Enabling Workflow in SugarCRM to Close more Business

[bconvis]

Automated Workflow and Business Process Management are vital components to a well designed CRM system. SugarCRM Professional include a workflow module that will allow you to setup simple workflow. Within SugarCRM CE, there is no out-of-box workflow module. Your options for workflow for SugarCRM CE include:
• Logic Hooks - creating custom logic hooks on the before or after save of an object in SugarCRM. This requires programming knowledge and an understanding of the SugarCRM architecture.
• SugarForge Workflow modules - there are currently 26 projects in SugarForge's Workflow projects. Many of these have no products. Of the available modules, one stands out with over 18k downloads - Process Manager for SugarCRM. A new entry in SugarForge, SolCRM by AlineaSol was released April of this year and is still in beta.
• Commercially available products - there are quite a few companies that offer products for Workflow Management for SugarCRM. Products that install as modules into SugarCRM or run in the Cloud and connect to your SugarCRM. Some products are services offered by SugarCRM integrators who will custom build a solution.

This discussion will explore the many options available to you to enable workflow in your deployed SugarCRM CE system.

Bill Convis
SierraCRM, Inc.
SierraCRM

[bconvis]

LOGIC HOOKS - included in the SugarCRM architecture is a programming interface allowing for custom code to be called before and after an object is saved. This is called logic_hooks. In very simplistic terms, the main Sugar program (SugarBean) will check to see if the object (lead, contact, case, opportunity) being saved has a logic_hook file. If so then the code in this file will be called either before and/or after the save event. The SugarBean will pass to this logic_hook what is known as the 'bean'. This 'bean' is a representation of the row from the database for the object that is being saved.

The possibilities are endless as to what you can do. Examples include checking field values before the object is saved

Another idea is after the object is saved, you may need to find some related data to the object and update this related data.

One thing to note, be careful how you program a logic_hook such that you don't find yourself writing an after save hook that enters an endless loop.

Sugar has created a nice write up in their 5.2 developers guide:
Sugar DeveloperZone - SugarCRM Developer Documentation, Sugar Documentation

[alineasol]

Hi all,

We plan to release a GA version of AlineaSol Workflow manager later in 2011. The service is currently running well and the last finetunings are performed.

AlineaSol