Implementation advice for MSP

[gfa]

Ok, i've been trying to wrap my head around how to apply this programs logic to our companies business model and its giving me a headache.

We're a merchant service provider, and the quick explaination of how we work is that we have 3 types of people/companies we interact with - merchants , agents, and banks.

a merchant sometime comes in directly, other times through an agent. the merchant would start as a lead either generated from a webform or from email/telephone. The lead contains all the information about that account including their volume and other numbers that dictate the profit we would make if sucessfully placed, supporting documents added along the way. we then will submit this merchant to multiple banks we have relationships with on the back end, some of the banks will approve, some will deny. When a merchant is approved at a bank, it should then convert to an active account and keep links to the banks it was either approved or denied at. If theres an agent, the merchant account should retain a link to this agent permenantly throughout the process.

I need to be able to make reports about an agent and the status of all his merchants -- converted accounts AND leads, a report on a bank and all the merchants converted accounts, and pending leads waiting for approvals. I dont see a way in sugar crm to do these relationships. Out of the box, the opportunties and leads tab seem like they should be together -- since (in this case) the lead IS the oppotunity, and so both information from lead and opportunity would have to convert to acocunt when the lead is won/converted.

to make this more complicated, we're also constantly vetting new agents and banks which have their own lead'y steps that eventually get converted into their own type of contracted relationships (i hestiate to call these "accounts" though i suppose it could be an "account type"). Keeping in mind that agents, merchants, and banks all have very different fields.

Does this sound somewhat familier to anyone? What is the best way to make this work inside the design of this software?

Just some ideas to point me in the right direction would help.

Thanks

- Seth

[gfa]

ok so i've got it imagined now that a merchant will come in as a lead, then will convert to an account, contact, and opportunity when followed up on -- and the status will just be defined on the account and opportunity through closing. But all the information to make the new records (including opportunity) will be on the lead's (custom) fields -- how do i pass those fields and data to the new records created after the conversion? i dont see how in the studio.. duplicate doesnt seem to work as i'd expect. Specifically, i already have the "amount" of the opportunity in the lead, so that needs to carry over.

also, in btrack i was able to add objects as custom fields, like add a contact or account field that actually links that object from a selector like the object fields in sugar do. But i dont see that data 'type' when creating custom fields, this is something i need to do since my 'accounts' will be interacting with eachother. i've concluded that agents, merchants, and banks will all be accounts of different types. so that means if a merchant account has an opportunity, the opportunity needs to attach to not just the merchants own account, but the agent account that brought it in, as well as the (multiple) bank accounts we submitted the opportunity for placement to. and the outcome of each placement with said bank.

SO. those basic concepts of carrying over fields/data and custom field objects -- how?

Also, how to access the self service sugarportal on professional 2.5.0? what is the url that the client goes to? Or how on our on-demand pro account there is no web lead form link in campaigns, but on the live demo version 2.5.1 there is. How to use this? Need to get on to that integratoin as well.

I've emailed customer support early this morning on everything (and some of it yesterday), but they havent replied yet.

thanks