of a meeting.  If you have your phone wired through your computer,  you can call by clicking the call button in business contact.  Business Contacts offer more functionality than regular Contacts. It was simple to move all my contacts to business contacts as well.

Business Manager also allows for creating and tracking projects. I wish it had templates for projects, but to date, I have not figured out any way to do this. Many of the projects that I do as a lawyer have the same steps. Bankruptcies for example are a project easily divided into separate tasks. However, everytime I set up a new bankruptcy project, I have to add in all the tasks to it again.  You can take a quick look at all your projects though.  Business Contacts Manager also has stuff in it for sales campaigns and such, however, my business isn't really a sales business so I didn't explore these.  (Yes, I have to "sell" my services, but not in the way envisioned in this program)

E-Mail

E-mail control is a major function of Outlook and it continues to do a good job of it. All those viagra ads and letters from the widows of deposed Nigerian warlords can be assigned to their own folders quickly and easily.  Myself I use a folder called junk for both. However, other items, like email from the bankruptcy court can be quickly linked right to their respective contacts. Tasks can also be assigned from the email. So if I get an email stating that a creditors meeting has been scheduled, I can immediately set a task to mail the required documents to the Trustee assigned for the meeting and to call my client to make sure they got the notice and are ready for the meeting.  The program also automatically downloads it from my server.

Summary

The program isn't as smooth as I had hoped, but it offers everything I was used to in Outlook 2000, although with a couple extra button presses. I like the drag n drop to do list into the calendar. I also like the color coding addition. It did things more like my old program, which is more than I could say for the stripped down Outlook 2007 that didn't include business contact manager. It is still far from excellent.

You may also be interested in:

Microsoft Outlook 2007 Quick Steps a visual guide book to using Outlook.
Outlook 2007 - Basic Version

Recommended: Yes