New to sugarcrm - can we do this?

[dylanphelan]

Hi

I work with content management systems, so I know the basics of installing systems like SugarCRM. I am just not sure on the features etc. Afriend has asked me to help set this up, as they work for a non profit organisation - I would like to help them free of charge.

Their requirements are as follows: Will SugarCRM be right for this.

Generally:
-sending mass emails to targetted mailing lists, in a few simple steps
- tracking the results and success of how these mails were received
- logging calls and emails - to measure when follow up is needed in terms of rsvp and ticket payments of events, press invites, getting money from sponsors and donors
- sharing some documents on the crm
- logging meetings so that visible to the team
- sharing info on events (we currently do this in google docs) time, type of event, cost, venue etc
-sending a monthly or every 2 months newsletter to 4500 contacts
-sending info on shows to targetted people on database 1-3 times a month
-sending thank-you letters to targetted people on database (specific mailing list)
-sending reminders to make payments
-mail press to come to events

What concerns me is - if we create a lead form to put on their website. We need to be able to add people to certain mailing lists (target lists?) based on what they fill in on the form. For example - potential sponsors

Would appreciate help with this.

Thanks
Dylan

[kinshibuya]

Hi There.
So, you basically need a lot of the campaign module.
On my instance of Sugar we use the campaigns module to send invitations for events.
but there are a few things to consider:
- Sugar will use your email account as a client to send these emails so everything must be configured.
- Sugar can add contacts through web pages using SOAP
- my highest number of emails sent at a time was about 500, and i had problems with the outgoing on this (i guess there is a parameter you can set if the process should take too long)

About the documents sharing and information sharing sugar can do this, just remember that files on sugar are stored on the file system so you should have a good server for this.

For the emails i think you should give it a try, just take about 10-30 minutes to set it up and you can import your contacts for the 1st trial of tests.

[dylanphelan]

Hi

Thanks for the reply.

I have managed to send emails to a 'test' target listing using Sugarcrm. And just now I set up a 'test' lead form and uploaded it - I filled it in and then the lead appeard under the Leads section of sugar.

I am not really worried about the email sending rates etc - I have a dedicated email server and can send 3000 or so an hour and I can manage this using the cron settings.

Where I am confused:

They are going to have to send out a bulk email asking around 4000 people to update their information. I have created a lead form with various options and check boxes for fields like:
- potential sponsors
- board member
- advisory committee
- students
- parents of students

Contacts or leads must be added to different lists based on which check boxes they fill in.

So if someone checks the box 'potential sponsors' they need to be added to this list, then we must be able to send out a bulk email to all of the potential sponsors.

Someone might for instance choose 'potential sponsors' and 'parents of students' - then they must be added to both those lists.

Would really appreciate if someone could explain the workflow here.

[andopes]

Hi Dylan

Yes, SugarCRM is able to accomplish all these requirements with minor customization.

Best regards

[dylanphelan]

Hi Dylan

Yes, SugarCRM is able to accomplish all these requirements with minor customization.

Best regards

Thanks - I'm sure it can accomplish this quite easily, but I have never used SugarCRM before, so am feeling a little lost. This is a non profit organisation and they are about to go with another company who has quoted them quite a lot. I would like to be able to give them assurance that I can help them with this asap.

Please point me in the right direction with regard to my previous post.