Interfacing with MS Outlook

[Danny Grizzle]

On 1/13/03 10:25 PM, "Ken Ray" <kray at sonsothunder.com> wrote:

> Not that I'm aware of, but it sounds cool... The only issue is getting at
> the Exchange data store; I don't know if that is a direct SQL link or not
> (as far as I know Exchange keeps its data in a different format). I'd think
> there have got to be hooks out there, as Outlook Web Access uses an ActiveX
> to communicate to the Exchange Server...

I'm going to hit the Microsoft website. Outlook and Outlook Express are
supposedly totally different products, despite confusion in naming. Outlook
is not really a freestanding application, but group enabled running against
Microsoft Backoffice (if I've got my facts right...). Anyway, the
application I need is probably most directly addressed by Lotus Notes,
although I don't see myself going that route.

I'm selling log homes. The sales cycle is long, often a decade or more of
dreaming, lots of conversations to track, with an intensive iterative round
of plans and bids towards the end. Add complexities such as commissioned
sales, quick sorting & assignment of incoming phone calls (no - *yawn* -
music on hold). Customers forget their salesman's name, they move and change
phone numbers, plus variables like female customers names changing, or not
changing to match their husbands these days -- there's a challenge in
avoiding duplication, matching customers with correct database records and
correct salesmen.

Amid all this, having tracked phone calls & correspondence by database for
15+ years, e-mail has become a loose cannon, no consolidation, no records on
file. Yet e-mail is more and more important as a method of passing
significant correspondence, such as quotes, bidding, and change orders.

Outlook also contains interesting features like Tasks, Calendars, and a
convenient point of access into customer database records via Address Books.

I'd like to avoid retraining employees, and avoid reinventing the wheel by
trying to code an in-house application to duplicate the functions of
Outlook. There will be a custom application, but I would like it to operate
in tandem with Outlook, not as a replacement for functionality already
provided by that platform.

Danny Grizzle