Project of the Month - November 2007

ERP Business Suite

Description of project

Trove Info

Why are you a leading contributor in the SugarCRM community? What are the benefits that you experience from your involvement?

After dealing with various CRM systems we decided to go with SugarCRM since it's the most flexible. We started to develop modules for internal purposes which grew into real products that we sucessfully offered at SugarExchange. This success showed us that users wanted ERP and CRM functionality on one platform.

What other projects have you been involved with on SugarForge.org?

SugarCRM has a great community with a lot of quality projects. We were interested in quite a few projects right away, but decided to focus on the ERP BUSINESS SUITE, ERP INVENTORY and ERP EXPENSE modules.

What inspired you to create this project?

We saw the oppurtunity to link "expenses" and "inventory" with the CRM data. We also don't want users to deal with 2 systems so we decided to build on top of the SugarCRM platform.

What business pain points were you solving specifically?

Three main things:

1. Most large companies don't want to stress their users with more than one system. By integrating ERP functionality, it becomes possible to run all important functions on one platform.
2. Our upcoming module enables OS users to extend SugarCRM from "lead" module to "billing" module. The ERP Invoice and order module will address this point.
3. Sales teams in particular need to be able to manage their expenses inside the CRM system. Now they have everything within one interface.

Is there anything that the users should know about those? Something hidden/new in these modules? Think of this as an opportunity to describe how it works to a user.

All modules fit seamlessly into SugarCRM, are linked to other modules and are fully configurable within the studio. One new addition is the ability to export expense bills as Open Office files. Even better, Open Office files can also be imported into the system as a template - and the user doesn't need to do any coding to create their individual template. Everything is done using the easy WYSIWYG editor inside of Open Office.

What would you say to encourage additional community participation?

Being able to collaborate with other developers from around the world on projects is one of the great things about developing for the SugarCRM platform.

What do you want to build next for Sugar Suite?

ERP INVOICE AND ORDER MODULE: This module makes it easy to extend the OS version of SugarCRM with a billing and order module. All data is connected and can be exported as a bill using the PDF or Open Office export function.

ERP CANDIDATES MODULE: This makes it easy to administrate solicitors within SugarCRM without having to adjust leads or contact data.

ERP TIMESHEET MODULE: Assigns time records to SugarCRM.

ERP PROJECT MANAGEMENT: Project management and planning.

ERP PROJECT PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT: Project portfolio management and planning.