2009 ontario gnu linux fest - build your business on sugarcrm
DESCRIPTION
SugarCRM is the world's leading provider of commercial open source CRM software, available in both an On-Demand and On-Premise version and comes with a GPLv3 license. What most people don't realize is that SugarCRM is also a very extensible and easy to use business application platform. In this talk we'll explore the platform and what all it provides, and show how easy it is to customize it from the GUI as well as through writing PHP code.TRANSCRIPT
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
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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
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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
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What’s the solution?
©2009 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved.
©2009 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved.
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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Questions?
©2009 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved.
Thanks for coming!
©2009 SugarCRM Inc. All rights reserved.