contacts = users?

[jashaffner]

I see that there are two modules, one for contacts and the other for users. Correct me if I am wrong. Contacts can not log in. Only users can. User module does not have all the functionalities that Contact module has.

If we want to use contact module for all the functionalities that user modules does not, and allow contacts to log in and use those same functionalities, then do we have to duplicate a person as a contact and an user?

My initial thought is to include a business logic from user module in contact module so that when a contact is added, that person will also be added as an user. Of course, it would mean that we need to maintain one to one relationship between contact and user. Is this approach pretty much the way to go?

We just started becoming familiar with SugarCRM. We want to make sure we are not missing anything here.

Thanks.

[Ram Kumar]

There might be issues if you want to make contacts=users. as users you are exposed to lot of functionalities and data. If you do not take care of the permissions, contacts will have access to lot of other data.

Even if your business is "B2C", it does not make sense to create a user for each contact.

Ram Kumar
Rhea Knowledge Technologies (P) Ltd
www.rheakt.com

[jashaffner]

I can understand for most of the businesses, they only need to maintain contacts. In our case, we want everyone in the system to be able to log in and be treated as users, and yet be able to maintain their contact information and their organizations (accounts). Make sense?

[Angel]

Just out of curiosity, why do you need to do this? Perhaps if we had a better understanding of the end goal it may help us give you some other ideas such as possibly using the SOAP API or other methods.

[jashaffner]

Okay. How about this..

We have employees working at different offices all over the place. The employees need to access any and all employees' contact information. The employees may either update their contact information, print mailing labels, look up someone's contact information, or whatever.

So...

If we want to use directory and its functionalities then our best bet is to use contacts module, thus, we have to enter employees as contacts. If we want employees to be able to log in and use the directory, then we have to enter employees as users.

What would you do? Treat employees both as contacts and users?

[jashaffner]

Bump.

What would you do?