Should I upgrade or not...

[twe2002]

Hello,

this is a discussion about if it is worth to upgrade from 4.2 to 4.5. Now, I can imaging that the standard answer if you should upgrade or not is "It depends". It mainly depends if SugarCRM works for you with your current modules or if you are willing to wait for a while until the modules and upgrades are available for the 4.5 version.

I am runnign 4.2.1 right now with some addons that I like and hold dear. I took the time to upgrade to 4.5 after getting over a bug where the update doesn't work if you have some non-exisitng or currupt old upgrades in the database table "upgrades".. Anyways, now I am looking at 4.5 and some things I like, most of them I don't. Not being a negative person, but the Ajax stuff is really just playing around. I don't really care if there is a task menu first and then my calls or how the dashlets are order. It might be the way I use sugar, not mainly as a sales tool, but instead as a support tool to track "tasks" and notes on accounts in regard to history of customers requests/adds/changes.

Dashlets: What I don't like is that I can't push a dashlet to take the whole width of the screen or that I am limited to 10 lines on the Home page. I like the old way how all task show, all across the screen. This way, my tasks and/or accounts don't look like this:
Mr.
Jones
Johson.

The following modules/upgrades I had with 4.2.1. Not sure about the right names:
* Google patch --> Nice gimmick. Wouldn't be hard to put into the 4.5 version I think, but now after the upgrade it is gone. Guess I can tinker with the files to get it back, but I am not that good with php. Why wasn't it put into the standard version.
* Ldap --> Now built in, good. It also takes the old settings of the ldap module. Very nice.
* Asterix integration --> This is always something to dazzle the sales people and the boss..."oh, look, the phone is ringing when I click here". Not working after upgrade, no idea if you can tinker with the files to make it work.
* ZuckerDocs --> Not working, but it looks like the developer is working on it, so soon this will work again.
* Search Module --> Nice module, searched attachments and notes. Not working. The new search might be better, didn't try much of it yet.
* Thunderbird Plugin --> Paid $50 for this plugin. Pretty good with text email, but not so good with HTML and Outlook emails, puts some extra characters in there, but for me not liking the monsterous Outlook and the slow responses of it, this plugin is worth it.

Now, after all those above with the exception of ldap are not working anymore I wonder if I should just scratch the update and make my backup version life again.

Questions that come up:
- When will all those fine modules/upgrades be available for 4.5
- Will a decission to not upgrade now hinder upgrades in the future
- What new feature did I overlooked that is a must have that could help me part with my old upgrades/module?

Any comments, any input is welcome.
Thanks,
TWE2002

[twe2002]

Replying to my own post

I upgraded to 4.5 !

It was not smooth, but with some tinkering and reading the posts in the forums I got most of my plugins working.

Thunderbird Mail client: working, they have a new version
Google Patch: working, new version available
LDAP: bult in now
Asterix: new version available
ZuckerDocs: tinkering made it work, see the forums.
Search Module: new version available

So, all in all I got now up to the latest version 4.5f with all my previous modules working. My hats off to the developing team of SugarCRM, it is in my eyes the best tool I use in my daily work and I slowly get my userbase to use it.

Thanks,
TWE2002

[mpietersen]

When I attempted to make the leap to 4.5 on my test server, it actually broke our AD authentication.

Did you have to do anything special to get your LDAP to continue to work?