EMAIL MANAGEMENT IN SUGAR: How good is it?

[Rosamunda]

Hello there!
I´ve asked this same questiona a pretty large while ago (almost a year now), so I will want to hear your opinions, now.
In that time, when I asked about this, my conclusion was "it´s not good... yet".

I need a secure, reliable soft to handle the ingoing/outgoing email. We are an NGO that uses Zimbra now, but Zimbra uses a lot of ajax and some of our users cannot quite handle it. Besides that it´s configures for a big monitor, and the 800x600 that some of us got isn´t enough.

So, we have several mails each day, and we need to assign each of them to some of our people, depending on the subject. We need the admin to control if some mails have been unanswered for several days.
We don´t work with tickets. People sends us emails.
We need to create templates with attached files inside each of them, to answer certain emails.

Can Sugar do this... securely?
Last time I´ve tried it was a mess, and we cannot afford to llose any email that enter our inbox, nor can we afford to send emails that doesn´t reach our users.

I´ll really appreciate your genuine opinion about this issue.
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!

Rosamunda

[Angel]

If you have users that don't like Zimbra, you are unlikely to win any of them over with the new e-mail client in Sugar 5.0 as it also uses a lot of JavaScript wizardry.

As for the quality, it is all relative. Some people seem to have problems with it, others seem fine. I would add that just because someone experiences a problem and they are vociferous about it on these forums or other channels doesn't mean that the problem is with Sugar. It could just as easily be explained by an environment problem/setting. Point being, take those messages with a grain a salt as they are not universal. I don't use the e-mail module extensively, but I can tell you that the times I have, it seemed to do its work. I think the only issue I've encountered so far for which I couldn't find a solution yet is an issue connecting to my test IMAP server.

Lastly, I would stress that Sugar is not an e-mail application, it is a CRM solution. E-mailing is just one of its various abilities, but not its sole focus. I like to stress this because if users are expecting the e-mail capabilities of Sugar to behave like those in Outlook, they will be disappointed, just like they would be disappointed if they tried to use Outlook to perform CRM functions that Sugar excels at.

[Rosamunda]

Thanks for your answer Angel!
Yes, I really need zomething focused on email capabilities, but I also need invoicing, and would like to replace my access database with all students and their payments with an online solution...
Could Sugar so that job?
Anyway, I really appreciate your reply, it´s pretty much what I needed!
Thanks!

[dtokeefe]

Hi Rosamunda,

A good solution is the Thunderbird email client, SugarCRM and the Asertiva Thunderbird Extension for Sugar. It's very convenient to create Sugar records and archive emails with the Assertiva extension. We use it.

Cheers.

David