Outlook Contact Manager & Helper Programs

axjax · 02-16-06, 11:33 AM

OK, I just got my Axim a few days ago and I did the A06/Fake Server stuff so it should be ready to do some useful stuff now... right?

I'm on the road (literally) just about 5 days a week, driving around western new england (MA & CT)doing 4-5 stops a day, sometimes with 50 miles between stop 1 and stop 2. So yes, my GPS is in the mail and that will help me find places like my old iPaq/Navman did. But I want more...

What I've always wanted to do is get my appointments and customers more organized for future reference. Many of these stops are home inspections and a good number of them will have follow ups from another part of our company. When I inspect, part of the routine is sketching out the house foundation in birdseye view, then dimensioning it. Eventually I transpose my paper scribbles, and do a plan view drawing in Visio 2000 and save that on my desktop PC. Visio is quicker than CAD for my purposes, and yes... it would be nice if there were a PPC Visio that ran on the Axim.

Each home has it's own quirks, and what I want to do is create a form (?) that will be on my PDA with a bunch of categories, and if it's not too hard, I'd like to have some of the categories have drop-down selections that I can define. For instance, I might have "Style" and have Cape, Ranch, RRanch, Colonial, Contemp, etc. as quick selections. But anyway... I have MS Office 2003 Pro on my home and office machines, and I also DL'd the Outlook Contact Manager to see if that helps. I've been told that Pocket Informant is a good PPC program, but when I emailed them and asked about customizing it they said most people use Outlook and didn't really explain (it was a one-sentence reply). I want to be able to dump a copy of the completed form(s) at the end of the day into my PC.

So the question of the hour really is whether I'm barking up a tree with no solution, or maybe somebody has some ideas. Actually, it would not be too different from what a real estate broker would use to categorize his listings.

Thanks in advance for any/all help :D

**Forge42** · 02-16-06, 12:24 PM

Sounds to me like that might be doable with an Excel file and a little excel programming. I'm pretty sure I could do that in the desktop version, not so sure about the PPC version. I'll check it out...

**Forge42** · 02-16-06, 01:18 PM

Checked it out some. Desktop Excel can do exactly what you want... but it doesn't come across to the PPC. If you want to see what I'm talking about, type 'drop down list' into the desktop excel help box and select 'create a drop down list from a range of cells'.

As for actually solving your problem, you might want to check out listpro. People on this site speak very highly of it. I personally don't use it, but, from what I understand, it has fully customizable lists. I would also assume that you could pick from a group of auto-entries. There is a 30 day trial, so you can check it out. Go here:

http://www.iliumsoft.com/site/lp/listpro.htm

stevenator65 · 02-16-06, 01:56 PM

Axjax, there's a thread about Business Contact Mgr, maybe even 2, already. From my understanding it's not possible to sync the pda to the desktop w/o a 3rd party solution as of yet. Do a search for more info.

axjax · 02-16-06, 02:41 PM

Originally Posted by stevenator65

Axjax, there's a thread about Business Contact Mgr, maybe even 2, already. From my understanding it's not possible to sync the pda to the desktop w/o a 3rd party solution as of yet. Do a search for more info.

I'll try searching and see what has been said. I am new to this machine and while it's syncing with my contacts on my desktop and they show up on the PDA, I don't see an Icon for Outlook on the PDA... is that normal? And... on the Dell CD, it says Outlook 2002 is in the CD. Is that the latest PPC version and does it need to be installed if I don't see it?

**Forge42** · 02-16-06, 03:21 PM

On the PDA, outlook features are divided up into smaller programs. So, under programs you will find 'Contacts','Calendar','Messages'(email),'Tasks','N otes'...

these are the programs that will Sync with your desktop outlook by default.

Also, one thing I forgot to mention, if you go the Excel route, you can place it in your My Documents folder on the PDA and enable file syncing so that you will have a synced copy on your desktop. This sync will go both ways.

stevenator65 · 02-16-06, 04:25 PM

This link and this page will give you more info about Bus Contact Mgr.

Do you want my take on it? I knew you would! Don't bother w/it. Just use Outlook on your desktop then do yourself a huge favor and get Pocket Informant or a similar program for your Axim. The key to Outlook is linking. I repeat, LINKING! If you have a contact, Joe Customer, you can make an appointment or task or Letter to that person w/Outlook right? So when you go to your calendar, for example, you'll see your appointment w/that contact and a link to that contact. If you go to that contact you'll see the appointment info in the Activities tab.

In pocket outlook that won't happen unless you get Pocket Informant or one of its competitors. And then all that in the above paragraph will function exactly the same.

Let me know if you have more questions.

02-16-06, 04:50 PM

Originally Posted by axjax

And... on the Dell CD, it says Outlook 2002 is in the CD.

That is to install on the PC, but you already have Outlook 2003 installed, so you're fine there.

Outlook comes on the PPC built into the system as an above post mentions.

axjax · 02-16-06, 05:54 PM

Originally Posted by stevenator65

This link and this page will give you more info about Bus Contact Mgr.

Do you want my take on it? I knew you would! Don't bother w/it. Just use Outlook on your desktop then do yourself a huge favor and get Pocket Informant or a similar program for your Axim. The key to Outlook is linking. I repeat, LINKING! If you have a contact, Joe Customer, you can make an appointment or task or Letter to that person w/Outlook right? So when you go to your calendar, for example, you'll see your appointment w/that contact and a link to that contact. If you go to that contact you'll see the appointment info in the Activities tab.

In pocket outlook that won't happen unless you get Pocket Informant or one of its competitors. And then all that in the above paragraph will function exactly the same.

Let me know if you have more questions.

I was on the fence with Pocket Informant and wondered if I was duplicating stuff, but after a few prods like yours, I think I'm going to spring for it. Wierd that they give you Outlook 2002 with a machine today. I have Office 2003 pro on my machines so I won't bother with the 2002. I seem to recall that HP even sent me a 2003 Outlook upgrade CD at no charge for my iPaq. Gave that to my co-worker who bought the whole deal.

BTW, Thanks for the feedback guys.