I've tried using the Business Contact Manager addin on Outlook 2013 to familiarise myself with it, as most of my clients would be more interested in trying it out before moving on Dynamics CRM.

At first it seemed pretty good, with wide integration with the Office suite and decent functionality.  However, now it has stopped starting with Outlook.  I enabled the addin to always start (as it was disabled because it was causing Outlook to start slowly), but now I have to set the whole thing up again.

I didn't make a note of the SQL database credentials on my first tryout, and it won't be too much hassle to set up again, but I don't want to spend any more time with it if this is the sort of thing it does on a regular basis.  

Is Business Contact Manager usable?  Why has it stopped working and does this often happen with Office 2013?

If its disabled, you can select the database you used - no need to redo everything. Enable it then select Connect to Local Database. You don't need to log in or anything. If you were using a Remote db, choose Connect to Remote Database instead - again, no user/password needed, you just need to know the name of the remote computer.

As for why it stopped - it's hard to say. Outlook 2013 is really aggressive about disabling addins that slow it's loading. It often disables the Social Connector, BCM, and Exchange addin here - that last one is very annoying because I'm using an Exchange account and Outlook isn't smart enough to know that I need that addin.

Thanks for your help Diane.

I think I'll give OBCM another shot and hope it doesn't do this again.

I have had the same problem time and time again it keeps disabling the bcm an the social connector-the social connector is the main reason BCM works for me so when it is disabled it is irritating.  Does anyone know what causes the slowness in these to add ins that triggers outlook to disable them?  Is it a processor speed or internet speed.  Is there anyway around this?  Does going to Dynamic fix these issues?

I guess "it's outlook being an a**" isn't technical enough? <g>  As anyone who has used outlook for years can attest, outlook is a slug. It can take "forever" to load. One cause of slow load times is addins that load slow so in an effort to speed it up, the product team gave addins a limited time to load then cut them off. The problem is that the first addin needs to bring up the net framework and outlook blames it for being slow because it's waiting for the framework. It's worse if Outlook is in the start up folder - it's usually better to load windows then start outlook after the desktop is ready. Some of BCM's problem is making the db connection - it really needs 2x the allowance.

Dynamic won't solve the problem - it gets disabled too. (I tested it.)

There is a key you can add to the registry to override Outlook 2013 - to tell it to never disable the addin - it's in GPO and I have a reg key at http://www.slipstick.com/doit/addinlist.reg   it tells outlook not to disable the 3 Microsoft addins - Exchange, Social connector, BCM. If you don't use Exchange, you can remove that line before running the

I've used Outlook since at least the 97 version.  Used to actually do some programming for custom stuff in it.  I like the BCM but it is really frustrating.  It will work for a while, then suddenly go through a spell when it is constantly being disabled by Outlook.  I use it to keep track of everything, including projects, for my business.  I can fix it each time, but this is getting to the point of being ridiculous.  I may have to look at migrating to something else for business client contacts, tracking opportunities, email tracking with clients and projects.  Don't want to, but I'm about at the end of my rope.  Is it really just because Outlook takes too long to load so it decides to shutoff BCM?  When I go back in to tell it to not disable, the whole thing hangs up and I have to use Windows Task Manager to shut it all down.