Adding "Company" as a custom field in Accounts/Contacts

[sugarhoney]

In my old CRM, there's a "company" column in a table called "contact." But in sugarcrm Contacts, there isn't one - and no "companies" table in sugarcrm as well. At this point, when I import my contacts, it goes to a generic account "myaccount." Thus, in the "accounts_contacts" table, all the contact_id have the same account_id (myaccount).

Additionally, in my old CRM, the company columns have records like "Alpha Store" which is listed 4 times in my old CRM based on four contacts working for the same company. So, I'd like it to be copied once to sugarcrm custom fields with just one unique id (I'm transferring the data from my old CRM on an SQL Server to my sugarcrm on mysql. I'm using PHP to create a script to do this, so I have complete control of what tables to update (contacts and accounts_contacts). I mainly need help on having a custom "Company" column when viewing the list of contacts and normalizing the Companies so mulitple contacts can be associated with the unique company they belong to.

For example, in viewing the contact list, you can see Account Name, Title, and Department, but not one for "Company." So, I want to know if a Custom Field field can provide that and have company be searchable as well? Or, should I add a new column called "company" in the accounts or contacts table? However, I don't how if this will screw up the structure of sugarcrm.

[sugarhoney]

Basically, what I would like to do is, add a custom field in the "Accounts" table called "company." Each imported contacts will map to a company. Then when viewing the Contacts list, it will display "Name", "Title", "Account Name" and then "Company"

Will this work? Must company has a unique id of some sort?

[susiewilliams]

Hi there,

From my understanding of your posts, Sugar's "accounts" table is effectively the same as the "company" table in your old CRM system. If you want to call it Company, you can just change the labels on the screens and you'd have what you are looking for.

[sugarhoney]

Yes, and if I want to add a "company" column as a custom field in the accounts table, that would work right? But when viewing the Contacts, how do I make it display a "Company" column along w/ "Name", "Title", and "Account Name."? Is there something else I need to modify?

[susiewilliams]

Why wouldn't Company = "Account Name" ? Isn't that the same thing you're trying to display?

[sugarhoney]

I just like to keep them separate for some reason. Is it better to keep it as one? Ok, so when viewing the Contacts list, how do I change "Account Name" to "Company"? In that case, would it make sense to add a custom field called "Company" in accounts in the first place?

[susiewilliams]

If you have two fields that essentially hold the same information, it makes sense to just use the one (built in) field.

As for label changes, you can do this using the Sugar Studio. There is a brief tutorial posted on the developers website that shows you how Studio works.

[eggsurplus]

Trust Susie on this one. She's helping you from making a big mistake