Am I wasting my time or not?

[bvwwillvest]

I would like to use Sugar 5.x for my wife and I and our Real Estate business. I am not a programmer but enjoy working with linux system, (really over Microsoft) I have the system installed, have over a thousand contacts and was really excited about using the campaigns and the target tracking etc. I can not get things working though. I don't mind putting in the time to learn the system but I really don't want to waste my time. Looking for a little advice.

[chad.hutchins]

I don't think you are wasting your time at all!

Could you explain the specifics of your problem and maybe we can help?

[bvwwillvest]

Alright first of all I am running the following:

fc8, php 5.2.6-2, apache 2.2.8, mysql 5.0.45-6

sugar 5.0.0.g CE

Just realized that I forgot to mention that I was trying to use the CE version.


Just for starters: when trying to create a target list from my contacts I can perform a search that gives me 325 contacts out of 1400 or so. However I have no way to select all of those for a target list. (seems to be missing the code for the select button which would give you the choices of (all, this page or none). I am trying to start off with baby steps and would like to do a mass email to all realtors about a new listing.

I do have many other issues but think that I should take them one at a time so that I can attempt to process the information.

[bvwwillvest]

I think that I must be wasting my time ... I got a very quick response and then nothing when I disclosed I was using CE version. I realize that the CE version is not supported but is it a full version that can do everything it says or is Sugar play a Bill Gates game and not tell people that it is not able to do things like campaigns and mass emails?? Real Estate is tough enough right now with out trying to fight a software program that is not going to work for me. Sorry, just venting a bit.

[susiewilliams]

Hi Bill,

As with any community-supported forum, the responses you get are going to vary depending on the time of day you post, the complexity of your question (and its answer), and the availability of the very dedicated community members who take the time to post answers. For example, I believe I was still asleep when you posted your first question (I'm here on the west coast of the United States)...

Sugar CE is a full version of the product and it may (or may not) be a good fit for your needs. Sugar doesn't play a "Bill Gates game" and all of the features of each edition are described here.

For your particular situation, I can tell you that it's easier to do with the paid editions of the product (where you can "select from reports" to get the set of targets you want), but there are methods you can use in CE that should work as well. One way would be to use the Import Targets function to import a set of targets from a CSV file, then use that target list in your campaign. Hopefully others can chime in with best practices they have found.

Finally, Sugar University (http://university.sugarcrm.com) contains a few online library items and recorded sessions that may help you. Click on the Marketing tab of either the Online Library or Learning Sessions to see them.

[chad.hutchins]

Sorry about the slow response.... ;-)

But we use Enterprise Edition where I work, so I can't really help you out there. I will say Enterprise has been worth every penny to us.

[bvwwillvest]

Susie

Thank you very much for your reply, and I'm sorry for the BG jabb. I was just trying to get someone from Sugar to respond. I thought about exporting my contacts and then importing them back in, But I decided that I must be missing something or that there was some simple code to repair what seems to be an obvious error on that script.

Is anyone working with the CE version and able to do mass e-mails of their contacts and campaigns??

[kuske]

There is an additional module Power Prospecting at http://www.sugarforge.org/projects/powerprospect/
which allows to simplify the target selection by mass updates in contact and lead panels.