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moa/bcm data loss issue + workaround, moa service pack coming soon

regular visitors might remember our kickass integration of the following items here at the funcave:

• small business server 2003 r2, premium edition
• sql server 2005, workgroup edition
• microsoft office accounting professional 2007
• microsoft office outlook 2007
• business contact manager 2007
• windows mobile 5 pocket pc
• business contacts for pocket pc

as fantastic as this integration has been working, my recent visit to san diego uncovered a key flaw.

while there, i realized that many of my business contacts that had been synchronized on my pocket pc had only bare-bones information. these were contacts for which i had specifically keyed in additional information. i verified that the same information loss had occurred in the outlook client on my laptop as well.

this was obviously an issue for me since i was stuck without some of the more detailed contact information that i needed to stay in proper contact with my customers.

after a little bit of troubleshooting, i discovered if a customer account is modified or updated in moa 2007, any contact in bcm 2007 that is linked to that customer account will lose any & all contact information other than the 5 fields which are displayed in moa 2007:

• primary contact
• name
• title
• phone number
• e-mail address

this data loss occurs no matter if the contact was originally created in moa or bcm.

after posting this issue to the partner managed newsgroups, i received this response:

I did find that this is a known issue that is scheduled to be resolved in an upcoming service pack.

You should see this particular service pack for Microsoft Office Accounting 2007 available in the oncoming weeks

so keep an eye out kiddos. when this moa service pack drops, either susan or i will post up a link right away.

in the meantime, our workaround here at the funcave consists of a subfolder called backup bcm that we created in our regular contacts folder. we push copies of our bcm contacts there so if the contacts linked to a given account get flattened, we can copy replacements over in a flash. however, if you do a lot of e-mail and/or item linking, this workaround will utterly & totally break that linking in terrible horrible no-good very bad ways.

stay frosty…

|| posted by chris under business, funlab, mobility || comments (2) || ||