JoshSweeney

SugarCRM: Sugar Feeds in 5.2

The release of SugarCRM 5.2 has brought forth multiple features  including, but not limited to ,Sugar Feeds,  Additional Role types and the much hyped Cloud Connectors.  For this entry we will be going over the Sugar Feeds functionality and how it can assist in driving awareness around CRM activity.

Resources:

To start off with I would like to provide you with resources related to Sugar Feeds.

SugarCRM 5.2 Release Notes

Adding a Sugar Feed Dashlet ( Users )

Sugar Feeds Settings ( Admin )

What is a Sugar Feed?

A Sugar Feed is a way to automatically “alert” the team when new Leads, Cases, Contacts, or Opportunities are entered. Per the release notes “Team members are also notified of status updates when a lead is converted, when a case is closed, and when an opportunity is closed.”

The information is passed along using the Sugar Feed Dashlet which can be added by browsing to the Home tab -> Clicking Add Sugar Dashlets -> Choosing Tools -> My Sugar Feed.

You will then be presented with a Dashlet similar to the one below.

Administration

Sugar Feeds come “out of the box” with six simple checkboxes.

The Enable Sugar Feed must be enabled to have access to any of the other checkboxes. To activate a feed for a specific module you simply check the box for that module.

The Activate User Feed option is what allows users to post their own Images, YouTube Videos, or Links to the feed for everyone else to see. Without this they would only get updates about activities of system records and the options to add Links, Videos, and Images ( as seen below ) are removed.

The User

Although this is a nice feature, if the information does not pertain to you then you will never care to use it. As a user you will need to customize the Dashlet to display data that you are interested in.

Like all Dashlets. you can customize by clicking the Pencil Icon  inside of the Dashlet. This will present you with a menu to customize the updates by choosing modules that are most important to you.

A good example of why you would want to customize this would be if you are a support engineer. As a support engineer the incoming cases my be important to you. However, the converted leads are important but you don’t need to see them on an ongoing basis.

The Future Of Feeds

Sugar Feeds is a helpful addition to SugarCRM that allows users to share information easily with their collegues.  Whether it be from SugarCRM or users, in the future you are likely to see more content types available for “feeding” and additional modules added to the options. Another addition that I could see administrators asking for is the ability to lock down feeds based on roles.

If you can think of any other additions that would be helpful to Sugar Feed then please post a comment or email me.

SugarCRM: Import Wizard Tips

In this SugarCRM post I will discuss some tips on importing data into SugarCRM using the import wizard.

To start off with I would like to review what the import wizard is intended for. Even though the import wizard can import mass amounts of data, it’s intended use is to allow users to easily import data from various outlets such as trade shows, event attendance lists, and other exports that get appended to the current record set.

Tip 1: Database Migrations

As of SugarCRM 5.1 the import wizard is robust enough to import tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of records from a database dump. For an accounts migration starting point the import wizard will do the job. The problem comes when you want to maintain relationships during the migration.

When you are migrating data, each system relates records using different keys or formats in the database. SugarCRM is Accounts driven and relates using unique ids. This means that Accounts will go in smoothly but to import a related record, like a related Contact, you will have to get the contacts related account name and the SugarCRM Account id, merge the id in to the contact information and then import. This process is best left to tools like Talend and not the import wizard.

Tip 2: CSV Files

Most people use the comma separated values ( CSV ) format to import data. CSV does the job well but there are things that you need to check for before you import. The first is commas. Since you are importing using CSV, any time that the import wizard ( or Excel ) sees a comma is will think that it is working with the next column of data. This will completely throw off your imports. To fix this you will need to cleanse the data of commas before you import. You can usually substitute with a space or a dash depending on the data. The other alternative is to use another format for importing such as tab delimited since most dumps don’t have tabs in the data, but it is still something to watch out for.

The same thing that goes for commas goes for the the field qualifier. If each entry is wrapped in single quotes and the data fields have single quotes ( Ex: Janes’s Store ) then your data could get imported incorrectly.

Tip 3: Field Qualification and Saving Templates

Fields in CSV files are usually wrapped in quotes, double quotes, or are not wrapped leaving just the comma separators. When you are building the import mapping you are asked to choose which field qualification to use. My tip is to add which type you use in the naming of the template. The reason is that in SugarCRM’s current implementation if you import data using a template with the quotes field qualification and the data actually uses double quotes then the mapping will be blank. This isn’t a problem with a one time import or when the same person does the import the same way each time, but this is not always the case. You may receive weekly exports of the same type of data but from different people with different version of MS Excel/Open Office Calc causing different field qualifiers.

Tip 4: Drop Downs

All drop down boxes added in  Studio need to have a NULL entry as the first option. This is where you click the add button in the drop down editor with no data in the fields. The reason is that when you import data you have to specify a default value for fields that are not filled in. If you don’t have a NULL entry as an option then the import wizard will automatically assign the first value in the list even though the data for that column may not exist.

Tip 5: Matching Data for fields

If you are importing data that requires custom fields or custom values, then each of the custom fields/values needs to exactly match the data being imported. Let look at an example:

DropDown Example

Your data has field/column called Manager Level and the fields are filled in with three options which are Manager, Middle Manager, and Senior Manager.

In SugarCRM you have drop down box that has Manager and Senior Manager.

When you import the data you will get an error for every record that has Middle Manager as a value since it is not in the SugarCRM drop down. For data accuracy reasons SugarCRM is not going to automatically add that as a drop down item.

Hopefully these tips will help you the next time you import data into SugarCRM. If you run into any others that need to be added to the list then feel free to comment or send me an email.

Tags: crm, import wizard, SugarCRM, sugarcrm import

SugarCRM: New User Tips

SugarCRM is, for the most part, a channel sales organization. What this means for new users is that depending on the company/channel that the SugarCRM licenses are bought through, the new customer may or may not be given “the necessities” after the purchase. “The necessities” in this case are the links to information required to answer product questions after the sale takes place. In many instances new customers are given a license key and information about professional services and consulting.

In the next few paragraphs I will point you to the additional documents that you will need to have on hand in order to answer product questions as you move forward with your new CRM.

Documentation

The first area that we will look at is the SugarCRM Documentation page. Once you browse to this page you can pick the SugarCRM Edition that you are using and then the tab with your version. Under this tab there will be two or three guides depending on your version.

The first is the User Guide which will tell you about using every area of the product except the admin section. The documentation is very well written and answers almost any question that you may have.

The second document is the Installation and Administration Guide. This document will tell you everything that you need to know about the administration of SugarCRM. The installation portion will tell you how to install SugarCRM but will not tell you how to setup the webserver which is required to run the software. This is left out mainly because there are just to many different configurations and types of webservers on the market for SugarCRM to effectively provide this data. Also, if you are not familiar with or do not have someone that knows webservers in your organization then you should purchase the SaaS service and let someone else host SugarCRM.

The last guide is the developers guide. Currently this can be found in the forum or under the SugarCRM 5.1 version tab. It provides information about how SugarCRM operates internally so that you can make upgrade safe customizations and more easily adapt SugarCRM to your organization.

SugarCRM University

SugarCRM offers a healthy amount of documentation on the product. In conjunction with the documentation they also offer training, 80% of which is free. When you browse to the SugarUniversity page you will be presented with the SugarCRM Online Library and the Learning Sessions. The library holds step by step tutorials in written format and the learning sessions are videos that tell you how to use various areas of the product. I suggest that most users head over to the learning sessions and spend some time getting to know the product before they login.

The Forum

After you have searched the documentation and watched the videos you may still have questions. If you browse over to the SugarCRM Forum you will see a very active Help section. In this section you can post any general help related questions that you may have. Another good tip is to post to the forum before you open a support ticket. Most of the time someone else will be on the forum at the same time you are and can provide a quick answer or follow up.

Support vs Code Support

SugarCRM Support is the place that you go once you have exhausted all of the options above. One thing that SugarCRM support will not help you with is code level changes. Most of the time if it is in the form of a question such as “where should I put this file for it to be upgrade safe” then they will help. But sending code snippets asking for them to tell you why something won’t work is not part of the contract. Coding is one of those things were there is just to many variables. So, stick to sending in support tickets on product questions that you can ‘t figure out or if something breaks. For the developers, SugarCRM offers the forum and the Developer Zone.

Developer Zone

The Developer Zone is exactly what the title says. It is an area of the SugarCRM site that provides information around developing in SugarCRM. The blog is frequently updated by engineers and other SugarCRM team members which provides you up to date information about addons to various areas of the product. The tools and tutorials sections allow anyone to provide documents written about SugarCRM which range from “Light boxing in a detail view” to “Programmatically Hiding and Displaying Panels Based on the Value of A Drop Down in 5.1.”

SugarForge vs SugarExchange

The questions about SugarForge and SugarExchange come up for almost every new SugarCRM user. The forge and exchange are places to download modules that will add to the functionality of SugarCRM. They are very easy to install and instructions can be found in the Installation and Administration Guide.

• SugarForge

SugarForge is where developers can post modules that they want to share with everyone at no cost. These are use at your own risk modules that you will want to try out on a test machine before deploying to production.

• SugarExchange

This area is where users can buy and sell modules. One things to keep and eye out for in this section is the Certified by SugarCRM logo. This means that when you purchase a module, if it causes a problem with your SugarCRM instance that the SugarCRM support group will assist you. This points out another tip. SugarCRM support will not help you with 3rd party modules. You will need to contact the module builder to get support.

I hope that this has lead you to SugarCRM resources that you were not aware of and that will help you get moving in the right direction. If you have any other resources that were helpful to you during the time you were learning about SugarCRM please comment or email them to me.

Tags: Development, SugarCRM, sugarcrm development, sugarcrm new users, sugarcrm support, support