2009 Ontario GNU Linux Fest - Build your business on SugarCRM

Build Your Business on SugarCRM

John Mertic

©2009 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved.

Business Software

Common characteristicsDeals with interactions with their customers

Company informationContacts at the company and their information

Manages the growth and activity of their customersActivity History ( Calls, Meetings, Emails, Services, etc )Scheduling of upcoming calls or meetingsForecasting of upcoming services needed

Provides reporting on their customers and servicesFormal, structured reportingQuick glance “dashboards”Powerful searching capabilities

Simplifies communication between different areas in the company.

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Business Software ( Developers Perspective )

Common characteristicsUser authentication / management

ACLs / Granular SecurityUser preference customizationAbility to group users together into teamsTrack user actions

CRUD style user interface ( Create Retrieve Update Delete )Support Import/Exporting of dataCustomizable interface to accommodate future growth needs


What is CRM?

“Customer relationship management (CRM) consists of the processes a company uses to track and organize its contacts with its current and prospective customers.” (Wikipedia)Goals

Centralized database of all customer information.Tool to simplify communication between different departments.Enables easier planning of future interactions with a customer and aids in forecasting their growth.

CRM seems like the logical solution to business software


Problems with typical CRM software

ExpensiveLicensing costsImplementation timeTraining

Software is complicatedDifficult to customize/extend to match your needsHigh learning curve for end users

Very proprietaryFew or no documented extending abilities / limited APIsNo easy way to get your data back out

Based on old and antiquated technologiesLots of client/server architected systems – very few web-based


What’s the solution?



What is SugarCRM?

World’s leading provider of open source CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software.

Founded as an open source project in 2004.Over 5 million downloads.Currently serves over 500,000 users in 75 different languages.

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SugarCRM Open Source Edition

Sugar Community EditionFully GPLv3 open sourceProvides the core sales, marketing, collaboration, and support tools for any organization of any size ( best suited from less than 10 users )

No restrictions on number of users

Allows users to add dashboards that provide employees and managers real-time information about leads, opportunities, accounts, and other types of records.Allows integration with external applications via a web services API.Provides rich module and interface design and customization tools


SugarCRM Commercial Editions

Sugar ProfessionalAdds support for managing teams of usersAdvanced reporting toolMobile clientWorkflow managementGranular ACL of fields and module access

Sugar EnterpriseSupport for building a customer portal frontend to your Sugar instanceRicher SQL based reporting toolsOracle database support


What is SugarCRM ( for developers) ?

Built using PHP on a LAMP architectureRuns on Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X, WindowsUses MySQL or SQL Server as a database ( Oracle supported in Enterprise version )YUI used for most of the rich UI / AJAX effects.

Comes with Web Services API to enable other applications to easily connect to it

SOAPRest ( new in Sugar 5.5 )Cloud Connectors

Easily extensibleBuilt-in GUI tools for changing built-in functionality and adding new functionalityAlso extensible thru PHP code


Why use SugarCRM?

It’s GPLv3 Open Source Open to any customizations

Top quality CRM implementationSales AutomationMarketing Automation / Campaign Management Support Automation

Easy to deployCan deploy on local server or shared hosting environmentSaas offering with Sugar Open Cloud

Can easily get data in and out; no vendor lockin

Lots of support channelsCommunityPartner NetworkSugar Support / PS


Why build on SugarCRM?

Easily extensible frameworkStructured using the MVC patternCustomizations can be made without breaking upgradabilityEasy to connect new components to existing ones

Contains many OOTB features that you’ll want/needUser management/authenticationImport/Export capabilitiesUser customizable homepageMultiple timezone/language/currency support

Very active developmentMaintenance releases every month; security patches ASAPNew major version 5.5 coming really soon ( currently RC2 )Active community


Core Structure

Each portion of the application is divided into modules.

Example: Modules exist for Accounts, Contacts, etc.Uses the MVC pattern to structure a module

Model - each module has a bean class which handles the main data store interactions and interfaces into the database structureView – each view in the module ( edit, detail, list, etc ) is can be built using custom code, or based upon metadata.Controller – default one exists for the application, only need to override if you are doing something different than normal


Customizing SugarCRM

SugarCRM is very customizable for developers and end-users alike

For end-users, Studio is a tool for customizing most aspects of a module easily

Add fieldsChange the metadata driven viewsAdd relationshipsChange language strings

Demo


Customizing SugarCRM with PHP Code

Can customize most part of Sugar by placing files in the custom directory in the application root

Custom/modules for module customizationsChange module language stringsAdd/alter module viewsChange metadata definitions

Custom/include for application level customizationsChange application language stringsAdd/Change application level viewsInterject additional logic into the MVC

Custom/themes for theme customizations (new in Sugar 5.5)

Anything put in the custom/ directory is not overridden by Sugar upgrades/patches


Building on top of SugarCRM

Leveraging already built add-onsSugarForge

700+ projects that have added valuable functionality to SugarCRM

– Integration with other applications– Standalone functionality– Themes– Language Packs

Aimed at developer community as a place for projects to be developed in the open

SugarExchangeMarketplace where any Sugar user wishing to extend core Sugar functionality can choose among hundreds of module extensions, themes and language packs provided by Sugar community members and partners.


Building on top of SugarCRM

Custom module developmentCan build a module on top of Sugar using PHP codeRefer to SugarCRM developer guide for specificationshttp://developers.sugarcrm.com/docs/OS/5.2/-docs-Developer_Guides-Developer_Guide_5.2-toc.html

Using Module BuilderTool for building a module for SugarCRM, including all fields, primary data entry forms, language strings, and relationshipsCan deploy the module to the local Sugar instance or a remote one.Can use to scaffold a module and then add custom PHP code on top of itDemo


http://developers.sugarcrm.com/docs/OS/5.2/-docs-Developer_Guides-Developer_Guide_5.2-toc.html

http://developers.sugarcrm.com/docs/OS/5.2/-docs-Developer_Guides-Developer_Guide_5.2-toc.html

SugarCRM Resources

SugarCRM – http://www.sugarcrm.comSugar Developer Zone - http://developers.sugarcrm.com/Sugar Forums - http://www.sugarcrm.com/forums/Sugar Wiki - http://www.sugarcrm.com/wiki/SugarForge - http://www.sugarforge.org/

SugarForge 2.0 - http://new.sugarforge.org/Upcoming Book – “The Definitive Guide to SugarCRM: Better Business Applications” – Coming Nov 2009


http://developers.sugarcrm.com/

http://www.sugarcrm.com/forums/

http://www.sugarforge.org/

http://new.sugarforge.org/

Questions?


Thanks for coming!


Technology

2009 Ontario GNU Linux Fest - Build your business on SugarCRM