Marketing/Industry category

[Cannon]

I see that Sugar has a drop down field in the Accounts module for tagging an account industry. I need to tag the Lead from the start with an industry (market group by my definition). Aside from creating a custom field in the lead module (I rather use Sugar canned not customized), has anyone else seen a simple solution? I don't want to turn the lead into a contact w/account until they are more than a cold call.

[roblaus]

Nope, there is no other way than creating a custom field and using the same dropdown for it. Problem: when converting the lead the industry information isn't transferred unless you create TWO custom fields and name them the same (or you fiddle with the code)
This is one of the big mysteries to me - people are doing this over and over again, it is annoying and counter productive but Sugar doesn't change anything (the community can't because it won't go into the core product). BTW it's the same with the webpage. There is no lead without a webpage.

[sugarcane]

As long as the field in the leads module has the same exact database name as the field in the account or contacts module, then it will convert over into the account or contact. So robalus is correct, you can create a custom field (which auto adds _c at the end of the field name) in both the leads and accounts/contacts. In your case with the industry field, you have one of 2 choices: create a custom industry field in the leads module and in the accounts module (and replace the existing industry field in the accounts module) OR you will need to hard code the industry field for the leads module.

[heytimc]

Surely we could ask those nice Sugar folks to make this a standard issue item in the next release as it seems a bit of no brainer in the time and effort saving department?