Can someone explain what works and what doesn't?

[alex1000]

Hello,

We're a newly migrated "salesforce.com to sugarcrm OS" customer....
Trying to figure out exactly what functionality is available in the OS version and how it works. The goal is to replace our current helpdesk solution(Kayako), but we can't really do that until:

1. Customer emails support@mydomain.com", I assume it can go into SugarCRM under "Cases" ? Pretty sure this works.
2. Can you have different queues for diff departments, like support@mydomain.com" goes into the support queue, and "sales@mydomain.com" goes into the sales queue, etc. I didn't see a way to do this, so thought I'd ask.
3. Customer portal, where they can submit questions and view their open tickets (after they login). I think clint mentioned there will be a Mambo api for this feature...any more info on this or details on how to set it up currently?
4. From Sugar, send replies back to the customer (it gets logged in Sugar), Customer emails back (it also gets logged in Sugar), etc. Basically all email conversations we want records of (pretty basic helpdesk funtion).
5. Furthermore to #4...when a customer sends a second reply, it'd be nice if the owner of that ticket got notified in his own email. Think this was mentioned in another thread as a feature enhancement.

Thanks in advance

Alex

[patrick24601]

AFAIK SUgarCRM cannot accept leads via email. I don't think this would be hard thought. Just a matter of setting up a PHP script to look at a POP3 box every 5 minutes.

Please realize - SugarCRM is not a primarily a helpdesk program. It is a CRM program. It is going to be much better at CRM than handling helpdesk issues.

[alex1000]

AFAIK SUgarCRM cannot accept leads via email. I don't think this would be hard thought. Just a matter of setting up a PHP script to look at a POP3 box every 5 minutes.

Please realize - SugarCRM is not a primarily a helpdesk program. It is a CRM program. It is going to be much better at CRM than handling helpdesk issues.

Thanks. I just want to keep the entire customer support management in one application, not multiple ones. The features I listed above are for the most part very, very basic helpdesk features. Salesforce.com does most of it, and I know v-Tiger is further developing the helpdesk aspect of the CRM.

The features that are listed above and are not implemented in Sugar... are my wishlist items in that case

[nathan]

we are new to sugar as well. great work on this.

alex1000 makes a fantastic point. critical pieces of our client relationships are communicated via email. in many cases, i would say it is the most critical medium for us. being able to originate, redirect, archive (categorize), and report on this information would be a tremendous value add to our client relationships.

we are creatively working around this by utilizing another application that is smart enough to append an existing thread based upon a "ticket number". but that disconnect, although only requiring a couple of additional steps, feels like its gigantic! so we originate the email from Sugar, place the "ticket number" in the subject line, and then send to our other application (which maintains the thread).

having this in one place would marry "turn" to "key" - always sweeter when they are together .

again. kudos to a tremendous job on this application.

N

[dihuei]

Hi!

This is exactly what i am looking for too. Since we are not able to fully use SugarCRM for helpdesk now, may i know how you guys are handling these portion of your operation at the moment? Do you still continue using Kayako and have 2 different systems? Disable "Cases" (not too sure whether it can be done though) or only use it for telephone support?



David Loke

[clint]

We're planning to include an inbound mail component by the end of the year. In the meantime, you should check out Popsicle. This is a POP3 reader for SugarCRM built by one of the our community members.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/popsicle/

Regards,

[casibbald]

Hi Alex1000

Kayako helpdesk really is the premire help desk application in the industry, and costs a fraction of what magic and other 5 digit priced helpdesks costs.

What you really should consider doing is diabling Cases in sugar, and possibly Kayako users should consider lobying kayako to write a sugar integration facility.

It will both bost kayako sales by accesing the large SUGAR client base, and it will boost sugar by killing of a dead application "cases" as there is no point in re-inventing the wheel as kayako is far beyond anythin that sugarcrm could develop "cases" to. Kayako really is an entire application of its own.

Anyone looking for Kayako integration with sugar should make their opinion heard, and lets approch kayako as a group.

FYI... the new SupportSuite from kayako has some amazing features, infact i have stoped using my normal mail client and use the kayako interface which allows for the very best colaboration with my staff and also clients.....


Lets get kayako and sugar together.....

[gskohner]

thanks clint,
popsicle looks great. I will give it a try

[gskohner]

popsicle crashed my apache on wamp. Any ideas