Sugar Portal for Zend Framework

[dtokeefe]

Hi all,

Lampada Global has released an alpha version of Sugar Portal for Zend Framework (SP-ZF). Download it at:

http://www.sugarforge.org/projects/sgr-zend-portal/

We look forward to your feedback in this forum thread.

Lampada Global created Sugar Portal for Zend Framework for projects where it is desirable to have a separate interface to the SugarCRM system for Contacts to access selected modules (e.g. Cases or Leads).

A use case we often encounter is indirect sales, where Resellers or Partners register Leads and Cases, but are not full users of the SugarCRM system.

We chose Zend Framework among the leading PHP Frameworks simply because it is from Zend, the company behind PHP itself. It is robust and practical.

We also chose to access the Sugar codebase by instantiating Sugar objects (beans) from within Zend Framework, rather than via the Sugar SOAP API. This provides much better performance and greater development flexibility, but more directly couples the Portal with the Sugar codebase and practically requires that the two systems run on the same server.

SP-ZF is released under the GPL 3.0 license.

Let's collaborate to make it a great add-on to any version of SugarCRM.

Best regards,

David

[Markku]

Hi David, this is great news! Need to test drive it immediately.

[dtokeefe]

Hi Markku,

I hope you like it. It's basically a toolkit at this point (Cases work, as an example of how to implement any module). We will release an update this week and look forward to feedback to point the development in the right direction.

David

[longreach]

We've been fooling around with a json API lately that seems to be able to replicate the full SOAP API capability, but be significantly faster and lighter. But I suspect what you have here is likely faster even than that! So yes, the speed is a major accomplishment. So I envy the performance, but not the need for both on the same server. There is a real need for many clients to have the two in different security zones. That is something for the community to help work on.

[dtokeefe]

Hi Michael,

We haven't tried it, but I believe it is possible to include the file iportal.php in a script on a remote server, making this portal work across separate servers. Two possibilities come to mind:

http://br2.php.net/include/

Keeping in mind:

"Remote file may be processed at the remote server (depending on the file extension and the fact if the remote server runs PHP or not) but it still has to produce a valid PHP script because it will be processed at the local server. If the file from the remote server should be processed there and outputted only, readfile() is much better function to use. Otherwise, special care should be taken to secure the remote script to produce a valid and desired code."

Option 2 then is: http://br2.php.net/manual/en/function.readfile.php

Which notes:

"A URL can be used as a filename with this function if the fopen wrappers have been enabled. See fopen() for more details on how to specify the filename and List of Supported Protocols/Wrappers for a list of supported URL protocols."

Cheers.

David

[dtokeefe]

Hi all,

We released a beta version just now. The code is cleaner and it comes with some instructions !

http://www.sugarforge.org/projects/sgr-zend-portal/

We look forward to your feedback.

David

[dtokeefe]

Hi all,

Thank you to everyone who has downloaded and tested SP-ZF. We really appreciate all your feedback. From what we have heard so far, we will do the following in the first production release for tomorrow:

1. Simplify installation
a. By default, SP-ZF will use the admin user as the portal user. This should be changed for final deployment, but it simplifies setup.
b. By default, SP-ZF will use the same database, path, locale and timezone values as SugarCRM. Normally, it will not be necessary to change these.

2. Change the instructions to make it clearer that:
a. SugarCRM CONTACTS log in to the portal. Therefore, you must configure a CONTACT for the portal. The installation process adds fields to the CONTACTS EditView. Configure a CONTACT's portal username and password, then check the Portal Active checkbox.
b. The portal user provides the SugarCRM USER context for the session of the CONTACT logged in through the portal.
c. The URL of the portal is http://yoursugarcrmsystem/iportal.php

That is, to access the portal:
a. Go to your SugarCRM login page.
b. Replace index.php with iportal.php in the URL of your SugarCRM system.
c. Press Enter

Finally, we recommend testing with a clean SugarCRM CE 5.1.0b system, with demo data. This is the fastest way to evaluate the SP-ZF.

After installation, you go to iportal.php, log in as the CONTACT you configured, then verify that your Account and Cases records are correct.

Good luck !

Ping me on Skype (dtokeefe) if you need help. We are happy to provide setup support for SP-ZF.

Cheers.

David

[dtokeefe]

Regarding portal development:

1. There are instructions in the configuration pdf explaining how to make other SugarCRM modules available in the portal. For example, you might make the Leads and Opportunities modules available to resellers who log in to your portal. You can also add custom modules to the portal.

2. The SP-ZF release should be understood as a model for creating interfaces (forms, web pages) to Sugar objects (Accounts, Cases, etc.). By following the instructions, and using the Cases module as an example, it is possible to create interfaces for any Sugar module to the SP-ZF.

Please do post your questions and feedback here. There are many interesting use cases for Portals backed by SugarCRM. Please share your ideas with the SugarCRM community.

Cheers.

David

[dtokeefe]

We have set up a demo of our Sugar Portal for Zend Framework at:

https://ondemand.lampadaglobal.com/d...zf/iportal.php

username: spzf
password: spzf

NOTES:

1. After logging in to the portal, click Cases on the left navigation. This shows the complete set of views for a Sugar module (List, Detail, Edit, Search). Any Sugar module can appear in the portal, including custom modules.
2. Contacts log in to the portal, not Users.
3. Users log in to SugarCRM, not Contacts.

https://ondemand.lampadaglobal.com/demo/spzf/index.php

username: will
password: will

The portal solves many use cases, including:

* Indirect sales - Resellers log in to the Portal to manage Leads, Accounts, Contacts and Opportunities.
* Customer self-service - Customers log in to the Portal to manage Cases, Bugs and their own Account and Contact information.

Please feel free to ping me on Skype (dtokeefe) if you have questions.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

David

[dtokeefe]

We will show how to integrate the Sugar Portal for Zend Framework with Joomla 1.5 and Drupal in the coming days.

If you have a suggestion about the ideal way to integrate with either system, please do comment here.

Best regards,

David