On 1/13/03 10:25 PM, "Ken Ray" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Not that I'm aware of, but it sounds cool... The only issue is getting at > the Exchange data store; I don't know if that is a direct SQL link or not > (as far as I know Exchange keeps its data in a different format). I'd think > there have got to be hooks out there, as Outlook Web Access uses an ActiveX > to communicate to the Exchange Server...
I'm going to hit the Microsoft website. Outlook and Outlook Express are supposedly totally different products, despite confusion in naming. Outlook is not really a freestanding application, but group enabled running against Microsoft Backoffice (if I've got my facts right...). Anyway, the application I need is probably most directly addressed by Lotus Notes, although I don't see myself going that route. I'm selling log homes. The sales cycle is long, often a decade or more of dreaming, lots of conversations to track, with an intensive iterative round of plans and bids towards the end. Add complexities such as commissioned sales, quick sorting & assignment of incoming phone calls (no - *yawn* - music on hold). Customers forget their salesman's name, they move and change phone numbers, plus variables like female customers names changing, or not changing to match their husbands these days -- there's a challenge in avoiding duplication, matching customers with correct database records and correct salesmen. Amid all this, having tracked phone calls & correspondence by database for 15+ years, e-mail has become a loose cannon, no consolidation, no records on file. Yet e-mail is more and more important as a method of passing significant correspondence, such as quotes, bidding, and change orders. Outlook also contains interesting features like Tasks, Calendars, and a convenient point of access into customer database records via Address Books. I'd like to avoid retraining employees, and avoid reinventing the wheel by trying to code an in-house application to duplicate the functions of Outlook. There will be a custom application, but I would like it to operate in tandem with Outlook, not as a replacement for functionality already provided by that platform. Danny Grizzle _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
