Beginner Questions - How To's

[FSEBA]

We are just beginning with Sugar and we aren't finding good answers or guides in the user doc. I've searched the forums and I'm not finding answers. Some of the issues are:

Business flow: Where can I find a schema that details the flow of a prospect from lead to contact to opp to account? It is a very confusing process, and we're not sure what the importance is of the conversion process. For Example, opportunities seem to require an account, but if it is the initial proposal presented to a lead (where there is an oportunity to track), there is no account yet.


Task Due dates and times: What are the rules for due date and time? (not covered in documentation)

For example:

I enter a task at 8:40 AM on 8-25 which is due to be completed by 2 PM 8-26. The due time field reports the time as 'invalid'. There is no time between 1 PM and 12 midnight that's acceptable.

When I enter a contact, say for a lead, or a simple business contact (my print shop for example); I cannot use a company name under 'account name' because Sugar only uses 'account name' for bonified 'accounts' (companies I have sold to). How do i add contacts for leads, business partners and other non sales target companies?

How do I add an 'opportunity' for a company that is not yet an account. There is a business opportunity with a prosepct. I wish to record this as an opportunity. I cannot unless I convert this prospect to an account (re: customer). It is not a customer of course, it is a prospect where we have an opportunity.

Leads: How do I associate a value of an opportunity that I cannot create with a lead that is a prospect that is being pursued, but is not yet an account?

Also, how do I track leads by company. I may have several contacts at a lead, but each lead is tracked by individual name, not company name. So if i have 10 contacts at a lead/prosepct, I must have 10 leads for that company? Please no.....

General data flow or tutorials would be really helpful if anyone knows of any. I'm not seeing these kinds of questions in the forum, so I'm not sure that I haven't missed some basic stuff.

Thanks All,

Jeff
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[mbarlow310]

Man, did you ever hit the nail on the head. There are no flowcharts, there are no diagrams. If you don't see it there, the chances are it doesn't exist.

[FSEBA]

[SIZE=7]I am hacking my way through it. Apparently lots of folks have figured this out. It's just that there are two of us in our new company, we bought on demand, and I don't have hours and days to make this a productive tool. Apparently, it requires this. Also, I'm sure I'm confusing some issues as I'm a newbie. BUT, my experiece isn't wrong. This thing is klugie in how it thinks about sales flow. I'm alos not a unix geek and so I need to be careful about what I do. I don't have the wherewithal to twek the database dirently....in the absence of gui tools.

Does anyone have any doc or how to's that describe the information flow here?

Thanks Gang,

Jeff Taylor

[FSEBA]

I just found a decent discusssion that previous searches hadn't revealed. It is at Flow Discussion

[ajideoluus]

I am a novice to Sugar CRM. I am currently taking a course on System Development and Procurement. I am writing a report on Customer Relationships Management. But, I need help as regards the functionality of each of the sections of the SugarCRM (Marketing Automation, Sales Force Automation, Customer Service & Support) to help me draw the use case diagrams and complete my assignment. Please help me.

Thank you.

[sugarcane]

Hi Jeff,

I enter a task at 8:40 AM on 8-25 which is due to be completed by 2 PM 8-26. The due time field reports the time as 'invalid'. There is no time between 1 PM and 12 midnight that's acceptable.

Not sure what version of Sugar you are using, but i cannot replicate this issue on 5.1a.

Business flow: Where can I find a schema that details the flow of a prospect from lead to contact to opp to account? It is a very confusing process, and we're not sure what the importance is of the conversion process.

for the Lead conversion, this is a good place to start: http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/index.ph...nvert_Lead_v45

Generally, when you are at the point where you are ready to create an opportunity for a lead, you convert it to an account and contact (where you can then create an opportunity and log it against the account). You will notice that there is a Type dropdown on the accounts module, one of which is 'prospect'. You can use this status for those leads that have been converted for the purposes of creating an opportunity but are not yet contacts/accounts.

To allow logging opportunities to the leads and removing the required Account Name is possible, but would require customization.

Also, how do I track leads by company. I may have several contacts at a lead, but each lead is tracked by individual name, not company name. So if i have 10 contacts at a lead/prosepct, I must have 10 leads for that company? Please no....

If the account already exists in your system in the accounts module, you can link the Lead to that account via the Leads subpanel in the Account detail view. When you convert leads to contacts, you have the option in the lead conversion screen to either create a new Account, create no account (just a stand alone contact) or to link the converted Contact to an existing Account in the system.

Depending on your exact business case, some people/companies choose to forego the Leads module and instead just use the Contacts and Accounts module with type or status fields to help denote what type of account or contact they are (customer, prospect, lead etc). We would be more than happy to discuss your options or some training if you are interested.