Further Contact Data

[AwakeDreamingUK]

Hello,

First of all, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has been involved in building/designing SugarCRM OS - it is an excellent piece of software.

Now for my question. I've managed to import some of our data, Accounts, Contacts, Notes. I have 2 major types of information that we need to record.

1) For each contact, we need to record where we sourced that contact's details, be it from a product sale, or from another contact, and so on. However, there are often multiple sources for contact's details. Is this supported out-of-the-box or does anyone know of an extension or would I have to implement this myself?

2) We regularly send out newsletters, but not just to everyone. These will be to various different groups of contacts. Thus, we need to record exactly which contacts receive which mailings. Is this also supported out-of-the-box or is there an extension or would I have to implement this myself?

Forgive me if this functionality is already there and I haven't found it. There are a lot of features and I'm still getting my head around it all.

Thanks in advance!

Mark A. MacInnes

[malcolmh]

1) For each contact, we need to record where we sourced that contact's details, be it from a product sale, or from another contact, and so on. However, there are often multiple sources for contact's details. Is this supported out-of-the-box or does anyone know of an extension or would I have to implement this myself?

You can create multiselect lists using the Studio components Admin-> Studio, first create a drop down list, then add a multi-select list in the dialogs and search panels.

2) We regularly send out newsletters, but not just to everyone. These will be to various different groups of contacts. Thus, we need to record exactly which contacts receive which mailings. Is this also supported out-of-the-box or is there an extension or would I have to implement this myself?

One way to do it is like above, Alternatively in the PRO and ENT. editions there will be a Portal area , where your customers can subscribe and manage their own newsletter, available Feb./Mar 2007

Hope this helps

[AwakeDreamingUK]

Thanks for your reply. I created multiselect lists for both points as you recommended and its all working very well. 1 more question. The first multiselect list will only need to grow every so often and that will be an Admin task, so that is ok.

The second multiselect list, the newsletter one, will grow once or twice a week and it won't necessarily be the Admin who would need to add another option to this list. Is there a way to add an option to this multiselect list without going through the studio? I am happy to do some hacking if need be.

[malcolmh]

Hi,

Can't really imagine that items for a newsletter drop down could grow so quickly. No real way practical way for a non-admin person to do this. You do not want them hacking files on the server.

Another alternative would be to use the Power Prospecting module, where you can assign users to a target list (i,e, one for each newsletter item). Take a look at this at http://www.sugarcrm.com/forums/showt...er+prospecting.

Thanks to Mr. Milk ans Rickcrities for this module. Let me know if this is suitable

[AwakeDreamingUK]

It's not so much a newsletter, but more a series of mailings. Due to the nature of the products, each customer receives information/data updates and sometimes these can be up to twice a week. That Power Prospecting module looks like just what I want.

Now two more questions

Is there a way to change the number of records displayed when actually viewing the list? I know the number can be changed in the System Settings, but when viewing a huge amount of records, being able to change the amount shown per page would be hugely beneficial.

If this is not possible, then is there a way to select all records found in a search and then perform a mass update on them all at once rather than mass update only those displayed on the page?

Thanks very much for your help! It is very much appreciated. Once I have a greater understanding of SugarCRM I will make every effort to help out!

Just to clarify, only I (the developer) would do any file hacking - nobody else would get anywhere near to doing this!

[malcolmh]

Hi,

You have already tried the ways that are available in Sugar. For changing large amounts of data, I would use a tool like phpMyAdmin