Sharing Data with Business Contact Manager

Business Contact Manager is not a multiuser application. However, there are some built-in features that you can take advantage of to enable multiple users to access the same Business Contact Manager data:

• Exporting and importing BCM data You can export your Accounts or Contacts data to a .bcm file. You can then send this file to another user who can import the .bcm file. BCM files are not on Outlook's list of blocked file types.

• Backing up and restoring BCM data Business Contact Manager installs with a backup and restore program. You can back up your entire BCM database and export it to a compressed Business Contact Manager file. You can then email this file to another user who can import the file to his BCM installation. This process does not merge two BCM installations, but it does replace one BCM database with another.

• Multiple profiles on the same machine For users who access Outlook on the same machine, you can actually configure multiple profiles to use the same Business Contact Manager database. Although this might not be a common situation, for a one-computer office with several users, this functionality could be invaluable.

• Web services Although no Web services for importing and exporting BCM data were available at the time this book was written, it's very likely that some enterprising development company will configure a service provider to read and write Business Contact Manager data.