Book Image

Implementing SugarCRM

By : Michael Whitehead
Book Image

Implementing SugarCRM

By: Michael Whitehead

Overview of this book

<p>SugarCRM is a popular customer relationship management system. It is available in both free open source and commercial versions, making it an ideal way for small-medium business to try out a CRM system without committing large sums of money. Although SugarCRM is carefully designed for ease of use, attaining measurable business gains requires careful planning and research. This book distils hard won SugarCRM experienced into an easy to follow guide to implementing the full power of SugarCRM. SugarCRM is an extensive PHP/MySQL based application but with its rich administration interfaces no programming is required to get the most of it.</p> <p>This book will give you all the information you need to start using this powerful, free CRM system. Written by veteran SugarCRM expert and experienced documentation author, Michael J. Whitehead, this book is the definitive guide to implementing SugarCRM. Whether you are wondering exactly what benefits CRM can bring, or you have already learned about CRM systems but have yet to implement one, or you're working with SugarCRM already; this book will show you how to get maximum benefit of this exciting product.</p>
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Implementing SugarCRM
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
Preface
Index

Deployment Alternatives


Simply put, if you want to use SugarCRM as the CRM solution for your business, you will need to be able to connect to an Internet-accessible server that is running SugarCRM. You will then use it by typing the web address of that server into the address bar of the browser on your PC—no matter where your PC may be as long as it to is connected to the Internet.

So, we need to think about whose server that will be, where it will be, who will install SugarCRM initially and who will take care of that installation going forward.

You have four basic options:

  • On‑Demand: In this situation, you rent use of the SugarCRM application by the month, and by the user. You do not own the server it is operating on, nor do you have to take care of it at all. The supplier, often called an ASP (Application Service Provider) backs up the server, makes sure it is always available, and makes sure that adequate bandwidth is available to ensure good performance.

  • Server Collocation: With this...