Projects of the Month - January 2007

January's Project of the Month is more like 40 Projects of the Month. This is the number of Sugar projects for which Ken Brill is either directly or indirectly associated. Quite an amazing accomplishment and yet, according to Ken, the best is yet to come.

In this interview we discuss how Ken managed to achieve his legendary status in the Sugar community. Among the topics we address are:

  • How Ken interacts with other Sugar community developers, for example like the Lampada folks (David O'Keefe) who created the Brazillian language pack
  • That Ken has made a cottage industry of refactoring projects to be upgrade safe and to interact cleanly with other modules using the logic hooks that Max promoted heavily in our first SDUG and other techniques. This includes the Gantt project and Power Prospecting modules that Ken has assumed leadership over.
  • Ken's interaction with people worldwide and the satisfaction he derives from working with other Sugar community on a global basis.
  • A discussion of Commodores, Amigas, bulletin boards and ... Sugar 2.5.
  • How Ken will provide commercial versions of some of his projects on SugarExchange
  • How "SugarExport", a spin-off of "SugarPrint", is in heavy demand but that Teams OS is still the most fun to work on.
  • While Sugar's come a long way towards supporting upgrade-safe modules, but that metadriven Detail/List/EditViews (planned for Release 5.0) will be a significant boost.
  • How it'd be nice to see more themes produced by the Community.
  • The way that weekends are again fun and challenging and how Ken's looking forward to more opportunities in the future.

Ken's Projects

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Google Calendar Integration
Google Calendar integration into SugarCRM
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CRMUpgrades SugarPrint
SugarPrint replaces the default SugarCRM 'Print' function. It creates better formatted HTML or PDF printouts from your Sugar data.
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SugarCRM Project
CRMUpgrades: Google Maps
A Module that adds GOOGLE maps to your accounts and contacts WITHOUT overwriting your customized detail pages!
Ken Brill: MyBirthdayDashlet
A dashlet that displays contacts birthdays. It is upgrade safe and OnDemand compliant and compatible with all versions of SugarCRM.
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Project Module Upgrades
My personal Project module enhancements.
CRMUpgrades: In/Out Board
A Nice simple in-out board upgrade. Works from the Employee Module and is now TeamsOS aware.
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SugarCubed: Admin Tools
A collection of admin related tools and upgrades.
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SugarVacuum - Helps Sugar clean up
It did not take long to find that Sugar does not always clean up after itself. So I developed this script that can be run before the prune function to help keep a Sugar install lean and clean.
TitleBar Changer
This module changes the titlebar of SugarCRM to reflect what module you are in and what record you are looking at. In version 3.0 it also alters the TitleBar icon for each module.
CRMUpgrades: SugarSearch
Upgrades to all Advanced Search Panes. I have added date ranges, Soundex searches and a complete rewrite of how sugar searches phone numbers. Check out the development site at http://sugarbeta.multi.com
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Listview Quicklinks Upgrade
Adds 4 icons to each line of the listviews for Leads and Opportunities
CRMUpgrades: FCKEditor Upgrade
Adds the FCKEditor to all TextAreas in SugarCRM
Module Enhancements
Various upgrades
SugarCRM Cleaning and Optimizing Tools
These tools will help you keep your SugarCRM running smoothly.
Sugar Open Source Documentation
SugarCRM user manuals, developer guides, installation notes and more.
Ken Brill: HomePage Manager
Allows you to create a default home page for new users adding the dashlets that you want to use in the order that you want them to show up. Also allows you to change everyones home page (add dashlets, reorganize them whatever) based of of a template.
Language Sync Tool
A tool to help language translators to create distributable language packs
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SugarSOAP Debugging Tools
Allow the SOAP interface to produce debugging information in the log file. Will log all SOAP commands to the SugarCRM.log file at 'warn' level.
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SweetTools
SweetTools is probably the greatest module ever for the novice or semi-professional SugarCRM administrator. SweetTools seamlessly installs phpMyAdmin a MySQL browser interface, eXtplorer a file browser and a copy of phpinfo() onto your SugarCRM system.

Project Leads

Name: Ken Brill
Company: Multicom, Inc.

Click on one of the links below to listen to a recorded interview with Ken

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Past Projects of the Month

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005


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