SugarCRM product roadmap is updated

[tara]

Hi!
We've updated the product roadmap for the open source and the professional product lines. Check it out and let us know what you think!
http://www.sugarcrm.com/home/SugarCR...ct_Roadmap/51/
Regards,

[webmeistergrubhubcom88745]

Tara,

Thank you for the updated Roadmap. It looks good, but I have some comments on some other things.

Since it looks like you are trying to be very receptive to what these forums are saying I'd like to suggest some things:

1. Can you please make somebody in the company formally responsible for the actvity on the forums ? IN other words - no question should go unanswered. I have several questions outstanding in various forums, as do other community members. You can casually glance and see that several posts have 0 responses. This is going to give people that visit the forums 1 time the belief that nobody is reading their issues and caring. Making sure every question is answered would go a long way towards making people come back.

2. You might want to make an official statement as to what is going on between Sugar CRM and TogerCRM. I've seen the exchange over in their forums, but I want to make sure everybody here understands the status of what they have done.

[john]

Patrick,
Thanks for your feedback. I know we do not always respond to every post. Its not because we do not want to, it’s because sometimes we just do not have the bandwidth. Right now, SugarCRM Inc. has 10 fulltime paid employees; our development is funded by our Sugar Professional customers. And without their support we would not be able to build new open source and pro functionality at the rate we are writing code now.

We do try and respond to most posts. Sugar Sales Pro customer issues are our fist priority, because they pay for support, after that we monitor and try to respond to as many Sugar Sales Open Source support issues as possible. We are looking for additional moderators to help support Sugar Sales Open Source users, so please contact us if you are interested in being a moderator. We do use the forums heavily to help us determine what new functionality to build in every new release.

So, yes Sugar Sales Open Source users have a huge influence on our product direction.

Regards,
John
SugarCRM

[tennr]

Hello,

I've been following along with SugarCRM for some time now, and have been anxiously awaiting the proposed features laid out in the original "Roadmap". I have turned-on several customers to this product migrating them from other solutions. The "promise" of such great features as territory management, in an open source project, was very attractive. I must say I am very disappointed, with this recent development of the roadmap showing this feature and others, now only available on the pro version.

The only redeeming notion here is where you state that "It is the policy of SugarCRM Inc. to move Professional-only components into the Open Source edition over time." Would you please elaborate on this. What should we as a community gather to be timetable for "over time". This is important information since there has been so much publicity and good talk made of SugarCRM and it's attributes as an open source project, only to have this discreetly pulled out from under the community and now labeled Pro, with a price tag, and only a vague statement that it will be made available to the OS community "over time".

I would have been much more inclined to accept an idea to stick with the originally proposed feature set (per the original roadmap) as OS, and add any additional features since the publication of the roadmap as Pro features only. This would have made SugarCRM Inc. look much more favorable in the eyes of many (of course I speak for myself only).

I apologize if this came across too harsh. SugarCRM had lifted my hopes so high, my writ is only an expression of somewhat shattered and thwarted expectations.

Regards,
Aaron

[patrick24601]

Aaron,

Will you ever consider buying the pro version to obtain the features you need ?

Not meant for flaming. I am just curious as to how many of the open source downloaders realize the value of the features and are willing to pay for them.

Patrick

[danielyma]

I am a new user considering to use SugarCRM.

The system looks great from the sales management side. However as the support dept, I also need to track my help request calls from existing customers and the followup actions to be done.

Is the SugarCRM new version in 2005 designed to have these features? The updated roadmap seems to suggest this. Can I get it in advance with purchasing the Professional version?

Regards


Daniel.

ps. my organization provides hosted services and applications to our clients.

[andolo]

Hi!
We've updated the product roadmap for the open source and the professional product lines. Check it out and let us know what you think!
http://www.sugarcrm.com/home/SugarCR...ct_Roadmap/51/
Regards,

I've downloaded the new version and installed it. According to the roadmap "reporting" is included in the new open version (2.0). But I don't find it here. If I go the demo version it appears as a new tab.

Regards
Anders Olofsson

[clint]

The basic reporting referred to in the roadmap is extending the ability to filter the lists that you see in the main page for each of the modules. We intended to add two key new features to that existing filtering ability for 2.0 to extend the existing filtering functionality to become "basic reporting", but we ran out of time for 2.0.

Those two features are:
1) Saved queries - This is the ability to save and name a query. We also plan to include the ability to "publish" the saved queries.
2) Extended query operators - This is the ability to filter in a date range, greater than, less than, and more.

We will be adding these features into the open source product in the next release.

Regards,

[kenlyle]

I was just thinking that the Roadmap is a great feature- at least for planning purposes.

I wonder whether the Roadmap could be extended a little bit to show the implications of some features, mainly because they sound good to me, but I am not CRM savvy.

Example: Territory Management

Well, I would like to create some Territories, say NorthEast, NorthWest, SouthEast, SouthWest and decide which geographic entities (states) are in each.

I would think that maybe then I could roll up reports by territory in the 2.0 or a future reporting module, and that my users would automatically be assigned to territories based on their state.

Otherwise, I might be tempted to add a Region field to each User Record, but I would prefer to work on other issues if this is going to be addressed by "Territory Management".

So, I guess I am asking, "Could Sugar provide a little more advice so that a technically literate, but not CRM savvy person can decide how to prioritize any modifications?" AND/OR "Will it always be assumed in the Sugar community that everyone knows what these terms, like Territory Management mean, and the implications to the database structures, reporting, and functionality?"

Thanks,
Ken

[julian]

Hello Ken,

You can always feel free to post here on the forums or e-mail us with questions about functionality. We get plenty of feedback from the tech side and the CRM side! Thanks,