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

Chapter 6. Commercial and Open Source Add-Ons for SugarCRM

In the last two chapters you have read about the basic CRM functions provided by the SugarCRM system. We have also seen a number of extended capabilities the standard system can perform, which take it beyond pure CRM into a broader business management role.

In this chapter we will explore a number of commercial and open-source add-ons to Sugar Open Source that can extend it even further in myriad directions.

These add-ons can be categorized as shown below:

  • Free Add-Ons

    • Role management extension: Access control within Sugar Open Source 4.0 is a welcome addition, but limited in scope. This long‑standing weakness of SugarCRM (the fact that all users can see and change all data in the system, if they are to share data with others) has spawned a series of open-source add-ons that address the need very well. Here, we examine one free patch that allows you to create teams that can share data, super users who can see all data, and even...