Make Skype calls directly from your Outlook contacts 
A product that is currently revolutionising the telephony industry today is Skype™, which is a free Voice-over-IP service. Skype allows you to make telephone calls to either other Skype users (which are free calls), or to non-Skype users on conventional land-line and mobile telephone numbers using their SkypeOut facility. If you're a Skype user and maintain your contacts in Outlook, either in your Personal Contacts folder or a Public Contacts folder, Look2Skype is the perfect add-in for Outlook. Look2Skype allows you to make Skype calls directly from your Outlook contacts. Read more on-line...

Using a SQL Filter when defining Outlook Custom Views 
Those of you who have used Outlook for a while may have discovered the power of Outlook Views and use these on every folder to group, sort and filter your outlook data depending on the task at hand. One of Outlook’s (fairly well) hidden secrets is the SQL Tab on the Filter dialog in Outlook 2002 and 2003 (Note: Unfortunately this article does not apply if you’re using Outlook 2000!). This article explores how the SQL Tab can be used to create advanced queries or filters when the need arises. Read more on line...

Microsoft Exchange Server 12 to retain existing Data Store
Last month we featured an article on the benefits of Microsoft Exchange Server and Hosted/Managed Exchange Services, focused primarily around Exchange 2003, the current version of Exchange Server, released in late 2003. However, much was expected to change with the next version of Exchange - there has been speculation that the next version of Exchange, due in 2006, known internally as Exchange 12 (E12), would depart radically from Exchange 2003. Fortunately, in January Microsoft announced that they would be retaining the existing Jet database engine for the next version of Microsft Exchange. This is a significant announcement because there have been plans to change the data store, possibly merging it with SQL Server 2005, or using the much touted Windows Future Storage (WinFS). Read more on-line...

Profiling your Contacts/Clients - Using the Outlook Forms Designer: No. 2 in the Series
This is the second in a series of articles focusing on creating and maintaining a correctly profiled list of contacts in Outlook, and managing this database. This month we look at creating Outlook Views to group, sort and filter our contact list. Views allow us to define and then target a certain sub-set of the database, say for the purposes of sending only that group of contacts a newsletter or direct mailing. Read more on-line...

E-Mail Handling with MX-Contact
The “Holy Grail” of CRM has always been “a single view of all customer-related information”. Because e-mail is now so pervasive and in many instances is becoming the primary form of communication between a company and its prospects, customers, partners, suppliers, etc., it is vital that all relevant team members dealing with these contacts have access to all e-mail correspondence. In this way they are aware of what is happening on each account, without necessarily having to be CC’d or (BCC’d) on every mail, resulting in unnecessary clutter in each person’s Inbox.
One of the great features of MX-Contact is its ability to link incoming and outgoing e-mail to the recipients and/or senders that are stored in the MX-Contact Contacts folder, and copy these e-mails to the shared (Public) E-Mail folder so that this correspondence is visible to other people in the organization. Read more on-line...