SugarCRM Terminology

[luong]

Here're my system:
OS: Windows 2008 Server
CRM: SugarCRM 5.0.0d OS version with bundled Apache, PHP
DB: MS SQL Server 2005

I'm beginner in CRM and SugarCRM. I've just confused about Account, Employee and User terminology which use in SugarCRM. Any one help me to explain? or have an example in practice.

Thank you very much!

[Angel]

An Account is an organization you've done business with, i.e. a client/customer. It is the top-most level item in the hierarchy of objects within Sugar.

An employee is just a staff member from your organization. There is not much you can do with this other than use it as an employee directory for your company. Users are Sugar login credentials that can be used to access the system. Note that an employee entry is automatically created for every user you define, but the reverse is not true, meaning, you could could add an employee to the employee list and it does not create a user for them.

[kuske]

OK I see in english it is not much better than in german.

An "Account" is normally in SugarCRM a customer or a partner or a competitor or what else...
That meens, Account is normally an other Company.

But in some cases the developers and admins and users and ... of SugarCRM use the wording "Account" as an abbreviation for "user account" which is as "user" in SugarCRM.

A "user" in SugarCRM is a person who is allowed to log in into SugarCRM.
The "user" has a password and uses this password for login.

If you have persons in your company who should not log in into Sugar, but whose personal information should be available in SugarCRM, e.g. to find the email-address or the phone number, you declare them as "employee" only.

Every "user" is an "employee" too.

[luong]

Thank you all of you. It helps me to discover SugarCRM, a hero in OS CRM.

[eggsurplus]

luong,

There are a bunch of good, free web recordings on sugarcrm.com that help answer some of these questions. Check them out. It's a great resource!

http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/university/library?tmpl=

[susiewilliams]

...and if I can put in a plug for the Podcasts...


The Sugar 60 Second Snippets are small audio podcasts that cover a variety of subjects on CRM in general, Sugar the software, and a host of other areas. You can find links to all of them here, along with transcripts of each one if you want to read rather than listen. You can also find us on iTunes as well so you can subscribe to the series. New ones are published each Monday.

For your particular question, there are two podcasts that should help:

Leads vs. Contacts
Accounts vs. Opportunities

Check them out and let me know what you think!