Should I be buying SugarCRM?

[acasey]

Hi there I'm considering buying SugarCRM but not sure if it's 'Support' functionality is good enough.
Here is my background...

I work for a small software company that produces software, for the recruitment and banking sectors.
I've recently been tasked to find a Knowledge Base for our department, as the launch of our latest recruitment software has caused a massive increase in incident volumes. (due to the vast improvements and additional functionality that's been added into the new software)

Currently we have no Knowledge base only help files saved in folders on our network. This is now becoming an issue, as searching for known fixes is taking too long and call times are increasing plus new fixes are not being documented for future use.

We have decided to follow the KCS knowledge management methodology and we are looking into buying Talisma's Knowledge base.
When I was shown the Talisma package the sales rep showed me a customers system as an example.
They had salesforce.com with Talisma integrated as a extra add-on module.
This system worked really well, with the support teams able to log calls and the system automatically searching within the knowledge base, then suggesting fixes immediately to the support analyst.
These fixes can then be attached to the incident and closed down.

So I mentioned this to my manager and he advised that if we can find an integrated call logging and knowledge base system then we should invest it that.
So having spoken to Salesforce (which ticked all of our boxes) there quote was nearly £8,000 more than we currently pay.

So I've been looking further afield and found SugarCRM. I've noticed that there are alot of ex Salesforce users moving to Sugar and the idea of open source sounds really exciting.
Plus the price is close to half of what Salesforce are quoting.

However having used the SugarCRM custom demo, the knowledge base function is not accessable and I'm starting to have my doubts that this software should not be used solely as a support/call center software.
I'm aware that CRM is mainly a sales tool but Salesforces's support module seemed to perfectly fit our remit.

So the question is I'm I barking up the wrong tree with SugarCRM?
Will the Support functions be improved and concerntrated on more in future releases?
Please help should I be disregarding SugarCRM?

Our needs in bullet point:

• Internal Knowledge base (preferable talisma as it's KCS verified)
  external customer SelfHelp portal (comes with Talisma)
  bug tracker
  incident logging system
  Admin system to track customers details, software licence renewal, engineer booking schedule (linked to outlook calendar)
  customisable reporting
  passcode generator
  email support

[sacramentojoe]

Hi there,
I can help answer a few questions.

1. Internal Knowledge base (preferable talisma as it's KCS verified)
If you get the Pro version, I KNOW there is a Knowledge Base Module you can add. Not sure about the Open Source one.

2. external customer SelfHelp portal (comes with Talisma)
Yes, this exists.

3. bug tracker
Yes, this exists

4. incident logging system
Yes, this exists

5. Admin system to track customers details, software licence renewal, engineer booking schedule (linked to outlook calendar)
Yes, this exists but MIGHT have to add custom fields for software license renewal though.

6. customisable reporting
Yes, this exists

7. passcode generator
Currently does not exist, but you can create code to do it for you

8. email support
yes, this exists


Everything I'm basing my answers off of are using the Pro version of Sugar. There are also tons of modules available in SugarForge that you can use as well.

Hope this helps.