Make Outlook Customer Manager your own
Published Jun 22 2017 08:42 AM 6,180 Views
Microsoft

You know your business best. So we have enabled you to customize your contacts, companies and deals. For example if you are an interior designer you might want to store the favorite color for your customer or your steps in a deal stage include a consultation phase. You can add fields to them, you can change the stages in deals and you can update your amount currency.  

(Read more about it here.)

 

 

Up until recently you were only able to create text, number and date fields. A few days ago, we added the ability to create a few other field types:

  • Link: to store websites or project sites easily
  • yes/no: to store true/false values for things such as "requires training"
  • Currency: to store numbers formatted according to a currency, such as "discount"
  • Choice fields: to store options, which can only be selected for this field, such as "status"

 

Now, when you go to the Add column link, it opens the add column dialog and gives you more options to choose from.

Add column dialog with field typesAdd column dialog with field types

 

Some of you asked for a choice field. Using it, you are able to create dropdown lists.

For example as an interior designer you might want to clarify which part of the house you are designing as part of your deal. Using the choice field you can limit it to living room, dining room and bath room. This makes sure you and your colleagues use the same set of options.

Add column dialog with setting options on a choice fieldAdd column dialog with setting options on a choice field

Also it will help you, when trying to sort and filter on these fields later on.

 

These new fields, similar to before, will show up as part of the details section of a contact, company or deal:

Deal details with choice custom fieldDeal details with choice custom field

Let us know, what you think about these new column types and what other types of customization you would like to see. There are a few requests in our feedback forum, so vote them up:

19 Comments
Bronze Contributor

Any updates on when this becomes available to E3 users?  Thanks.  

Microsoft

@Eric Davis: sorry, no updates yet. 

Copper Contributor

Silly question but where do you view shared OCM contacts?

Copper Contributor

 I have added custom columns to my contacts but everytime I update a deal or a task the information in these columns disappears and I have to re-enter? Can you please advise.

Microsoft

@Arlen Donders : sorry for the late reply. You can view shared OCM contacts in your Contacts view on the module. When you select "All contacts", it will show shared and private contacts.

Microsoft

@Brett Bernard This should not be happening. Sorry for that. I will send you a private message for troubleshooting. Thank you!

Copper Contributor

OCM is not exporting contacts - the error i receive in the Excel workbook is below:

Sorry, an error has occurred during Export. Please try again later.

 

I've also deleted my cache.

Copper Contributor

Choice only allows you to establish a single choice. Is there a way to create a field that enables the user to select multiple choices? 

 

I have contacts that work with a number of different vendors.  I need to be able to associate each with multiple vendors, and then see that at a glance and/or search for all of my contacts that work with a single vendor.  

 

I just noticed - is this choice field even searchable from the OCM "dashboard"?  Text in a contact Notes field is searchable in the OCM "dashboard" view, but not, it appears, the fields created using the "Add Column" method above. 

Microsoft

@Russell Mitchell yes, you are correct we currently only support single choice. This is a good suggestion. You can suggest more features here: Feature Feedback. We are looking at them from time to time and add them to our roadmap as appropriate.

 

As for the choice field being searchable. Currently we have a bug, where we cannot search or filter on custom fields (the ones that you added through "add column"). We are fixing this and hope to have it working again in the next few weeks.

Copper Contributor

OCM currently appears on the Outlook client ribbon (v 2016) however when trying to access it I receive a browser error ( i'm running windows 8). I've been unsuccessful resolving this issue with MS Tech support.  I noticed that the OCM plugin doesnt appear under the Office365/ admin center / service & add-ins list.  Should it appear here? I tried to search and add (OCM) it but search results did not turn up anything.

Any thought would be greatly appreciated

Microsoft

@john reilly I reached out to you via personal message.  

Copper Contributor

Would love to see a auto complete related to text fields where in it would suggest a response based on the characters types in (based on pervious entries).

 

also, how many custom fields can be added in total?  I was told 25 and it included Deleted fields (if a user changed or removed one).

 

Is this team amount for all of us OCM, as it  appears the ad field option is available for both company in contact as well.

Microsoft

@Brandon Berger - I like the idea. Could you post it here: https://outlook.uservoice.com/forums/407082 We use this service to collect all ideas.

 

For the custom fields - you can add 25 fields per entity, meaning 25 for contact, 25 for company and 25 for deal. When you delete a field, OCM will keep the field hidden, but once you reach the 25 field capacity OCM is overwriting deleted fields until you have 25 active fields. 

 

Hope that helps

Copper Contributor

I am using BCM and tried to import my contacts to OCM as csv. file. Most of my contacts have more than 2 email ids and phone numbers, while importing to OCM, it is not maintaining the field relationship and it only provides specific inbuilt fields to map csv. contact columns with new columns. I can't even add more than one email Id per contact.

Is there any other way to add contacts from BCM to OCV (via csv.) maintaining all its fields. I can't import one by one as I got more than 5000 contacts..

Copper Contributor

Hello, is there a way to add Shared Business contacts to Outlook using Microsoft Flow? Number of fields I can populate there in rather limited... So far it looks like after each added contact I have to share it manually in my Outlook.

Capture.PNG

Thank you

Deleted
Not applicable

I am having an issue with OCM replicating to all users.  I have updated the the Columns in OCM and that to is not replicating across to users.

Example I have 213 companies in my OCM

My boss and my PA only has the original  95 I entered and the first column structure I develop.

 

 

 

Microsoft

Hello Christopher,

 

Thanks for your feedback.

 

To help you resolve this problem, we need to collect some detailed information about your current situation. Since it contains some privacy, I will send you a private message to collect them. Please click on the message icon in the community to access it.

 

Your cooperation is highly appreciated.

 

Best Regards,

Barry

Copper Contributor

With OCM can I re-arrange the columns or change the view?  I want to re-arrange the standard view so that certain columns will be visible and others hidden.  I also want to be able to change the order of the columns as they appear in the view.  This seems like it should have been a basic feature.

Copper Contributor

Good morning. New to customer manager/Contacts in outlook. In the past, I have used ACT. In ACT you can change the existing fields and add fields to

the profile of the contact manager. The reason for this function, I purchase lists of business content. I have about 20 to 50 fields needing to be added

to the file. I also need the fields to show up on the main screen or as part of the main screen or be able to redesign the main screen.

 

Can I change the existing fields that are currently in contact? Can I add new fields to the existing contact (all contacts) not just for one contact? Also, be about to see it on the business card or people 

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