Re: SugarCRM?

Hi,

just discovered the pro demo link. Has a better theme and those 
additional tabs:
* calendar	- simple scheduler
* Quotes		- same like opportunity?
* Cases		- ??
* Reports		- more or less the advanced searches of the various OGo 
modules,
                 can save queries just like OGo contacts

On 4. Jan 2005, at 22:45 Uhr, Dustin Machi wrote:
> home - news
ok

> activities - specialized tasks, such as placing a phone call

Actually an activity - apparently also called "call" - in the pro-demo 
seems to be an appointment in OGo (type = phone) with the additional 
field "direction".

> contacts - same as OGo contacts
ok

One thing I noticed is that you can assign them to teams. The "contact" 
relation currently only allows a system account here (no teams). But I 
suppose this might be easy to fix.

> accounts - similar to OGo company contacts...however all related 
> information
> (leads, individual contacts, opportunities, etc) is viewable on this 
> screen.

Isn't that true for OGo too? The only difference I see is that OGo puts 
the info into tabs instead of a single, huge page?

> Leads - A lead is an contact/task combination.  For example, if you 
> take
> someones business card at a trade show, it would be a lead that needs 
> to be
> followed up on.  Other example leads might come from Cold Call, another
> customer, mail, etc.  Once a lead is created, you can attach 
> activities to it
> (Such as placing a phone call)  and view its history.  At some point, 
> when
> the lead is developed enough, you "convert" it to an "account" and a 
> contact
> record.

All this sounds to me like a contact. So a lead is a contact with 
category "lead" and maybe some extended attributes like "source = cold 
call | mail | referred".

I don't see the "task" component here. Of course a lead might have 
follow-up tasks, but those are attached "activities", right?

> Opportunities - Similar to leads, however they are "leads" with 
> existing
> accounts/contacts.  These leads also track some information like the 
> cost and
> the probability of success.  It also tracks the "Sales Stage" which is 
> the
> status of that opportunity.  For example,  Prospecting, Qualification, 
> Needs
> Analysis, Value Proposition, Id. Decision Makers, Perception Analysis,
> Proposal/Price Quote, Negotiation/Review, Closed-Won, Closed-lost.

A project of type "Opportunity". Is attached to one or more 
enterprises, can have tasks and extended attributes like the ones you 
name.

I'm not sure why you say "similiar to leads", they seem to share little 
except that the sales guy needs to process them?

> Cases - This pretty much seems like it is a generic Task assignment 
> with a
> Case # that can be assigned to a particular account.  I imagine that 
> this is
> used for developing solutions to problems when they occur on a 
> particular
> account.  For example, if Account A was overcharged for some reason.  
> They
> would report this to the organization.  It would then be entered as a 
> "case"
> and assigned to someone who will need to solve it.   You can track the 
> status
> of these cases with status' like New, Assigned, Closed, Pending Input, 
> and
> Rejected.

Hm, OK. More like Bugzilla, so maybe the task component would need 
additional status' for that.

> I haven't yet put the thought into how these things could be 
> accomplished
> within OGo, but I will and then I'll send some more information.

This would be cool.

Thanks,
   Helge

PS: I just wonder whether we need a theme which does not show icons at 
the top but tabs instead ;-)
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