Outlook 2016: No BCM

Diane Poremsky

Senior Member
OS Version(s)
  1. MacOS
  2. Windows
  3. iOS
  4. Android
Outlook version
Outlook 2016 32 bit
Email Account
Office 365 Exchange
It took until the release of Office 2016 to get the news and it's not good for Business Contact Manager users: BCM will not be updated to work with Outlook 2016.

It's very important that Office 365 BCM users do not upgrade to Office 2016. They will also need to block the automatic upgrades to prevent Office 365 subscriptions from automatically upgrading to Office 2016.

You can set this reg key to prevent upgrades for 1 year:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\office\15.0\common\officeupdate
DWORD: enableautomaticupgrade
Value: 0

Details (and a ready-to-run reg file) at http://www.slipstick.com/outlook-bcm/outlook-2016-no-bcm/
 
It is really bad that Microsoft doesn't care about its small business customers. Dynamics is too "everything" for a small business where BCM gave us exactly what we needed. For a company that claims to be about business it really means that Microsoft is only about big business because anything that Microsoft creates that is really great for small business they discontinue. They discontinued MS Accounting and BCM which worked REALLY GREAT!! for small business and it is very sad that we have nothing that we can turn to as an alternative from Microsoft.
 
I think they are looking at doing something - if it comes to fruition, it will likely be a lite, affordable version of CRM.

The problem with really small businesses is while there might be a lot of us, we don't spend money like the big boys so we aren't as profitable. We don't buy contracts etc. My idea of a small business is 1 or 2 people, maybe up to like 10 or 25 but the government says you're a small business if you have under 300 employees and like 10M (or is it 100M?) in sales.
 
Thank you for responding. I have 6 people and I am always amazed that a small business is considered under 300, to me 300 employees is not a small business, but what can you do. I thank you for responding to me. I am just really frustrated because I can find anything that works like those two and it has been a while since I have felt like I am able to accurately track my time. As a consultant who bills by project and hours it is important to keep up with everything. I'll just keep hoping that at some point there will be thing offered that works as well.
 
Thanks for the update Diane,

I am so angry with MS.

I transferred 15,000 customers to BCM and moved over from Maximizer CRM. I integrated BCM into our small business and works superbly.

Just updated to 365, 2016 without thinking and found it was not compatible.

Now we have confirmation that they are not continuing it.

The problem is, it becomes difficult to be kept back with Office upgrades.

I know they want us to use Dynamics, but it just doesn't work well for us. However, we are left with no option but to investigate further.

I have converted so many people into using CRM, I now feel embarrassed.

Regards

Chris
 
Oh dear!

I am now in trouble.

I have rolled back to a previous time and now Office doesn't work. It wants me to re install from my 365 account! But it will only try and install 2016 again!

Rather foolishly I didn't back up BCM before installing 2016.

Not sure how to get out of this one.

Chris
 
Cannot go back to a previous date!

Think I will have to re-install office 2013 but cannot find it!

Chris
 
Users who were auto-upgraded to Office 2016 from Office 365 Personal, Home, or University can uninstall Office 2016 and install Office 2013 from their Office account portal.

Business subscribers should have time to block the upgrade using the registry key, if not, see https://community.office365.com/en-us/f/172/t/409681 for the steps necessary to revert to Office 2013.

Registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\office\15.0\common\officeupdate
DWORD: enableautomaticupgrade
Value: 0

*I think* they might be working on a CRM to replace BCM - hopefully at a price point small businesses can justify - the current CRM pricing is too high for many small customers (and has a lot more than they need). No idea if or when though. If it's going to be in the spring when office 2016 is released to volume license, then it won't be a long wait.
 
Thank you Diane,

I am currently downloading 2013 after un-installing 2016. Just hope it has kept all of my BCM data!

I did find some large folders that appeared to be my database and backed them up before starting!

Will let you know how I get on.

Why on earth didn't it advise me during the install that BCM would not be compatible? Surely that would have been a sensible thing for MS to do!

Doesn't take away how daft I was to update without thinking it through. I should have learnt my lesson by now with MS!

Best regards

Chris
 
Drat!

Installed and went to activate.

Came up with the following warning:

The products we found in your account can't be used to activate Microsoft Office 365 Business.

Bit confused.

I wonder if it's because it now thinks I have 2016 installed and doesn't like it that I am showing 2013?

Regards

Chris
 
Hi Diane,

I can confirm that it has installed Office 2013 which is brilliant.

However, when it asks me to activate it tells me:

Your product isn't installed.
Go to your account to install it

Obviously if I install from there it will put 2016 on.

Any ideas?

Best regards

Chris
 
Hi Diane,

Sorted!

The answer was simple. It always is!!

I had installed the Business version of Office. I have a licence for the Small Business Version!

Deleted the incorrect one and used this link to install the correct one:

https://community.office365.com/en-...=21c637c2-8db9-4eae-873d-e23e84f2fd3c#1014745

Thank you so much for all your help.

Hopefully this post will help others who make the same mistake!

Best regards

Chris
 
Hi Diane,

With regards to stopping updates. I could not find the line in the Registry, but did find this method:

From Outlook
File
Office Account
Office Updates
Change to Disable Updates

Is there any reason you did not mention this one, which is obviously easier?

Best regards

Chris
 
Hehe... thought I posted this yesterday....
>>>
it's supposed to warn about BCM (and Exchange 2007) if either are detected - or maybe only the business subscription warns.

Your product isn't installed.
Go to your account to install it

Which subscription did you buy? Activation should be just signing in.... but if it's rejecting the sign in, there is a problem.
>>>

Its a good thing you figured it out on your own.. :)

If the key doesn't exist, set it. The setting you changed applies to monthly updates, the registry key disables a banner that tells you an upgrade is ready to install.
 
I think they are looking at doing something - if it comes to fruition, it will likely be a lite, affordable version of CRM.

The problem with really small businesses is while there might be a lot of us, we don't spend money like the big boys so we aren't as profitable. We don't buy contracts etc. My idea of a small business is 1 or 2 people, maybe up to like 10 or 25 but the government says you're a small business if you have under 300 employees and like 10M (or is it 100M?) in sales.

I hope they come up with something.
We are a small organization. We have two shared BCM DBs, one owned by our IT Department (2 people) and another one owned by Management with about 10 users. We cannot afford Dynamics CRM!!!
 
At this point, all I know is that you should set the key and hold off upgrading for about a year.
 
unfortunately, Microsoft has chosen to stop Business Contact Manger (BCM) so there won't be a 2016 form of BCM nor a refresh to make the present variant perfect with Outlook 2016.
 
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