Third party software for contact management

After several days of reading the forums, it's become obvious that some kind of third party software is necessary to work with our recently installed Outlook 2003 to manage our calendar appointments and contacts. We provide professional financial and tax services to the public and book appointments for clients with several staff members. We need to be able to have a public contact list, a shared calendar for each staff member, and a shared means of viewing appointments for a given contact. We also are customizing our contact forms and need to be able to export the custom contact fields to a spreadsheet to track tax estimates and financial products. Can anyone recommend third party software that's geared toward professional offices that make appointments? Previously we used software designed for use in making appointments at a doctor's office. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated and can be emailed to me personally at . Thank you.

Take a look at Windows Sharepoint Services - and it's free, assuming you
have a server. We also host WSS sites for clients, as do may other web
hosts.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserv...t/default.mspx

JR

http://wssdemo.einfosystems.net



After several days of reading the forums, it's become obvious that some
kind of third party software is necessary to work with our recently
installed Outlook 2003 to manage our calendar appointments and contacts.

Michelle,

are you using Exchange Server?

If not, why not?

for this function:
[..]
We need to be able to have a public contact list, a shared calendar for each
staff member, and a shared means of viewing appointments for a given
contact. We also are customizing our contact forms and need to be able to
export the custom contact fields to a spreadsheet to track tax estimates and
financial products.

Exchange is the standard Outlook Groupware solution for sharing all
informations in Outlook.
http://www.slipstick.com/exs/index.htm

Alternatives to Exchange with Outlook:
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/share.htm
http://www.mapistore.com/Outlook/Groupware/

--
Oliver Vukovics
Public OutLook: Share Outlook without Exchange
Public SyncTool: Outlook PST Synchronization
www.outlookstore.com


"Michelle" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
After several days of reading the forums, it's become obvious that some
kind of third party software is necessary to work with our recently
installed Outlook 2003 to manage our calendar appointments and contacts. We
provide professional financial and tax services to the public and book
appointments for clients with several staff members. We need to be able to
have a public contact list, a shared calendar for each staff member, and a
shared means of viewing appointments for a given contact. We also are
customizing our contact forms and need to be able to export the custom
contact fields to a spreadsheet to track tax estimates and financial
products. Can anyone recommend third party software that's geared toward
professional offices that make appointments? Previously we used software
designed for use in making appointments at a doctor's office. Any
recommendations would be greatly appreciated and can be emailed to me
personally at . Thank you.

Task Manager 2005 was originally designed for CPA's and Lawyers so that may
help. Download the free 45-day trial at www.orbisoft.com.
You can also use it to track your client jobs.

Regards

Mark Brownlee
Orbisoft Task Manager 2005 Support
mbrownlee -AT- Orbisoft.com
www.orbisoft.com

** New! Orbisoft Task Manager 2005 Group Task/ Project Management Software.
Download the FREE, fully-functional 45-Day trial at www.orbisoft.com

"The easiest and most comprehensive task manager I have seen."

"Michelle" wrote in message
...
After several days of reading the forums, it's become obvious that some
kind of third party software is necessary to work with our recently
installed Outlook 2003 to manage our calendar appointments and contacts. We
provide professional financial and tax services to the public and book
appointments for clients with several staff members. We need to be able to
have a public contact list, a shared calendar for each staff member, and a
shared means of viewing appointments for a given contact. We also are
customizing our contact forms and need to be able to export the custom
contact fields to a spreadsheet to track tax estimates and financial
products. Can anyone recommend third party software that's geared toward
professional offices that make appointments? Previously we used software
designed for use in making appointments at a doctor's office. Any
recommendations would be greatly appreciated and can be emailed to me
personally at . Thank you.

Yes we do have Exchange Server, so the problem is not the sharing of information but how Outlook lets us access it. For example we have appointment clerks who schedule our appointments. They enter the contact into the public contact folder then schedule the appointment on the calendar of a staff member. If later the client calls and they can't remember who their appointment was with or what date it was, we would look up the contact and see when the appointment is scheduled, however the scheduled appointment does not show up in the activities tab of the contact form. Not only that we can't do a search for a contact in the public folder. We go to the alphabet tabs and scroll to the client. We have access to staff calendars, and we have access to a public folder of contacts, but we are unable to check if an appointment has been made for a particular contact unless the appointment clerk puts it in her own calendar. When you are making appointments for 20 staff members you are working with 20 different calendars for a twelve hour day, six days a week, so we need to be able to access a contact and any appointment info very quickly because of the volume of appointments. We can't seem to modify Outlook to our needs without some kind of third party software, if their is something like that available. We'd like it to integrate with Outlook if possible. Thanks for your earlier reply.

"Oliver Vukovics" wrote:

Michelle,

are you using Exchange Server?

If not, why not?

for this function:
[..]
We need to be able to have a public contact list, a shared calendar for each
staff member, and a shared means of viewing appointments for a given
contact. We also are customizing our contact forms and need to be able to
export the custom contact fields to a spreadsheet to track tax estimates and
financial products.

Exchange is the standard Outlook Groupware solution for sharing all
informations in Outlook.
http://www.slipstick.com/exs/index.htm

Alternatives to Exchange with Outlook:
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/share.htm
http://www.mapistore.com/Outlook/Groupware/

--
Oliver Vukovics
Public OutLook: Share Outlook without Exchange
Public SyncTool: Outlook PST Synchronization
www.outlookstore.com


"Michelle" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
...
After several days of reading the forums, it's become obvious that some
kind of third party software is necessary to work with our recently
installed Outlook 2003 to manage our calendar appointments and contacts. We
provide professional financial and tax services to the public and book
appointments for clients with several staff members. We need to be able to
have a public contact list, a shared calendar for each staff member, and a
shared means of viewing appointments for a given contact. We also are
customizing our contact forms and need to be able to export the custom
contact fields to a spreadsheet to track tax estimates and financial
products. Can anyone recommend third party software that's geared toward
professional offices that make appointments? Previously we used software
designed for use in making appointments at a doctor's office. Any
recommendations would be greatly appreciated and can be emailed to me
personally at . Thank you.