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You can use Business Contact Manager for Outlook to link incoming and outgoing e-mail messages to any Account (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 Contact (Business Contact: A person with whom you do business at a company or organization.), or Business Project (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.) record (record: A completed Account, Business Contact, or Opportunity form. The record contains Account, Business Contact, or Opportunity information, plus the other records and items that are linked to it.). By changing your e-mail linking options, you can specify that existing and future outgoing and incoming e-mail messages from any selected e-mail addresses are automatically linked to that Account, Business Contact, or Business Project record.

 Note   Attachments to e-mail messages are not linked to records along with the e-mail messages. You can save an attachment as a file and then you can link the file to the communication history of the Business Contact Manager record.

You can also link an assigned task to any Account, Business Contact, Opportunity or Business Project record.

To see the messages and tasks linked to a record, complete the following procedure:

1. On the Business Contact Manager menu, click Accounts, Business Contacts, Opportunities, or Business Projects.
2. Double-click the record that you want to open.
3. On the Ribbon (ribbon: An element that replaces most menus, toolbars, and task panes. The ribbon features task-based tabs that contain tools and options organized into logical groups.), in the Show group, click History.

• Link an individual e-mail message or task to an Account, Business Contact, Opportunity, or Business Project record

• Automatically link e-mail messages to an Account, Business Contact, or Business Project record

• Save outgoing e-mail messages

• Unlink an e-mail message or task from a record

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Link an individual e-mail message or task to an Account, Business Contact, Opportunity, or Business Project record

You can link an individual e-mail message or task to one or more records.

1. Select the e-mail message or task that you want to link to a record.
2. On the Business Contact Manager toolbar, click Link to Record.
3. In the Link to a Business Contact Manager record dialog box, in the Folder list, click one of the following types of record you want to link the e-mail message or task to:
   • Accounts (default)
   • Business Contacts
   • Opportunities
   • Business Projects
4. In the list of records that appears, click the records you want to link the e-mail message to, and then click the Link To button.

    Note   To select adjacent records, press the SHIFT key, and then click the first and last record. To select nonadjacent records, press the CTRL key, and then click the individual records.

 Tip   Why would you manually link individual e-mail messages to a record when you can automatically link e-mail messages? If co-workers who also work with your customer send you e-mail messages about the transaction, you can manually link the e-mail messages to the Account or Business Contact record by clicking the Link to Record button, allowing you save all of the messages with the customer record.

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Automatically link e-mail messages to an Account, Business Contact, or Business Project record

Instead of linking individual e-mail messages to a record, you can use E-mail Auto-linking to link all future incoming and outgoing messages from and to a specified e-mail address.

1. Select an e-mail message to or from the specified e-mail address that you want to link automatically to an Account, Business Contact, or Business Project record.
2. On the Business Contact Manager toolbar, click E-mail Auto-link.
• To link to an Account or Business Contact, in the E-mail Auto-link dialog box, on the E-mail Address tab, select one or more e-mail addresses contained in the message, and then click OK.

  The selected e-mail message and any future e-mail messages—both incoming and outgoing—that contain the specified e-mail address are now linked to that Account or Business Contact record. The link is displayed in the Communication History section of that record.

• To link to a Business Project, in the E-mail Auto-link dialog box, on the Business Contact Manager Projects tab, select one or more Business Projects.

  Notes  

• To select all of the e-mail addresses or Business Projects, click Select All.
• To clear the check boxes of all the e-mail addresses or folders, click Clear All.
• To get assistance with entering information in the dialog box, click the Help button.

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Save outgoing e-mail messages

Because Business Contact Manager for Outlook can only automatically link an e-mail message to an Account or Business Contact if the e-mail message is stored in your Sent Items folder in Outlook, we recommend that you set your e-mail options to save copies of your sent messages so your outgoing mail is automatically linked.

How?

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Unlink an e-mail message or task from a record

When you unlink (unlink: To disconnect an item from a record, or a record from another record.) an e-mail message or a task from an individual record, Business Contact Manager for Outlook stores the e-mail message or task if it is still linked to another record. Links to the e-mail message or task in other records are not affected. For example, if you unlink a message from an Opportunity record, the e-mail message remains linked to its Account and Business Contact records.

1. On the Business Contact Manager menu, click Accounts, Business Contacts, Opportunities, or Business Projects.
2. Open the record in which you want to unlink the e-mail message or task.
3. On the Ribbon, in the Show group, click History.
4. Right-click the message or task that you want to unlink, and then click Delete on the shortcut menu.

 Note   If you click a link when the original e-mail message or task has been deleted, you can see the first 4 kilobytes (KB) of the e-mail message, or the title and status information for the task in a Business Activity form.

• Clean BCM database