Hi Micah, there is no out of the box Outlook or Exchange integration in the initial release (aside from being notified via email of many common events in "Bamboo"), however the developers API will easily allow integration within Outlook to "Bamboo" with a moderate amount of programming skills.  I will put an entry in the to-do database to include in the developers API samples an example of integrating some objects in "Bamboo" with  Outlook.

Basically in a nutshell, anything that is an object in "Bamboo" that you can interact with in the user interfaces you can easily interact with as business objects through code.  The user interfaces are built on the same business objects you can use in anything from a full blown program to VBA in Microsoft Office products etc.

I suspect once you see the calendar and scheduling features within "bamboo" there will be little desire to do that in Outlook, however if that's required it's certainly possible to import that into Outlook using the developers API included. 

It's not a feature we were considering since we've replicated that functionality right inside "Bamboo" but if enough people desire it we will, as always, build it in with a future release or as a standalone integration module that plugs into Outlook itself.

As far as clients, there will be a full customer interface via web browser that's much more responsive and powerful than a client sending an email in for service since they will be able to create their own service request work orders directly in "Bamboo" and view their service items as they progress etc.  Clients could easily be integrated into the notification system once we know what's desired, however what we will have for the client interface could likely make it un-necessary for notification for the client.  As always we will go by the feedback we receive here after release and entries in the wish list for future features.

Cheers!

- John

This important because my group of consultants is highly mobile.  We support many different clients, and may visit several on any given day.  We need a solution that is highly portable.  Being able to enter and retreive datails from a Palm Pilot or Pocket PC is a big deal.

Now, if you folks want to take that on as well, good on ya, but when is it likely do be ready to use?

FWIW, the other aspect that held us back was that the current version's web interface (again, mobile access is essential!) is clunky and feature-poor.  The work report printing wasn't great, but with Crystal, was at least fixable.

For now, we're making do with Outlook/Exchange.  I often look wistfully at Ayanova and wish it had the mobile support we need -- it seems to suit our business model so well otherwise -- but without better support for mobile consultants, we can't use it.

Just wanted to make sure you were aware of the third party add-ons offered in the AyaNova Related Products & Services at http://forum.ayanova.com/Topic1947-31-1.aspx from itNorth that include an Outlook interface

- Joyce

AyaNova Sales & Technical Support

http://www.ayanova.com

Just a note that we've released a complete replacement for the original ARAS remote access product you referred to for AyaNova 3.x.  It's an asp.net application and has many more features than the original one did.