How to improve Calendaring and Activities in Sugar Sales

[clint]

Hi folks -

We are in the process of planning our next release targeted for April 2005. A frequently requested feature is further investment in the calendaring and activitiy management aspects of the system. We hear you and we agree!

The question we're interested in hearing your feedback on is what exact features would you like to see. I've certainly seen a significant amount of interest in beefing up the shared calendar aspect of the system. Features we're planning to do include 1) being able to mark appointments and tasks as pubic/private and 2) then being able to view a different user's public calendar. This is all very straight-forward stuff and will absolutely be done.

However the more interesting question is, "what about calendar sync?" How much of a demand is there from you for this feature? What are your thoughts on vCal and iCal support? How deep of an integration should be done? What systems have you seen that do calendar syncing well?

Have a happy and safe New Year's Eve!

Regards,

[gremln007]

Clint:

I think calendar sync is crucial for the tool to be useful. I do not know if this will help you at all but the Blackberry devices from RIM have calendar syncing down to a science. It even works wirelessly!

As far as format, etc, I must plead ignorance. I would think compatibility with the major PIMs and email clients would be wise. Outlook sync would seem a must to me.

[stephen975]

Yes Yes yes!

We have been looking to replace our act2000 (demod and tried the newer versions, but it was bloat ware - slower and harder).

Our business is refractive surgery , so we have prospective candidates call, leads, etc. and then arrange for scheduling.

A robust calender (group/private) and abllity to book appointments (vs. "calls" and "meeting").

multiple calenders (e.g. for us. surgical , patients, etc)


I have just started researching open source and found your CRM with calender very good.

1) fast,
2) easy to install
3) lots of features.

wish list that other people have echoed

customizeable fields (unless you want us to get down and dirty and hard code away).

I look forward to seeing the version in April 2005!


Aloha,

and keep the faith.


stephen gee, m.d.

[nicholas]

For starters I feel the ability to know what is the business related activities every of my partners have arranged (appointments/meetings) is a good start, the next is an option for a user to make it a shared appointment for himself and others (ie. me and 2 other guys) and automatically put it into the other guys calendar with email notification if possible; this is similar to the Project option in www.phprojekt.com

Finally the capability to have a Gaant charting and project "workplan" to visualise the entire opportunity would be much appreciated!

[roger]

We tried installing the open source, importing all our contacts, accounts, notes, etc. While some pages slowed down quite a bit, the calendar in particular has become extremely slow. It seems that the number of meetings and tasks in the system has a big effect on performance. This is the number 1 issue for us!

The shared calendar is also important. If one person is booking an appointment that involves one or two others, it's good to see if there are any conflicts (not just after you write it in), so day/week/month views that show all appointments overlaid from all invited users would be useful.

[malcolmh]

Hi Folks,

I would definitely like to see shared calender functionality, views of various users groups (skils or project view) in a Gaant diagram form would be desirable to check for availability not just over a day but over several weeks/months.

Being able to groups of people with certain skills would be usefully for planning Service Personel, being able to differentiate i.e. colour code between different activity types would also be great.

Marking appointments and tasks as pubic/private and then being able to view a different user's public calendar is mandatory as well as calender synching with Outlook etc.

Cheers Malcolm

[crystalsinger]

Hi all,

Yes, calendar sync is high on my list. I need it to sync with Pocket PC - which means that sync with Outlook would do the job. Support for Palm devices should be included too though,

One critical thing needed is the ability to assign/select event categories - I don't want my personal and/or private events dumped into the SugarCRM database for all to see...

The other feature needed is reminders via e-mail. This becomes less critical after calendar sync is implemented, but would complete the functionality for those who don't use Outlook/Palm/Pocket PC.


Cheers,

Jessica

[spignataro]

I think the ability to be able to assign people things during the day. And have it show who assigned you. There are also other great calendar functions you might want to look at. One such thing is importing to Calendar for Thunderbird and the calendar in Outlook. I have an office where most of us have stopped using Outlook due to the heavy flaws and security risks. So also inclusion of other mail clients would be a great idea.

i would look at a few projects and what they offer.

http://webcalendar.sourceforge.net/


A few things I am looking for in the calendar:

1: Being able to assign people to certain times during the day
2: Being able to view other calendars.
3: Being able to print a calendar with multiple peoples calendars on there.
4: Being able to define a template or define css settings to the calendar.

[dtrumbower]

I would stick with the ICal standard.

[msmiller]

Some basic things would be nice:

- All day events (i.e. trade shows, project milestones, etc.)
- RSVP (let users select if they can or plan to attend ... take a look at how the LDU CMS handles this).
- Multi-day all-day events (some kind of recurrency is probably better).
- A little format control - font style and color is probably enough, to make the month calendar easier to read.


My personal view is you don't want to get too deep into calendaring development as there are plenty of companies which specialize in it already. Integrating with something like iCal would offload some of the responsibility - and there should be PDA/Outlook sync engines for that.

-MSM