Looking for a Pocket PC CRM Application

[Jason Dunn]

A friend asked me about a CRM application for the Pocket PC, and I drew a blank because that's something I don't know much about. So I'm turning to you, our very smart readers, to help me find a solution for him. The application should be like a contact manager, but also have support for customer records, service requests, history, etc. It should sync to the PC, either with a desktop version of the same app, or perhaps Outlook or another PIM tool. Is there anything on the market like that?

[FrankO]

http://www.lillysoftware.com/spotlight/

I have not used it, but work for the company, Lilly Software Associates now Infor Global Solutions.

Hope this helps.

----------------------------------------------

Are you interested in a wireless solution for accessing real-time executive, financial, sales, and shop floor data? VISUAL Mobile combines the portability and convenience of handheld devices with browser-based Microsoft .NET technology, high-speed networking capabilities of Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi), and direct integration to the VISUAL database without the need for a third-party interface.

With VISUAL Mobile, whether users are on the road, at home, or just away from their desk, they can consistently track critical records and make informed decisions, saving time and energy. This application keeps CEOs and managers in touch with the most current executive and financial news, including:

Order and shipment volumes
Cash flow
Work In Progress/Value Added Services
Product and profitability reports
Invoices
Accounts receivable
Accounts payable
Cash flow aggregates
Gross profit
Short term cash plans

Lilly Software's wireless solution is ideal for companies that want to deliver a high level of customer service and respond quickly and resourcefully to customer needs. By using handheld devices to connect to network resources, service and sales representatives can readily confirm:

Customer contact information
Quotes
Customer orders
Shipments
Requests for Proposal
Inventory part pricing
Stock levels
Managers no longer have to walk the shop floor to verify:

Work order efficiencies and status
Expectant receipt of raw materials
Scheduling and throughput
Employee productivity

[NeilE]

I've never used it, but there's a mobile version of Microsoft CRM. There's a PDF with more info at http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/a/f/4af8a5fb-992c-45c6-b2ba-eeae18e2b507/CRM_Mobile_Brochure.PDF.

Neil

[whydidnt]

This doesn't help today, but Microsoft is releasing a version of it's Business Contact Manager Software for Windows Mobile sometime soon. It is currently in Beta.

Microsoft released an upgrade to the desktop version of BCM that is compatible with MS Small Business Server Exchange. A registry tweak on your PC will enable it to work with any version of Exchange. If you own MS Office Professional, you should have received a BCM CD with it and can install this in prep for the upcoming mobile release. However, you cannot sync your Business Contacts from BCM with your WM device until they release the mobile version.

Alternatively, he could try ACT! or Goldmine on his desktop and sync using CompanionLink with his WM device. He'll have to make tasks or the like to build the history of service records though, since WM doesn't really provide this funciton.

[mclaughlinc]

The bad news seems to be both of these mobile CRM solution requires a server purchase as well. I would like to see the mobile version of the Business Contact Manager software. Maybe that will be a solution for some of us.

[timcolling]

I've never used it, but there's a mobile version of Microsoft CRM. There's a PDF with more info at http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/a/f/4af8a5fb-992c-45c6-b2ba-eeae18e2b507/CRM_Mobile_Brochure.PDF.

Neil

For me, the link that you provided returns a 404 error - page not found.

- Tim

[timcolling]

...he could try ACT! or Goldmine on his desktop and sync using CompanionLink with his WM device. He'll have to make tasks or the like to build the history of service records though, since WM doesn't really provide this funciton.

I tried Act! and the PocketPC link that comes with it. The version that I tested was Act! 2005, and I believe that there has been a new version released since then.

Act! was not satisfactory for my purposes. I needed for it to work seamlessly with Outlook and with the Outlook databases on my pocket PC, and it did not. In fact, more often than not I found that ALL my contacts and appointments had been duplicated on both my ppc and on my ACT! and Outlook desktop environments.

I would not consider Act! again, for my purposes. Your experience may be different from mine.

- Tim

[ctmagnus]

I've never used it, but there's a mobile version of Microsoft CRM. There's a PDF with more info at http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/a/f/4af8a5fb-992c-45c6-b2ba-eeae18e2b507/CRM_Mobile_Brochure.PDF.

Neil

For me, the link that you provided returns a 404 error - page not found.

- Tim

That's because he stuck a period at the end of his sentence. ;)

Here's the link you want: http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/a/f/4af8a5fb-992c-45c6-b2ba-eeae18e2b507/CRM_Mobile_Brochure.PDF.

[dazz]

Well, I created a contact manager using HanDBase and their Runtime environment. You can download the trial version here:

http://www.ddhsoftware.com/gallery.html?show=number&record=1943

With this app you can create company records, then contacts for that company and notes, activities and opportunities for each contact.

I've been a big CRM fan for a long time and tried to build everthing in it I could.

Because it is built using HanDBase it can be synced to the desktop and use either the HanDBase desktop or other database programs. DDH Software has a conduit for MS Access and ODBC.

Jason, is this the kind of thing you are looking for?

[sweetpete]

The PPC version of MS CRM is pretty good and it will get some nice upgrades with the next version of CRM, but the actual application does not come with a cheap price tag.
Outlook/Office BCM is be a nice option for SMB customers and when/if the mobile version comes out it'll be very compelling.

[mclaughlinc]

This doesn't help today, but Microsoft is releasing a version of it's Business Contact Manager Software for Windows Mobile sometime soon. It is currently in Beta.

Microsoft released an upgrade to the desktop version of BCM that is compatible with MS Small Business Server Exchange. A registry tweak on your PC will enable it to work with any version of Exchange.

Can you provide details about the mobile app? Also what the new desktop version will include?

Lastly, what registry tweak do I need to make so I can use Business Contact Manager with Exchange.

[Bajan Cherry]

Not that I have used it (I have actually no use for CRM s/w myself), I know Talisma (http://www.talisma.com) was building Pocket PC interface for their CRM solution. It has been at-least couple of years since I spoke to them. They must be done by now!

[Lex]

What's CRM? May I propose that acronyms be defined up front? (As usual, I had to ask so I prob. don't need it.) :D

[Steven Cedrone]

What's CRM? May I propose that acronyms be defined up front? (As usual, I had to ask so I prob. don't need it.) :D

Customer Relationship Management :wink:

[Kowalski]

What's CRM? May I propose that acronyms be defined up front? (As usual, I had to ask so I prob. don't need it.)

CRM stands for Customer Relation Management.

Talisma (http://www.talisma.com) was building Pocket PC interface for their CRM solution.

i checked their web site but i havent seen any traces of a mobile application.

i work for a small company, and we are developing CRM applications which take advantage of RF-ID technologies. Last week we started a new project and a mobile application will be a part of this project. it seems that there exists a very little number of mobile CRM applications and this is very good for me, since i'll be the one who will work on the mobile application.

So, i'll be waiting for your ideas and i will post some links here as soon as the program becomes something usefull

[Jason Lee]

HAHA.. ok I'm an anthropologist/archaeologist. To us CRM is Cultural Resource Management. No wonder i was confuesd. :)

[szamot]

There is only one that counts, I have had a pleasure of looking into it for my company and bit by bit, feature for feature the only way to go is with SalesForce. Look them up on www.salesforce.com. They have a beautiful PPC version of it, it works with your Outlook and Office Documents, and penny for penny it is the best solution we found. You will thank me for it. If you look at reviews of any CRM all are comared to the golden yardstick of Salesforce - http://www.salesforce.com/products/desktop-mobile.jsp (mobile edition)

Trust me I was not crazy about spending this much cash on a CRM solution but - this was well worth the effort and money. Not only can you get online and get your info if you have a wireless solution but you can also get a offline mobile edition to go with it. Life is good.

[szamot]

This doesn't help today, but Microsoft is releasing a version of it's Business Contact Manager Software for Windows Mobile sometime soon. It is currently in Beta.

Microsoft released an upgrade to the desktop version of BCM that is compatible with MS Small Business Server Exchange. A registry tweak on your PC will enable it to work with any version of Exchange.

Can you provide details about the mobile app? Also what the new desktop version will include?

Lastly, what registry tweak do I need to make so I can use Business Contact Manager with Exchange.

Business Contact Manager is NOT CRM, it is just a beefed up contact list. CRM is so much more than that.

[daS]

As with ACT and Goldmine, On Schedule is not a true CRM program, but it works very well both as a stand-alone Pocket PC version and with their desktop product. You can find On Schedule at: Odyssey Computing's web site (http://www.odysseyinc.com/Software/On-Schedule/). If you call, ask for Gary Fong and tell him Dave sent you. :wink:

[whydidnt]

Can you provide details about the mobile app? Also what the new desktop version will include?

Lastly, what registry tweak do I need to make so I can use Business Contact Manager with Exchange.

First off to make BCM work with Exchange, follow the steps in the link below. You need to download a patch from Microsoft to make BCM work with Small Business Server, then add a registry key to make it work with Regular Exchange.
http://www.outlook-tips.net/howto/bcm.htm

As for information about the mobile app it was at:
http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/gtm/get/popup/bcm_demo.html
However, that page appears to have been taken down. A search of MS website for the details again yields very little information. I found a link in the OEM System builder site:
http://oem.microsoft.com/downloads/mosb_productguide/application/OfficeSB2003.htm
That talks about the update, but I'm not an OEM partner, so I can't access the details.

This Page:
https://microsoft.order-4.com/bizcontactmgr/
is where you can request to be notified when the update is released. The PocketPC app/synchronization was in the details on the update I could see earlier.

They seem to be "hiding" the information since I first saw it last week. Perhaps that means they are in the process of updating the pages with release information ( I hope ) and not that they changed mind.

Incidentally, I found out about the update by following a banner ad from www.brighthand.com. At that point anyway, MS was obviously trying to advertise this update. The site had a link for Beta testing as well, but I can' seem to find that either.

Perhaps one of you have better search skills than me and can do a better job finding the information?

[whydidnt]

Business Contact Manager is NOT CRM, it is just a beefed up contact list. CRM is so much more than that.

I won't argue this point with you, but in the context of the question, I think BCM is a better fit than a full blown CRM solution. We have an individual asking about a solution for their handheld device. I see no mention of a a need to share informaiton with multiple other users, or enterprise wide support. If the individual in question just wants to have CRM-like capabilities on his PPC, then BCM *may* be the answer, once it's released for WM devices.

To be fair, we don't really have all the information about what this persons needs are, and CRM means something different to almost everyone you talk to. However, I think we have all thrown some good suggestions up, and hopefully one of these will meet the needs of this individual.

[szamot]

Business Contact Manager is NOT CRM, it is just a beefed up contact list. CRM is so much more than that.

I won't argue this point with you, but in the context of the question, I think BCM is a better fit than a full blown CRM solution. We have an individual asking about a solution for their handheld device. I see no mention of a a need to share informaiton with multiple other users, or enterprise wide support. If the individual in question just wants to have CRM-like capabilities on his PPC, then BCM *may* be the answer, once it's released for WM devices.

To be fair, we don't really have all the information about what this persons needs are, and CRM means something different to almost everyone you talk to. However, I think we have all thrown some good suggestions up, and hopefully one of these will meet the needs of this individual.

True enough, I just assumed, perhaps wrongly that someone who asked for a CRM solution actually knew what they were talking about, thus CRM is what I have suggested. I always thought that a good CRM solution was Maximizer or Act but if connectivity is what people are after those are not the best solutions.

[bbarker]

...he could try ACT! or Goldmine on his desktop and sync using CompanionLink with his WM device. He'll have to make tasks or the like to build the history of service records though, since WM doesn't really provide this funciton.

I tried Act! and the PocketPC link that comes with it. The version that I tested was Act! 2005, and I believe that there has been a new version released since then.

Act! was not satisfactory for my purposes. I needed for it to work seamlessly with Outlook and with the Outlook databases on my pocket PC, and it did not. In fact, more often than not I found that ALL my contacts and appointments had been duplicated on both my ppc and on my ACT! and Outlook desktop environments.

I would not consider Act! again, for my purposes. Your experience may be different from mine.

- Tim
I was a beta tester for the original version of the Pocket PC link for Act!. It messed up my contacts, apparently because I didn't follow a convoluted series of steps first. I was dumb enough to just install it and assume it would work. What I encountered apparently wasn't a bug, but the way the product was deisgned. When I asked them about it they sounded defensive and arrogant, blaming me alone. Their attitude seemed to be, "Who cares?"

[whydidnt]

I was a beta tester for the original version of the Pocket PC link for Act!. It messed up my contacts, apparently because I didn't follow a convoluted series of steps first. I was dumb enough to just install it and assume it would work. What I encountered apparently wasn't a bug, but the way the product was deisgned. When I asked them about it they sounded defensive and arrogant, blaming me alone. Their attitude seemed to be, "Who cares?"

I'd heard these nightmare stories before. That's why I suggested Companion Link, instead of the conduit that comes with ACT! Companion Link is supposed to make the Sync Process work correctly. Note I say supposed, since I haven't actually tried it myself. There is a free trial at their website, though.

[timcolling]

I was a beta tester for the original version of the Pocket PC link for Act!. It messed up my contacts, apparently because I didn't follow a convoluted series of steps first. I was dumb enough to just install it and assume it would work. What I encountered apparently wasn't a bug, but the way the product was deisgned. When I asked them about it they sounded defensive and arrogant, blaming me alone. Their attitude seemed to be, "Who cares?"

I'd heard these nightmare stories before. That's why I suggested Companion Link, instead of the conduit that comes with ACT! Companion Link is supposed to make the Sync Process work correctly. Note I say supposed, since I haven't actually tried it myself. There is a free trial at their website, though.

I tried CompanionLink back when I was trying Act!, after I had given up on the conduit that comes with Act! itself. CompanionLink had some problems that made me give up after trying the trial version, but I don't remember anymore what those problems were.

- Tim

[sweetpete]

It seems our discussion of BCM is rather timely. I knew this release was coming but was under NDA ...
An update to BCM is available to allow for sharing of information with multiple users and the Pocket PC synch. As well, they've now enabled BCM for Exchange users and hosted Exchange users (previously only SBS users could use BCM).

The updates and add-ins for are at the following 2 links:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3aec8b42-6dc5-4922-9dfb-1c82237d6b62&displaylang=en
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=F3BC2918-C310-4599-81D1-558CF385ED88&displaylang=en

Enjoy!

Also, the term CRM loosely defines a system that allows for a more customer/account centric way of managing customer data rather than the contact centric mechanism of most PIM apps. BCM is a nice 'light' CRM system for the SMB customer that doesn't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars on licenses and implementation costs of larger scale, more fully featured multi-user CRM systems. Since Jason didn't really clarify what the user wants we can't really specualte if this will or won't meed their needs ... but it's damn cheap!! :mrgreen:

[whydidnt]

Thanks for the links sweetpete. I knew I wasn't going crazy, but couldn't find the information anywhere yesterday. They were obviously in the process of updating things.

I think it's kind of funny that the update is called "Business Contacts for Pocket PC. Doesn't the Office group know that it's now called Windows Mobile? :wink:

I'm downloading this now and will see what it looks like. The actual BCM update is something around 180 MB, so it seems to me there almost replacing the whole thing. Interesting....

[bbarker]

I'm downloading this now and will see what it looks like. The actual BCM update is something around 180 MB, so it seems to me there almost replacing the whole thing. Interesting....
Will you report to us about the changes and your impressions of the new version?

[davea0511]

Well, I created a contact manager using HanDBase and their Runtime environment. You can download the trial version here:

http://www.ddhsoftware.com/gallery.html?show=number&record=1943

With this app you can create company records, then contacts for that company and notes, activities and opportunities for each contact.

I've been a big CRM fan for a long time and tried to build everthing in it I could.

Because it is built using HanDBase it can be synced to the desktop and use either the HanDBase desktop or other database programs. DDH Software has a conduit for MS Access and ODBC.

Jason, is this the kind of thing you are looking for?

I did the same kind of thing, but I used VisualCE, which I just love and it's nicely priced, and you can use it for so many other things to. But creating powerful forms for accessing all kinds of databases is right up it's alley.

[davea0511]

It seems our discussion of BCM is rather timely. I knew this release was coming but was under NDA ...
An update to BCM is available to allow for sharing of information with multiple users and the Pocket PC synch. As well, they've now enabled BCM for Exchange users and hosted Exchange users (previously only SBS users could use BCM).

The updates and add-ins for are at the following 2 links:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3aec8b42-6dc5-4922-9dfb-1c82237d6b62&displaylang=en
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=F3BC2918-C310-4599-81D1-558CF385ED88&displaylang=en

Enjoy!

Also, the term CRM loosely defines a system that allows for a more customer/account centric way of managing customer data rather than the contact centric mechanism of most PIM apps. BCM is a nice 'light' CRM system for the SMB customer that doesn't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars on licenses and implementation costs of larger scale, more fully featured multi-user CRM systems. Since Jason didn't really clarify what the user wants we can't really specualte if this will or won't meed their needs ... but it's damn cheap!! :mrgreen:
No joke!

[HereToday]

I heavily use Salesforce.com. I agree with the previous post on Salesforce, it is the yardstick by which all other CRM's are measured.

[bbarker]

This was a great discussion 10 months ago. The biggest change since then, for me, is that now I really do need a desktop/mobile solution. I don't need to share info.

What has changed in the market since then?

How has MS's solution worked out?

Are there any new solutions? What do you recommend?