can I do this with sugarcrm (client area on a webpage, contacts import/export)

[hihat]

Dear Ones

I am new to sugarcrm and before installing I would like to know whether it's the right tool to choose to realize the following:

I want to provide clients, but also leads (calling in answering to ads) a password protected online area, as part of a webpresence (already in development with joomla) where they can track all the communications and activities, have access to documents I provided them (which is often the same documents f.ex. exposes for many different users), get and accept invitations, launch requests to me / the company and so on.

They should not have to set up their accounts themselves but, if they are coming over the webpage, should be able to do so.

I should be able to import existing customers contacts with a mass vcard import and also export them in one go.
Best would be cardDAV but I know, this is not supported. I should be able to import appointments made over sugarcrm with ical or better calDAV to my erp solution or local pim client.

So can I realize this with sugarCRM, if so with the opensource edition or which modules do I need?

Thanks for info.

David

[hihat]

No answers so far... Is this question too general, too demanding, too dificult...? Or did I maybe violate some netiquette?

[ben.gillis]

look into the enterprise edition. it has a customer portal which "allows companies to provide self-service capabilities to customers and prospects for key marketing, sales and support activities. Customers can create cases, upload relevant information, search the knowledgebase, and track cases to resolution without ever having to pick up a phone. All cases automatically appear within the Sugar Cases module." - Sugar Website.

Ben Gillis
SugarCRM
Plus Consulting
http://www.plusconsulting.com/training.htm

[hihat]

Thanks for the answer. I already had a look at the comparison chart and read that somewhere as well. I would not mind to pay a reasonable licence fee for useful software, but I don't want my data on another company's server. As it looks like the commercial editions are available only as SAAS?

[Angel]

No, both Pro and Enterprise are available as On Demand or On Premise solutions. You pick.

[hihat]

Thanks for the hint. I figured out that I might get closer to what I want to do with SugarCRM (even with CE) than with any other software considered, thanks to sugarforge, the module builder and the joomla extension.

So far, Sugarcrm is a great discovery for me.

[samson smith]

look into the enterprise edition. it has a customer portal which "allows companies to provide self-service capabilities to customers and prospects for key marketing, sales and support activities. Customers can create cases, upload relevant information, search the knowledgebase, and track cases to resolution without ever having to pick up a phone. All cases automatically appear within the Sugar Cases module." - Sugar Website.

Ben Gillis
SugarCRM
Plus Consulting
Plus Consulting Resource Center | Special Offers | Plusconsulting.com

I agree with you!! SugarCRM is an open-source software-solution. It is also called as Sugar Customer Relationship Management system. It helps to make the communication between customer and business more smooth. It is developed by using PHP.