Newbie: Would SugarCRM fulfill our requirements?

[tputkonen]

We are looking for an open source solution for handling information of our club's members (1000+ persons). I would love to get feedback whether you think SugarCRM Community edition could be the solution. We would mostly need only the contacts module.

Requirements that we have:
- Finnish UI
- Mailing labels (either directly or via export to Excel/Word)
- Mass email to selected/all contacts
- Good filtering of contacts
- We need to build a system where new members can register as members themselves, but we don't want them to use SugarCRM directly. Could we use e.g. SOAP interface to add new contact when they have filled the form?
- Present members need to be able to check their registration number by giving their birthdate and name
- Present members must reactive their membership once in six months. Authentication is done using birthdate, name and registration number. They also have to be able to update their contact information.
- Once every six months we need to add new field to the contacts database so that we can view members' payment history.

All comments are warmly welcome. I also welcome suggestions if you think there is another open source software that would be better suited for our needs.

[andopes]

Hi tputkonen

Requirements that we have:

- Finnish UI
It is available a mature Finnish Language Pack for SugarCRM 4.5.1 and a raising Finnish Language Pack for SugarCRM 5.0.
Just have a look at the Finnish language files

- Mailing labels (either directly or via export to Excel/Word)
Can you clarify that one, please?

- Mass email to selected/all contacts
Built in functionality, and a pretty powerful feature! It is the Campaigns module.

- Good filtering of contacts
Built in feature. SugarCRM contains the Basic Search and Advanced Search, which can be customized easily through a easy to use web tool (Studio).

- We need to build a system where new members can register as members themselves, but we don't want them to use SugarCRM directly. Could we use e.g. SOAP interface to add new contact when they have filled the form?
We had developed a Portal for SugarCRM, containing the same layout but restrict access depending on customer needs. The purpose of this feature fits your needs. It is available for free in the SugarForge.
Perhaps some features need to be implemented in this Portal to fits all your needs.

- Present members need to be able to check their registration number by giving their birthdate and name
It can be implemented. Not a built in feature.

- Present members must reactive their membership once in six months. Authentication is done using birthdate, name and registration number. They also have to be able to update their contact information.
It can be implemented. Not a built in feature.

- Once every six months we need to add new field to the contacts database so that we can view members' payment history.
Are you meaning new fields or new rows?
To add new rows there is the built in Import feature, to add new fields there is the built in Studio feature.

Let us know if you need additional information.

Kind regards

[tputkonen]

Thanks a lot for your comments!! Some additional questions in italics.

- Mailing labels (either directly or via export to Excel/Word)
Can you clarify that one, please?

We need to send regular mail to members who haven't given their email address for us. For those users, we would like to print labels that with name and address that we can stick to envelopes. Word calls this mailing labels I think.

- We need to build a system where new members can register as members themselves, but we don't want them to use SugarCRM directly. Could we use e.g. SOAP interface to add new contact when they have filled the form?
We had developed a Portal for SugarCRM, containing the same layout but restrict access depending on customer needs. The purpose of this feature fits your needs. It is available for free in the SugarForge.
Perhaps some features need to be implemented in this Portal to fits all your needs.

- Present members need to be able to check their registration number by giving their birthdate and name
It can be implemented. Not a built in feature.

- Present members must reactive their membership once in six months. Authentication is done using birthdate, name and registration number. They also have to be able to update their contact information.
It can be implemented. Not a built in feature.

For the three requirements above, do you think we could implement them all by integrating to SugarCRM via SOAP? Your portal would not fit very nicely our current web pages, and I assume that nevertheless we would need to do quite a lot of integration manuallly.

[andopes]

Hi tputkonen

We need to send regular mail to members who haven't given their email address for us. For those users, we would like to print labels that with name and address that we can stick to envelopes. Word calls this mailing labels I think.
Not a built in feature, but can be implemented.


For the three requirements above, do you think we could implement them all by integrating to SugarCRM via SOAP? Your portal would not fit very nicely our current web pages, and I assume that nevertheless we would need to do quite a lot of integration manuallly.
Definitely yes.

Lampada Global Services can help you implement SugarCRM. Since 2005, we have done 100+ SugarCRM projects for customers around the world. We are a SugarCRM Silver Partner.

Based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, we offer American customer service at Brazilian prices. We work and deliver over the Internet.

Our programming team develops custom modules, integrates SugarCRM with other systems and modifies the core functionality according to our clients' specifications. Lampada has also made important contributions to the SugarCRM community, notably Teams OS and the Brazilian Portuguese Language Pack.
Please feel free to contact us via Skype (dtokeefe) or email so we can arrange a convenient time to discuss your project.

Looking forward to speaking with you.