On 3/21/2010 10:33 AM, Jim Robertson wrote:
On 3/21/10 9:52 AM, in article
, "Diane Poremsky [MVP]"
wrote:

I would not recommend BCM for this - I don't think I would even suggest
Outlook for it. I'd use Access or Infopath against SQL. Sharepoint is an
option too.

I'm looking at this as a VERY temporary solution (months to less than two
years) for a small LAN consisting of a an SBS 2008 server, 4 docs who work
with laptops on and off the domain, and 5 office staff with workstations
permanently on the domain. We're on a limited budget, and my idea was to use
the tools we now have (MS Office Outlook for some staffers, Outlook Web
Access for others) to get patient and referring physician information into a
contact form that would be usable now but capable of being migrated to a
commercial electronic health record once we purchased one.

Adding a second server box and upgrading our SBS license to premium and
buying BCM licenses for our office staff just to make our lives a little bit
easier now and migration easier later (especially since after the migration
we'd have no use for BCM) probably doesn't make sense.

I know nothing about InfoPath. I've peeked at its product page, which
suggest it can be used to design forms that can be opened in Outlook. I also
haven't begun exploring SharePoint yet (I'm a Mac guy doing this in my spare
time).

Is InfoPath a tool that I could use to modify the basic Outlook contacts
template so that users on our SBS domain using the full Outlook client or
OWA could open a contact form for patients that would contain the additional
data elements (referring physician, Social Security Number, and yes/no
status fields for which a checkbox would be the interface element (active
patient, deceased, dialysis, and transplant would be examples)? Or would we
need the SQL server?

Sorry to ask such basic questions. I'm taking baby steps here :-)

Jim Robertson

If you have Office Professional or Small Business, you already have BCM.
If not, it's a $149/seat SKU product. It does not require a dedicated
server as it is a light-weight application.

I will disagree with using Access in this case. That's custom
application development. Custom == $$$. Then again, whenever I see the
suggestion of access, I counter it with Asp.net web applications. Amount
of development time is similar, yet the user is not tied down to Access.

BCM would store all this data easily, can handle links to files on the
file system, and the 2010 version is even more flexible. It is basically
a SQL server interface on top of Outlook with built-in replication,
easily customizable forms (unlike Outlook, which I consider to be a
custom application development), and other normally expensive features.
The page to which I linked illustrates how it is done. In fact, now that
I think about it, I might simply build a commercial EMR solution on top
of it. Thanks for that idea.

You definitely don't have Infopath, which comes only with the most
full-featured SKUs of Office (Professional Plus, Enterprise, and I think
maybe Ultimate). That is again custom application development and
carries much higher cost.
--
Leonid S. Knyshov
Crashproof Solutions
510-282-1008
Twitter: @wiseleo
http://crashproofsolutions.com
Microsoft Small Business Specialist
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