In Business Contact Manager for Outlook, you can use one of the more than 50 reports to see the state of your Accounts (Account: A business or organization with which you do business. If a service is being provided, such as dental or medical, an Account can also be a customer.), Business Contacts (Business Contact: A person with whom you do business at a company or organization.), leads (lead: A potential customer who must be contacted by a salesperson and either qualified or disqualified as a sales opportunity.), Opportunities (Opportunity: The chance to sell your products or services to an Account or Business Contact.), activities (activity: An action to be performed, such as a task, or a communication item that is sent or received, for example, e-mail, phone calls, and appointments.), Business Projects (Business Project: A project that is created in Business Contact Manager for Outlook. A Business Project is made up of one or several project tasks.), and Marketing Campaigns (Marketing Campaign: A marketing program that uses many communication vehicles, for example, ads and direct mail, to accomplish a specific result, such as increasing marketing share, introducing new products, or retaining customers.). You can create reports to help you sort and filter data, organize and track business activities, and define your business goals. If Business Contact Manager for Outlook is integrated with an accounting system (accounting system: The accounting program.), you can also run financial reports.
What do you want to do?
Run a Business Contact Manager report
To run a report, on the Business Contact Manager menu, point to Reports, point to a group of reports, and then select a report type, or click Open Saved Report.
Note If a user-defined field (user-defined field: A field that you can create and define to track information specific to your business.) included in a report is deleted from the current database, a saved report will not display the customized information because reports are rerun each time they are reopened. Reports that have been exported to Excel* are not affected because they are saved in a different program.
For assistance with modifying the report, click the Help
button on the Reports toolbar (Reports toolbar: The toolbar at the top of the Reports section, used to create and edit reports.).
Tip Accounts or Business Contacts are included in the Neglected Accounts or Neglected Business Contacts reports if the record has not been updated for 90 or more days.
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Customize a Business Contact Manager report
You can customize reports in Business Contact Manager for Outlook in several ways.
- Prior to running a report, you can add user-defined fields to the forms and you can edit the values that are available in the lists for certain fields. The lists are also referred to as drop-down lists.
- After running the report, you can use the Simple and Advanced tabs in the report filter (filter: A filter can define which records or columns are returned from a query. A filter always limits the outcome.) to refine the records that are included in the report.
- Before saving or printing the report, you can use the commands available in the Modify Report pane to make changes to the format and content of your report, including displaying the user-defined fields or custom columns that you added to the forms.
The following table lists the customizations you can perform with reports, with a link to the Help topic for more information.
Customizations that you can perform with reports
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Export a Business Contact Manager report to Microsoft Office Excel* or other applications for further analysis
By default, reports saved in Business Contact Manager for Outlook are saved in a Business Contact Manager report file format, with the .bcr file extension. However, you can also export your report for further analysis to Excel* or other applications. To export the report data to another application, export the report to Excel*, and then copy or save the report in the file format that you want.
- On the Business Contact Manager menu, point to Reports, and then click Open Saved Report.
- Click the report that you want to open.
- On the File menu, click
Export to Excel.
- In Excel*, save the report in the file format that you want.
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Send a Business Contact Manager report as an Excel* file attachment in e-mail
You can send a report as an Excel* attachment for review in an e-mail message.
- Open the report that you want to send.
- On the File menu, click Send E-mail with Excel Attachment.
A new e-mail message opens with the report attached.
- Add the information required to send the e-mail message, and then click Send.
Note To open a saved report, on the Business Contact Manager menu, point to Reports, and then click Open Saved Report. The report file name includes the .bcr file name extension.
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Launch a Marketing Campaign from a Business Contact Manager report
With Business Contact Manager for Outlook you can create and launch a Marketing Campaign from an Accounts, Business Contacts, or leads report.
Run a report
On the Business Contact Manager menu, point to Reports, point to Accounts, Business Contacts, or Leads, and then click the report that you want to create, or click Open Saved Report.
Refine the report by using the filters (optional)
- To create a specific list of recipients for your Marketing Campaign, in the report, on the Actions menu, click Filter Report.
- In the Filter dialog box, use the Simple Filter and the Advanced Filter tabs to specify the information that you want.
- Click the Review Results tab to view your filtered recipients list. If the results are not what you want, return to the Simple Filter or the Advanced Filter tab, and continue to refine your filters until you get the results you want.
Tip To create a Marketing Campaign that includes only selected recipients, first press the CTRL key and select the recipients you want to include in the list.
Create a Marketing Campaign from the report.
On the Actions menu, point to Launch Marketing Campaign, and then do one of the following:- Click All Items to create a new Marketing Campaign that includes all the recipients in the report.
- Click Selected Items to create a new Marketing Campaign that includes only the recipients you've selected in the report.
Launch the Marketing Campaign.
Complete the Marketing Campaign form, and then click the Launch button.
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Save, refresh, or print a Business Contact Manager report
- To save a report, on the File menu, click Save Report or Save Report As.
Note If a user-defined field included in a report is deleted from the current database after the report is saved, it will not display in the report when it is run again because reports are rerun each time they are reopened. Reports that have been exported to Excel* are not affected because they are saved in a different program.
- To refresh a report, on the View menu, click Refresh Report.
Note A report can only be refreshed if it is opened in Business Contact Manager for Outlook. To refresh a report already saved to another application, open Business Contact Manager for Outlook, rerun the report, and then export it to the application and save it again.
- To print a report, on the File menu, click Print.
*The stand-alone edition of Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager can be used with Excel 2007 or Excel 2003.
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