Promoting an opportunity to a project

[adiraco]

Hi there,

I'm not sure if this is me 'not quite getting it' but in my mind the natural progression is Lead > Opportunity > Project. However, it would appear that once I've won a proposal and set the Opportunity to 'Job Won' it just seems to end there. There's doesn't appear to be any way to promote or link a project to the Opportunity it came from.

Obviously there is a great deal of communication and often vital information, documents etc. that we store on Sugar during the proposal/ quoting process - I feel this information should then be available within the specific project to which it relates. I'm interested to know - am I missing something or am not using the system correctly.

Any advice much appreciated.

Phill

[susiewilliams]

Hi there,

Your idea is one I was thinking about a few weeks ago, and I was *this* close to writing a podcast about the subject. While it's true that this flow of information isn't built into the system as it's shipped, it's fairly straightforward to create a workflow (if you're a Sugar Enterprise or Professional customer) to create a project when say the status of an Opportunity changes to Closed. We actually did this scenario as part of an internal "developer bootcamp" we held for our technical teams last summer... this was one of the items the teams had to build, and it was fairly straightforward to accomplish this.

[dtokeefe]

Hi Phil,

Good point about projects. We have created the Opportunities to Projects workflow for several clients.

For example, in a company with an ISO 9000 certified process, on Closed Won Opportunity, the system creates a new Project pre-populated with the Tasks defined for ISO. The Tasks are also pre-assigned to the correct Users, with deadlines where appropriate, and the system sends email notices to the Users about their new Tasks.

If you'd like to talk about your requirements, I'm available on Skype (dtokeefe) or by phone 908 998-2278.

Best regards,

David

[adiraco]

Thanks for the responses - is this Opportunities to Projects workflow possible within the Community edition?

All the best
Phill

[dtokeefe]

Hi Phil,

Custom Logic Hooks are used to create a workflow in CE. The Workflow module in Pro is actually just an interface for creating logic hooks. There are some details about logic hooks in the Sugar Wiki.

Best regards,

David

[NicolasV]

@Susie:
If it's so "straightforward", why don't you include it as a base feature in CE and all other edtions?

[dtokeefe]

For some things, SugarCRM is more of a toolkit, or development platform, than a perfectly finished product for every imaginable use case.

We see SugarCRM as the new MS Access. Where businesses used to create all kinds of systems in Access, they are increasiingly using SugarCRM instead. Development is straightforward and fast. The resulting system is web-based and easy to deploy to users.

Custom modules, custom fields and custom logic hooks are the key tools for extending the SugarCRM platform.

Best regards,

David

[hubcrm]

The fundamental difference David excludes from his Access analogy is that any half-witted fool can pickup and create something 'architecturally horrendous' with Access. In Sugar the module builder and studio enforce some good starting point architectural decisions for you. Access will happily let you create something pretty horrible.

A bit off topic sorry, you're in the right place and have been given the right answer.