Creating cases for contacts instead of accounts

[ablair]

I have a business providing computer services to both business and domestic users. I'm looking for a CRM to tracknotes and jobs that I do for my customers. SugarCRM looks great. However, many of my customers are domsetic and don't belong to a company. Therefore, having to create an "account" for "contacts" before being able to assign a "case" doesn't work for me.

Is it possible to assign a "case" to a contact rather than a job? Or does anyone have other recommendationd for this?

Best Regards,
Alan.

[studiostreet]

Hello Alan.

I have the same situation as you. AFAIK theres no way to create case to contact that is not related to any account. I found a workaround by creating one account, 'Private Customers', where all my non-business contacts belong. Now its possible to create a case that is related to contact.

Hope this helps,

Marko
www.studiostreet.fi

[pblag]

Hi All!

I think that we can develop this functionality for you.
If you are interested please email me.
feel free to contact us.

[eggsurplus]

With some customization you can alter the EditView to show a contact select instead of an account select for new cases. We had to do this for the same reason. It's been a while so I'll see if I can find the code and post it here.

[mapm]

It seems a good solution, also for invoicing of cases I use:
http://www.sugarforge.org/projects/jcrmtimeinvoice/
For me only works with internet explorer

[eggsurplus]

You have a couple of options:
1) Just turn off accounts as being required. Save Case. Add Contact after.
2) Turn off accounts as being required. Add contact field to case edit page only if new case. Save and it adds the contact to the contact list.

Method 2:
In config.php set the following to false to turn off accounts as being required:
'require_accounts' => false,

Add {CONTACT_POPUP} to EditView.html where you want it to popup. It will replace this variable with the label/input columns:

  
    <tr valign="top">
    <td class="dataLabel"  valign="top"><slot>&nbsp;</slot></td>
    <td class="dataField"><slot>&nbsp;</slot></td>
    {CONTACT_POPUP}
    </tr> 
  

Add this to your EditView.php:

  
if( (!isset($focus->id) || $focus->new_with_id )  && !isset($focus->contact_id)) {
    //contact popup...show only if new record to more quickly associate a contact to a case
    $popup_request_data = array(
        'call_back_function' => 'set_return',
        'form_name' => 'EditView',
        'field_to_name_array' => array(
            'id' => 'contact_id',
            'name' => 'contact_name',
            ),
        );
 
    $encoded_contact_popup_request_data = $json->encode($popup_request_data);
 
    $contact_popup = "    <td class='dataLabel'><span sugar='slot90'>Primary Contact:</span sugar='slot'></td> "
                    ."    <td class='dataField'><span sugar='slot90b'> "
                    ."    <input tabindex='2' readonly id='contact_name' name='contact_name' type='text' value=''> "
                    ."    <input id='contact_id' name='contact_id' type='hidden' value='' /> "
                    ."    <input title='".$app_strings['LBL_SELECT_BUTTON_TITLE']."' accessKey='".$app_strings['LBL_SELECT_BUTTON_KEY']."' type='button' tabindex='2' class='button' value='".$app_strings['LBL_SELECT_BUTTON_LABEL']."' name=btn1 "
                    ."            onclick='open_popup(\"Contacts\", 600, 400, \"\", true, false, ".$encoded_contact_popup_request_data.");' /></span sugar='slot'></td> ";
} else {
    $contact_popup = "    <td class='dataLabel'><span sugar='slot98'>&nbsp;</span sugar='slot'></td> "
                    ."    <td class='dataField'><span sugar='slot99'>&nbsp;</span sugar='slot'></td> ";
}
$xtpl->assign('CONTACT_POPUP', $contact_popup); 
  

And Bob's your uncle.

[ablair]

Wow, Thanks everyone.

I'm new to this open source stuff. I guess it is guys like you that make it so great.

I will certainly try the suggestion from "eggsurplus".

eggsurplus: I have quickly looked at the documentation online. I could only find user and installation guides. I couldn't see where you would find information for such customisation. Do you know where I could get the developer documentation from?

Best Regards,
Alan.

[organi]

Setting
'require_accounts' => false,
in config.php
causes the Opportunities tab to show a blank page.

Yes, the Opportunities are related to Accounts, not Contacts. is there a way to relate them to Contacts instead of Accounts?