VOIP Intergration with SUgarCRM

[projectsugar]

Anyone aware of any VOIP providers out there that can be integrated with SugarCRM Community edition? I have heard of Asterisk. Does anyone have any feedback on Asterisk? Are other providers other than Asterisk that Sugar can work with? Thanks

[augustynr]

Asterisk is a product, contact me directly if you are interested in integration with your phone system.

Anyone aware of any VOIP providers out there that can be integrated with SugarCRM Community edition? I have heard of Asterisk. Does anyone have any feedback on Asterisk? Are other providers other than Asterisk that Sugar can work with? Thanks

[mhalper2000]

I just went live with a bundled solution of open source products that provides integration with SugarCRM and VoIP. It is called Elastix and has Sugar, Asterisk, and freepbx. There is integration enabling click to dial and is supposed to do pop-up for incoming but it looks like I need to upgrade to Pro for that to work.

The freepbx app makes it very easy to manage Asterisk, I have been very happy with this solution minus a fee bug issues.

There is also a product out there called trixbox that is similar.

Let me know of any questions.

[mhalper2000]

Also, you mention providers, Asterisk is not a provider but more a VoIP application. You still need a provider to provide an outside carrier connection. There are many choices for this, but I use flowroute as they provide a good rate and also charge by the minute which can be good depending on your usage.

[augustynr]

All these products are build on the top of Asterisk.
Unless you have a very small installation you would not want to run CRM and phone system on the same server and these distributions do that.

Integrating voip with CRM creates some very interesting possibilities like:

Click to call.

Automatic tracking of all phone calls in and out in CRM.

Pop ups on incoming calls.

Based on a caller id, the systems displays client’s record in CRM or give an option to create a new record in CRM.

By the time an agent answers the call an agent knows who he/she is speaking to (company, client ...)
No more asking questions and then getting the data on existing clients.

This option by itself creates much better customer experience and creates huge savings by making your agents more efficient and happier handling the calls ....

Do you think that integrating the predictive dialer would be an interesting addition?

[mhalper2000]

All these products are build on the top of Asterisk.
Unless you have a very small installation you would not want to run CRM and phone system on the same server and these distributions do that.

Integrating voip with CRM creates some very interesting possibilities like:

Click to call.

Automatic tracking of all phone calls in and out in CRM.

Pop ups on incoming calls.

Based on a caller id, the systems displays client’s record in CRM or give an option to create a new record in CRM.

By the time an agent answers the call an agent knows who he/she is speaking to (company, client ...)
No more asking questions and then getting the data on existing clients.

This option by itself creates much better customer experience and creates huge savings by making your agents more efficient and happier handling the calls ....

Do you think that integrating the predictive dialer would be an interesting addition?

Do you know how to get the "Automatic tracking of calls in and out of the CRM" set up. I am able to do the click to dial but there is no log of the call record in Sugar. I would assume that you can set it up to log an activity automatically after you click to dial.

[fonewiz]

it's been a while but I use to work with trixbox quite a bit. That solution as I remember offered an Asterisk based PBX with Sugar CRM intergration including call popups.

With trixbox it's easy to integrate the provider of your choice for the VoIP part of it.

if you need a consultant to get it all setup, then you should be able to find one on their forums.

If all else fails, you can contact me and I could consult depending on your requirements etc.

There is a free version of trixbox, you just may need to dig for it a bit, I am sure they promote the paid option more than the free.

Hope this helps..