Suggested method of using Accounts versus Contacts

[Socal]

Hi,
I apologize for what might seem like a dumb question.
I have installed the Community Edition and need a little advice on usage.
The business is a small business with individual clients as opposed to having larger companies who might have multiple contacts etc.
Our business sells Courses to students. Our courses are run in house.
Once a potential client purchases a course, we obviously hope that the he/she will go forward and purchase more courses in the future.

So my questions are:
1) Should I simply set up the individual client as an "Account" and also create a "Contact" entry for that individual client? Or should I not bother to create a contact with it being a 1/1 relationship?
2) As we sell courses as opposed to physical products, how should I record a client who has purchased attendance on a course? The course might last 4 weeks. Once the course has been completed, mark it as such.
3) Then target that client for future more advanced courses etc. An advanced course would require completion of the basic course as a pre-req.

Sorry if these are dumb questions.. and I appreciate any help/advice.

[datasponge]

Hi Socal,

I assume that a possible future growth direction for your company would be to sell courses to companies, in which case they might send several employees to you to take a course. In that case you might want to promote to the company or the key contact in personnel for that company. That means you need to differentiate decision makers from course attendees.

You should differentiate between accounts and contacts and even different types of contacts in order to handle future directions of your company and courses without having to go back and change a lot of saved data.

So with that in mind, here's how I would answer your questions.

1) Should I simply set up the individual client as an "Account" and also create a "Contact" entry for that individual client? Or should I not bother to create a contact with it being a 1/1 relationship?

I would create both. Different data is saved in each, for example with more contact info fields available under Contact. When a contact is an individual with no company affiliation the Account is effectively a dummy record, but you might use the Accounts list for billing, so it would be important to have the correct billing address for the individual under Accounts and their cell phone and other personal info under Contacts.

2) As we sell courses as opposed to physical products, how should I record a client who has purchased attendance on a course? The course might last 4 weeks. Once the course has been completed, mark it as such.

You can do this in multiple different ways. There is an Account type field that you can customize the dropdown for to represent if this is a company or an individual and if they have signed up for a course or completed a course etc.

We use a type and a status field in each of Accounts and Contacts. The Account Type field identifies customers from dealers from prospects, etc. We use the status field only to indicate an unusual status so it is most often empty and we only include them on a promotion list if status is empty. But you could use however it best meets your needs.

For example you could have the Contact Type as 'Student' or 'Personnel Manager' or others like 'Magazine' if you advertise, etc. You could use the Status with values like 'Prospect' or 'Currently Enrolled' or 'Completed Course'.

3) Then target that client for future more advanced courses etc. An advanced course would require completion of the basic course as a pre-req.

Then you could create target lists from Contacts with status 'Completed Course' to promote Advanced Courses to.

I would recommend a separate custom module for Courses with a Many to One relationship to Contacts to track exactly what courses a contact has taken. This would allow you to more specifically target contacts who have completed specific courses.

Or alternatively if your list of courses if fairly small, you could get by for a while with a different status value for each course you offer. But that will become inflexible quickly.

You can create new fields and dropdown lists and values in Studio.

Phil

[datasponge]

Hi Socal,

I prefer to work in the forum rather than with private messages, so I'll reply here. Your point 1-4 are all correct.

Your questions at the end of the PM were:

In your final sentence you say that new fields and dropdown can be created using Studio? .

Can you elaborate on that? Studio?? Are you referring to Visual Studio? Sorry if II should know what Studio is!

Studio is a tool built into Sugar and can be found on the Admin page. Play with it as it will be well worth your time and effort. Dropdown Editor is another tool on the Admin page. Module Builder is yet another tool on the Admin page.

To get to the Admin page, find the links along the top of Sugar. One of these links says Admin. Just click it and look at all the links and features on this page.

Can new fields be created for example for a Contact record but which are only applicable based on a Contact type? (for example).

A field is a field and holds whatever data you enter. You can control it in various ways, but you would have to get into coding to make it appear only in certain contexts. But if you want to have it always present and only fill it out in certain contexts, that would work. It's better to carefully design your fields to be generally applicable and fill in values that make sense to your application.

from the above scenarios - do you foresee that I will need to create additional fields/dropdowns?

For this type of application you will probably need additional fields, but they are very straight-foward to implement using Studio.

If you foresee it as being necessary, could you point me to a URL that explains the process?

See the Wiki and the Developer's Guide.

It's a lot of info, but you can pick and choose what to read first and ask specific questions on the forum to clarify.

You then mention "Custom Modules" for Courses with a many to one relationship. 1 contact may take multiple courses and the same course could be taken by multiple students....
Could you point me to where I find out how to create Custom Modules?
This sounds like writing code under the covers to accomplish this!!

See Module Builder on the admin page. It is a higher level tool that allows you to develop and deploy a custom module without writing any code. As the complexity of your requirements increases, you can look at writing your own code, but that isn't needed to get started with a custom module.

There is a section of the developers guide on custom modules.

Phil

[jerryvn01]

Hi,
I apologize for what might seem like a dumb question.
I have installed the Community Edition and need a little advice on usage.
The business is a small business with individual clients as opposed to having larger companies who might have multiple contacts etc.
Our business sells Courses to students. Our courses are run in house.
Once a potential client purchases a course, we obviously hope that the he/she will go forward and purchase more courses in the future.

So my questions are:
1) Should I simply set up the individual client as an "Account" and also create a "Contact" entry for that individual client? Or should I not bother to create a contact with it being a 1/1 relationship?
2) As we sell courses as opposed to physical products, how should I record a client who has purchased attendance on a course? The course might last 4 weeks. Once the course has been completed, mark it as such.
3) Then target that client for future more advanced courses etc. An advanced course would require completion of the basic course as a pre-req.

Sorry if these are dumb questions.. and I appreciate any help/advice.

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[hdblue]

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