1. Prep your PC before leaving. Most small-business users forget to upload the latest contacts to their laptop before leaving the office. Obvious, you say? Not really. If your portable computer isn't your primary PC, chances are good that you'll forget. In fact, according to Joe Rymsza, the president of Vettro, a New York company that designs mobile enterprise applications, neglecting to synch your laptop is the No. 1 error that mobile users make. "You have to understand that in a small-business environment, information and timing is critical to survival — every active lead must be followed with the right understanding of your prospect's needs, combined with the right knowledge that your solution provides," he says. Having access to your own files, including customer notes, history, and contact information, at your immediate disposal is the best way to avoid making critical sales mistakes."Also, don't forget to back your data up when you're out of the office. There are a number of applications that can automatically back up information from your hard drive. There's also a backup add-in for Outlook 2003 that you can download.

2. Consider buying a server. "From a pure functionality standpoint, every business that has more than one person should have Small Business Server in order to benefit from Exchange for contact management," says Patrick Gilbert, president of 4SmartPhone, Inc., a Phoenix mobility solutions provider. Even if it's just you and an assistant, a server allows you to manage your contacts through Exchange while you're on the road. "You'll get a tremendous gain in productivity," he says.Of course, there are other benefits to using Windows Small Business Server 2003. See this page.

3. Manage your contacts remotely — and selectively. Should you use the Exchange Server or Outlook 2003 from your laptop? Alan Canton, president of Adams-Blake Company, a publishing, programming and software consultancy in Fair Oaks, Calif., favors Exchange because it eliminates much of the messy synching. However, if you're using some of the functions in Business Contact Manager, you may be better off running Outlook on the client side — in other words, using your version of Outlook on your PC — rather than connecting through Exchange.Note that if you plan to use Business Contact Manager with Exchange Server in Small Business Server, you must download this Business Contact Manager update. For more information on the need for this update, see this webcast.

4. Keep your phone contacts synched. Fortunately, ActiveSync — a feature which ensures all of your devices are using the same contact data, among other things — is built into Small Business Server 2003. As Furman of S.T.F. Consulting points out, there are massive changes in the data on phones these days. "It opens the doors to a large amount of smart phones that you can wirelessly sync, so that any changes that you make out of the office will automatically synch between the smart phone and the Exchange Server," he says.Exchange Server's ActiveSync supports a variety of devices, not just phones. These include Pocket PCs, Pocket PC Phone Editions, and Windows Mobile-based Smartphones. For more information on the features in Exchange Server, take a tour of its features.