Business Contact Manager for Outlook 2010 or Outlook 2013 is available, with an updated version released in November 2014 (contains bug fixes). This is a full file installation (368MB) and I recommend using this if upgrading an existing BCM installation instead of using the smaller update file (released in Jan 2013). You'll need to uninstall BCM (but not SQL) then install the new BCM. Links to both files are below.
In case you missed it, earlier this week the BCM Team announced that yes, there will be a BCM 2013, but not for a while:
We invite you to check back in the new year when we will have more details to share.
While Microsoft hasn't announced exactly when Office 2013 will be released to the masses, I expected an RTM announcement soon (because Office 2010 purchases after Oct 19 get a free year of Office 365/Office2013 subscription) and sure enough, it came just as I prepared to send this newsletter. No word yet if BCM will work with the subscription version of Outlook or if it will be easy for new users to get. We'll find out next year.
The update for BCM was released in January 2013. The update is called "BCM Compatibility pack" and is available as an update for BCM 2010 or as a full file installation when BCM is not installed or if you have BCM 2007 installed. Outlook 2010 users can install the full file version if they do not currently have BCM 2010 installed. BCM 2013 works with both Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2013, but both cannot share the same database.
BCM is no longer available from download from Microsoft. Users can download the full 64-bit BCM installation file from BCM for Outlook 2010 or Outlook 2013 (368 MB).
Users can download the full 32-bit BCM installation file from BCM for Outlook 2010 or Outlook 2013 (368 MB).
More Information
For more information, see the Description of Business Contact Manager compatibility pack for Outlook KB article.
Business Contact Manager for Outlook Database Tool is no longer available from Microsoft. Use this to install the BCM db on a server.
Andrzej says
Dear Ms. Poremsky,
Is there any chance to download a BCM 2010 > 2013 Compatibile pack yet? I have a BCM 2010 SQL base and I would like to migrate it to Outlook 2013. MS offered this tool a years ago but now it is not avilable at official MS distribution.I ddn't found it in any Google links. I'll be very appreciate for any help in this direction.
Thank you in advance and best regards
Andrzej
Diane Poremsky says
It's best to use the full file, which is linked above, not the update. (I might have the update files, I will check.)
Andrzej Kijewski says
Thank you very much for quick reply. My question regarded a tool to convert an SQL database from BCM2010 to BCM2013 compatibile. I remeber taht I used same tool for converting SQL dbase from BCM2007 to BCM2010.
Diane Poremsky says
Ah. The 'Compatibility update for Business Contact Manager 2010' was just an update file - the full file has the update included. To the best of my recollection, the only restriction was the database could not be shared by two versions of outlook, but it didn't need updated.
I'll see if I can find a copy.
Pervading says
Dear Ms. Poremsky,
I have installed a set of Office 2013 (32-bit) in the Polish language version (which I have) and BCM in the En-US language version, as only such one I have found on the web (I ran the installer with administrative privileges to enable it) and it worked OK with a new empty database, but unfortunately it was impossible to connect my existing database to it, which coding (collation) is Polish_CI_AS. Do you have any idea how to obtain a Polish language version of BCM 2013 (32-bit)? I have read that the BCM 2013 installer has been removed from distributions of Office 2013 in all retail versions except those of Volume Licensing (but I need one only). Or, eventually, is there any workaround to force the En-US version of BCM to work with a non-English language database (like changing language collation)?
I am hoping to read from you as you are so much helpful.
Thank you for your time.
Claudia says
Hi Diane, I am trying to install BCM 2013 but when the setup extracts the file I get the error in the screenshot and I cannot continue. Can you help?
Diane Poremsky says
i'm not familiar with that error. I know the installer will screw up if there are other setup.exe files in the parent folder - but the error is different that i recall.
Ernie says
Diane, I am experiencing the same issue that Don posted on 4/18/2016 after upgrading my formally XP desktop to Windows 8, 8.1, and now 10. The BCM2010 full install file from the link above does not install the program for Outlook 2010 and 2013.
Diane Poremsky says
Do you get any error messages? If an error message or dialog mentions another program, rename all setup.exe files in that directory.
https://www.slipstick.com/outlook-bcm/bcm-installer-tries-to-install-a-different-program/
Ernie says
No error messages, and the dialog box says the Business Contact Manager has been installed; however, it is not listed in the Control Panel programs and does not show up on starting Outlook.
Ken says
Hi,
I just installed Office 2013 and installed BCM 2013 and all seems to be fine, except the Contact Management View (reading pane) items do not display corresponding data in the reading pane to the right. There are "sections" I can select and move around (phone numbers, addresses, etc.), but they are all blank, even though I am on a record with phone numbers and addresses. Tried creating a new record and it did not populate the reading pane sections with the data either. Have all the latest updates/SPs for office/BCM and sql express installed. Any suggestions to correct this?
Diane Poremsky says
Offhand, no, i don't have a solution. It sounds like the view/reporting is messed up tho. Are their any other bugs or errors? I know there is an issue with the chart controls and my guess this problem is something along those lines. I dont know which control it might be tho.
rob ram says
hello I have a problem. I just bought office 2013 and now I am trying to add the business contact manager and when I open the file it sends me to ifox. I never see anythig that tells me it is a BCM. Can you help me. I have windows 7 64 and office 2013 64. I downlades de 64 bcm.
Diane Poremsky says
ifox is a firefox addin? Is this happening when you run the installer? There is a bug think in windows installer, where it picks up a program in the same folder called steup.exe. Delete or rename that file. See https://www.slipstick.com/outlook-bcm/bcm-installer-tries-to-install-a-different-program/ for details.
George says
Diane, yes, similarity of names is critical if you want to create subsideries with employees. After a very careful examination of records in the import spreadsheet it became clear that the matches were done with all characters. Dashes may have created a problem. After cleaning the company names in account file to exactly match the company name in employee file BCM did a proper match. Still trying to come up with a proper way to relect subsiiaries witin account and allocate employees correctly to sub. For now created separate account for each company. Appreciate any suggestions.Thank you in advance.
Diane Poremsky says
offhand, separate contacts for each subsidiary is the only way i can think of.
George says
anyone have a solution for my my BCM 2013 question regarding match account records and BC records or leads where the bcm record may have many contact records with same company name but upon import from xcell does not assign to correct company name if similar (but not same) company name exist?
Diane Poremsky says
I don't have a solution, but how similar are the company names?
George says
Dianne, thanks for the response. Up to 15 characters can be similar. I tried inserting unique identifiers in the names after 9 characters and that didnt work. Following that the characters are different. Some labels of Comapny names are quite long. Looks like BCM must be using 4 or 5 characters for the unique identifier. I will test idea. Any thoughts?
George says
Diane,
Not sure if u got my post. Does BCM 2013 have a problem automatically matching account records and BC employee records correctly when importing account names that are similar and multiple bc employee records that contain the same account name ie;
Account Record
Aviva-Insurance Company
Aviva-Pilot Insurance Co
Aviva-Surety Insurance
BC Record
Aviva Insurance Company John Smith SVP
Aviva Insurance Company Sally Brown SVP
Aviva Insurance Company Jane Rand SVP
The related Contacts section for the Aviva Insurance Company should have the BC contacts in it.
It does work if the account name does not have similar names. Is there a limit to how many characters BCM 2013 uses to map the relationship? Is there a way to map records without the default? The spread sheets have unique alpha numeric identifiers that link the BC records to the account record. Is there a way in BCM to create this relationship and put these records into the related contacts section.
George says
Hi Diane,
I have BCM 2013 running on windows 8.1.1. After importing two sheet from an xcell file, one sheet into accounts the other into business contact successfully, I noticed that related account records and BC employee records (with same account name) did not map the BC employee records into the business contact section (primary contact etc.) of the account record correctly. This only happened if the account record had other records which contained the same account description for the first few characters ie.
Aviva- Insurance Co
Aviva - Elite Insurance
Aviva - Pilot Insurane Co
If the account record had only one name and multiple employees it worked fine. Does BCM have a problem relating records when you invoke the default matching option upon import due to a limit on how many character it uses to map the records or can this be done by creating a direct map between fields that uniquely identify the related records and not use the default upon import?
Don says
I was running win 8.1 and upgraded to Win 10 8 months ago. My Outlook Pro 2013 was running BCM but with the incorrect labels. To correct this I followed the instructions to uninstall BCM and install the new full installer for 2013. The installer has correctly installed MS SQL Express and it is running. BCM tells me to open Outlook to complete setup but there is nothing there (tried the coms goto area as well). In Control Panel uninstall, Business Contact Manager is listed but with the unpack icon rather than the BCM icon displays. When I right click on that I can uninstall or repair. When I run repair it says there is nothing wrong and to go to Outlook to complete setup. Can anyone help? Don
John says
Diane,
Does everyone have to be using the same version of outlook with a BCM database? IE - most of our users are on outlook 2010, but a couple have outlook 2013. Can they all access the same BCM database?
Diane Poremsky says
Everyone needs to use the same version of Outlook - the database can't be shared between versions.
Ilya K says
Hello Diane,
I have BCM installed on my machine, along with Outlook 2010. It works perfectly for what I need as an individual user--basic account/contact/opportunity management. We are a fairly small business and the functionality of BCM is more than enough for us. We would not need all the bells and whistles offered by Dynamics CRM. We do not have a MS Exchange server. We do have an IT staff who can help us implement things on the server side.
I need to figure out:
1. How to give shared access to BCM to approx 10-15 other users in my company. These users would need to be able to view/share/edit 1 master database of contacts/accounts. So far, a few of us are just running individual versions on our respective PCs.
2. Remote access. Is there any type of "syncing" option, or would remote users simply need to be logged in via VPN to enter/edit data and make it "live"?
3. Scalability Limitations - either with database size or with # of users
I would appreciate any feedback or advice on the best steps to take and if the above is possible to accomplish with BCM. Please excuse as I do not have an IT background or an in-depth understanding of how SQL server operates.
Thank you in advance,
Ilya
Diane Poremsky says
1. BCM has a share database wizard - its fairly easy to follow. You need to set up users and passwords to match the windows username and password of each computer you're sharing with.
2. The only way to have any remote access is using VPN - the data base can only be shared on the local network.
3. The default db is 4 GB and the recommended # of users is about 5 consecutive. Sharing with more people is ok, but for best results, only about 5 should be active at once. If everyone is just reading the database and not updating, there is less of a problem.
Jeff Schwisow says
Dianne,
I might be in the wrong place for my queries as most of the comments/questions I've seen are around the technical application of BCM in Office 2013 but here I go anyway...
I have recently subscribed to Office 365 Home, have downloaded the Office 2013 suite to my laptop (and iPad via apps) and, after a bit of fluffing around, gotten BCM installed and operating with Outlook 2013. As I am an individual practice, I am using BCM as a CRM application that doesn't need a high degree database sharing capability. I must admit that the jury is still out as to whether BCM is that right application or a waste of my energy but time will tell...
My specific question (and the reason I've spent a couple hours trolling the internet) relates to BCM functionality and most specifically how I attach meeting notes to a business contact in BCM. The basic workflow seems to be that while in a meeting request you can create meeting notes using OneNote - all good so far - but once created there does not seem to be a way to link back to a contact or lead so that it shows up in the communication history (you can create phone logs, tasks and "business notes"). Am I missing something or does this functionality not exist?
On a more general note, when I try to use Microsoft's online BCM knowledge base (Office Online) to further my understanding of functionality any of the hyperlinks that promise more detailed information on topics redirect to the office products page (products.office.com). It has the look a feel of an application that Microsoft is withdrawing support for. Are there other resources to help further my understanding of functionality?
Thanks for any assistance you can provide.
Diane Poremsky says
On the links: they changed the domain rom office.microsoft.com to support.office.com (or something like that) but didn't redirect the links. they are supposed to be fixed by the end of the week. (Gee, I guess they never heard of URL Rewrite. :)) That said, there is a question about how much longer it will be supported. I think you are ok for Outlook 2013 - beyond that, who knows.
The only way to link the notes to the contact is by getting the link to the notes (right click on the onenote page to get the link) and paste it into the contact.
Mehdi HAMMADI says
Thanks a lot for you reply.
Where can I found the exact suites of Office that enable using BCM for Office 2010, for Office 2013 and O365.
I certain post I read that just Office 2010 Standard, Office 2010 Pro Plus or Outlook Stande alone are allowed to deploye BCM but not the Home and Business edition ? Is this correct ?
Is it the same for the 2013 version of Office ?
Diane Poremsky says
Legally per the EULA, not all suites are "supported". However, they don't do a version check so it will work with any suite that includes Outlook.
https://support.office.microsoft.com/en-us/article/Download-and-install-Business-Contact-Manager-for-Outlook-8699a740-e610-4c6d-9bfb-2d96e539b32b?CorrelationId=3a731baa-0108-4abe-b246-183073b31cef
Mehdi HAMMADI says
Hi Diane,
I read on the NET some conflicting information. so I would like a clarification.
Is it possible to install BCM with any edition of Office 2010 and Office 2013 or there is restrictions ?
Same question for Office 365 is it possible to install BCM as long as the plan include Outlook ?
Last question, have you tested BCM with Outlook BCM ?
Thank you for your time.
Diane Poremsky says
BCM worked with the plans I tested it with - Home, ProPlus, Professional Plus - that covers the Office365 home and business subscriptions and the MSI from MSDN. The only restriction is in the licensing - it's only legal with certain suites. But if you choose to ignore the EULA, there is nothing in the code that prevents it from working with the code. If you call MS for help, they would probably refuse to help you if you had the wrong version of Office.
>>Last question, have you tested BCM with Outlook BCM ?<<< You mean Outlook? Yes, I have used the current version of BCM. I use an E3 plan's ProPlus subscription with it.The only restriction is that you can't mix Outlook versions - if you use multiple machines and share a database, they all need to have either Outlook 2010 or 2013. BCM supports both, but not with shared databases.
hugo reyes says
Diane,
With O365 what version of BCM would i need? I have a friend shes using O365 business with outlook.
Diane Poremsky says
Technically, it's for the Business version, but it has worked with Home in the past. I tested it the other day on Windows 10 but forget which version of Outlook is installed on it - probably ProPlus.
robert says
Same as Momentum HBA Search, i too re-installed Outlook 2010 pro on my PC and used the 64 bit full version (368 MB) and also get caught into an endless loop install, HELP.
Momentum HBA Search (@michaeljrowe) says
Yes. That's the one! It's 368kb and I do have a 64 bit office. In fact I tried to install the 32 bit first and it said to try again with the 64 because that was what was needed on my system.
Momentum HBA Search (@michaeljrowe) says
Diane, I have I upgraded to the latest software and hardware, meaning I am now on Windows 8.1 with Outlook 2013 on a fast computer. I want to start to use BCM and have not used it in the past. My understanding is that I need to install the full version of BCM as described above. The link above lets me download the following executable: BCM2010-BCMSetup-x64-en-US.exe. However when I attempt to install I get stuck in an endless loop in which I run the installation executable and get to the end where it then tells me it needs to reboot to complete the install. I do that and it brings up the installation wizard again which says: "Welcome to Business Contact Manager for Outlook
Please choose your preferred type of installation below: Install Now or Customize"! I have followed this loop through a couple of times now and it never seems to get installed. What am I missing? Do I have the wrong executable for a full install (and not an upgrade)? Michael
Diane Poremsky says
If the file is in excess of 350MB, its the full install file. If you have 64bit Office, its the correct file. (It should refuse to install if the bits are mismatched.) I'll see what I can find out.
Karl Pajak says
Hi Diane,
I wasn't sure where to put this question re: BCM. If it doesn't go here would you link to the answer?
I have several work machines, a laptop, a surface, and a samsung 4s phone. What I'm hoping I can do is use BCM to manage the contacts and schedule appointments for them via the calendar, keeping the past appointments' information inside the Contact, but being able to search the contacts for location so I can schedule trips. Currently the calendar does a great job of this but it's a bit klunkie. Also it doesn't work very well with the Samsung, it worked great with Outlook and my iPhone but now I've switched companies and have the Samsung.
So, will the BCM be able to share information between the machines or is there a different type of BCM I need to look at?
Thanks,
Karl
Diane Poremsky says
BCM won't sync with the phone directly... if you have a surface pro, you could install it, but for BCM to share everything, you'd need to install it on all machines. Better would be companionlink & a sync utility or Office 365 Exchange Online if you own the domain.
Yuriy Havrylyuk says
Hi Diane
Thank you for your reply. I was able to fix this problem of remote database location by putting all computers on the VPN with direct tunneling. Works like a charm after.
Thanks,
Yuriy
Diane Poremsky says
Cool. Thanks for the update.
Yuriy says
Hi Dianne
I am trying to connect my Outlook BCM to the remote database, which is running on the Azure virtual machine. I installed SQL 2008 sp1 on the virtual machine and created a blank database with the BCM database tool. Then I shared this database using same tool.
Azure virtual machines require to set-up the end-points, so I have two: UDP 1434 and TCP 3656.
I can connect to the SQL server and see the database using SQL management studio from my laptop, however trying to do this from BCM I get error message:
The computer, servername, is not available, or does not contain any shared BCM databases....
The error message does not come right away, looks like it is kind of timeout due to the firewall. Is BCM using only SQL ports, or it needs more ports to be opened? I am fighting this problem all day without any luck so far.
Thanks,
Yuriy
Diane Poremsky says
AFAIK, it only uses SQL ports. But it doesn't work with SQL servers hosted on the internet.