SugarCRM vs SharePoint Portal Server comparison

[jkrise]

Hi

Just logged on to these boards... I tried googling for a side-by-side comparison - can't find any ueful link. No white-paper / docs on the Sugar site as well.

Can someone point some useful links for a firm that doesn't have any CRM as yet?

Cheers
JKrise

[y2chuck]

go to the download section and grab the user guide, I don't think you'll find a side-by-side comparison, but the user guide will show everything about Sugar you need to know.

[niche]

We use both Sharepoint Portal Server AND SugarCRM.

They are such dissimilar products that I doubt you would find any kind of comparison out there.

Are you sure you didn't mean SugarCRM vs. MS Dynamics CRM?
We're a small company that is also an MS developer/partner so we actually have MS CRM 3.0, but I won't touch it because use/installation and configuration of it requires me to go out and hire an MSCE engineer to get the thing working. I installed Sugar in 10 minutes and voila it works.
The interface is MUCH better in Sugar. Also good luck on getting leads into MS CRM via your website form. I hunted around on their newsgroup for weeks looking for somebody to do it for me and never got anywhere.
With information found on these forums, I had my webform up and running in about 3 hours, fully customized. All info shoots straight into Sugar and sends me a notification email that I have a new lead.

If you are looking strictly for CRM, I'd highly recommend Sugar, and if you have advanced needs the PRO version. We're on the Open Source version now but will probably go to the Pro version -- even paying for the Pro version of Sugar is a better use of time/money than the free 10-client license of MS CRM that we have. That alone speaks volumes.

SPS is more for document workgroups/collaboration and archiving, also creating many portal sites for departments in your company.

Sugar doesn't do really any of that although you can use the document management module and the project module to do parts of that.

SPS really doesn't do what Sugar does best - CRM.
Sugar doesn't really do what SPS does -- create external or internal websites that are all somewhat interconnected.

If you need that, then you don't even need the PORTAL part of it as Sharepoint Services are free (to install on Windows 2003 Server).

SharePoint Portal adds very little on top of SharePoint Services but the thing that we really like (and need) is site searching/indexing so we can actually find all the data that gets shoved into those mini-site-workspaces.

I hope this helps you some.
Let me know specifically what you are trying to accomplish and maybe I can give some better answers.

In the future I'd be interested in getting some data in my Sugar MySQL database interconnected with Project websites in SPS, but we don't have an immediate need for that just yet.

Cheers!

[jkrise]

We use both Sharepoint Portal Server AND SugarCRM.

They are such dissimilar products that I doubt you would find any kind of comparison out there.

Are you sure you didn't mean SugarCRM vs. MS Dynamics CRM?......

Let me know specifically what you are trying to accomplish and maybe I can give some better answers.

Cheers!

Firstly, thanks for such a detailed response. My situation is like this:

There are many divisions / firms where I work.

1.There's a hospital looking for campaign mgmnt. for it's new insurance schemes... I guess SugarCRM would be a straight fit there. It's an MS setup... VB, SQL, NT-Domain (no ADS) .. but I guess the CRM bit should be fairly simple for a few of these users, who wouldn't mind the extra authentication.

2. Now there's another division doing lots of IT things - IT services, BPOs, Managed services, Education etc... I hope you get the drift. The whole thing is built around the Windows platform... mail is handled through Lotus Notes. The need is to build a groupware mechanism that can centrally handle mail, calendar, tasks, HelpDesk, time-sheets.. initially; and maybe things like Projects, chat-based group meetings, knowledge base, doc mgmnt. and other stuff as we go along.

Initially I thought of going with OpenGroupware for item 2.... and a couple of ideas came up during brainstorming.
a. Why not build a system around SharePoint Server.. and customise it as we go along, adding Project Server, Portals etc.. later on?
b. Instead of OGo, why not choose SugarCRM which currently does things like In/Out mail, Tasks, Tickets etc. and is customisable, besides being Open and built around PHP?

The choice to leave out OGo has been simple, the SharePoint option is a bit trickier. If we go with Sugar for both 1 and 2, it cuold bring down team size, quicken deployment and provide for extensibility... besides integrating with MS tools and login..., but I'm not very sure... hence my query.

TIA
JKrise

[reinier]

Have you looked at egroupware as well? It is very powerfull and has all the functionality that you mention (tickets, contacts, knowledge management, project management, hour registration).
'Building something with Sharepoint' sounds like a lot of work (it always ends up more expensive than you imagined if you do it with MS, ever noticed?)

Plus all the beautifull things you will do with it will be lost for the community. If you pump the same amount of effort/money into development of egroupware (or any of the other 2 packages you mention), we will all profit from it. (and we will be so greatfull that we will throw in our bits as well)

good luck choosing.

reinier battenberg

[jkrise]

Reinier, thanks for your feedback. We are definitely going the open-source way, and look to contribute to the community. I needed some clarity before adopting an approach:

Is it simpler to customise a CRM solution to also handle groupware functions.. like mail, docs and calendars?
OR
Would it be better to start with a groupware engine and build customer-facing stuff like CRM on top of it?

I'm inclined towards the former... atleast SugarCRM looks great, just needed some assurance from people who've gone this route.

TIA
JKrise

[niche]

OK, thanks for the clarification.
Well, Sugar is a no-brainer. we'll be using it mostly for email campaigns, and I think this is a good fit.
Reiner's comments have some validity.
While I absolutely love Sharepoint Portal (we also use it to synch with GROOVE project workspaces) it might end up being overkill or too expensive. Depends on how much money they want to spend. SPS requires MS SQL Server and Win 2003 Server + client access licenses.
Our company is small and we get a single server license for all the server products + 10 CALs so the expense is negligible, just the time effort and hardware to deploy.
SPS 12 is going to be amazing, but if you aren't using it with MS Exchange (which can be its own blessing or curse) then I don't think you will be getting the full benefit of it. SPS can also collect form-based information from InfoPath forms (only v12 will have web-based forms, now it is through a client app so it is a bit useless now, but will be the killer institutional information app in the future).
I would honestly take a look at GROOVE also (groove.net). Groove is highly unstructured compared to SPS. They both have their pros and cons -- that's why we use both Groove and SPS because the workspaces synch seamlessly, and users never have to worry about servers or where their documents are located. Groove is awesome.
There is a reason that MS just bought them. The software is amazing for collaboration and there is also a project management version (that synchs up with MS Project if you use it...)
I think you may be able to get Sugar to authenticate to an Active Directory if they use that for authentication, although I don't think most users will mind a separate user/pass for Sugar.

Hope this helps somewhat, it is a lot to take in.

[jkrise]

I think you may be able to get Sugar to authenticate to an Active Directory if they use that for authentication, although I don't think most users will mind a separate user/pass for Sugar.

Hope this helps somewhat, it is a lot to take in.

Hmmm... thanks for that quick response, but I'd like help on taking one crucial decision...

SugarCRM --> Groupware + CRM

OR

Groupware --> Groupware + CRM?

Implementing customer-facing features over Groupware might not be very simple... is this assumption correct?

Considering SugarCRM's 'plugin modules' are mostly to do with internal stuff, it should be easier to do groupware on it...

Thanks
JKrise

[reinier]

This choice will in the end be determined by your business processes and by the products under considiration. SugarCRM is a very leightweight CRM application, which is great, you implement it really fast, it works, you can throw out your rolodex and be much more efficient. The SOAP interface is really great, you can integrate a lot of SugarCRM into your website very flexible. But it is no groupware. The document management module is very basic, so is the ticket system, the opensource version does not have any workflow etc.
In general, groupware really helps you to organize internally, CRM helps you organize the outside of your organisation. Question is where your main challenge lies, in managing customer contacts & do sales and marketing, or by keeping your customers happy by running well documented, well organized projects.

rgds,
reinier battenberg
Mountbatten Ltd.