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Sugar CRM

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  • 26-09-2011 1:06pm
    #1
    Dragon6250
    Registered Users Posts: 14 ✭


    I need to update our company software, we are a service company and need to schedule service engineers and track customer history etc. SugarCRM has been suggested. Does anyone have any views on same. One of the biggest issues is the migration of data into the new system. I have the information in excel (CSV) files but it needs to collated, edit and prepared correctly for importing into Sugar. Does anyone know someone who would be good at this. Also how easy the system is to use. Any thoughts or suggestions would be appriciated.


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    #2
    OREGATO
    Registered Users Posts: 898 ✭✭✭OREGATO


    Sugar is freeware but I think you can pay for support which would help with the migration from your old/existing systems.

    We took a look at it briefly but decided to go with an in house solution (more flexible and easier to maintain with more freedom to do what we want and not let an existing system determine what we can and cannot do)

    If your company is willing to pay, take a look at salesforce.com, they're not cheap, but they will facilitate you with the migration etc.

    If you are familiar enough with Excel, I'd say you'd find it easy enough to collate/edit/prepare the data for import.


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    #3
    VMotion
    Registered Users Posts: 100 ✭✭VMotion


    Dragon, you can take a look at SugarCRM demo, play around and see how it aligns with your proposed usage.
    You could take a look at this data migration guide but you'll need a live system to test it on. Don't use that test server for imports. You never know who maintains it.

    Good luck!


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    #4
    Dragon6250
    Registered Users Posts: 14 ✭Dragon6250


    OREGATO wrote: »
    Sugar is freeware but I think you can pay for support which would help with the migration from your old/existing systems.

    We took a look at it briefly but decided to go with an in house solution (more flexible and easier to maintain with more freedom to do what we want and not let an existing system determine what we can and cannot do)

    If your company is willing to pay, take a look at salesforce.com, they're not cheap, but they will facilitate you with the migration etc.

    If you are familiar enough with Excel, I'd say you'd find it easy enough to collate/edit/prepare the data for import.


    Thanks Oregato
    Will do.

    Familiar with excel but I think someone who is a whizz with excel would be able to sort the data in a fraction of the time.


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    #5
    thebman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,012 ✭✭✭✭thebman


    If looking at Salesforce.com look at things like additional data storage charges. One company I worked for ditched them after they were quoted basically criminal rates for a 100MB of extra storage. Maybe they bought the wrong plan initially or something but I heard the price charged (can't remember it) and my jaw dropped as did the rest of the IT teams.

    I would recommend also looking at one called OpenCRM.
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/openrcm/

    Hosted plans here:
    http://www.opencrm.co.uk/plans-a-pricing/overview.html

    That is what the company I worked for eventually switched to. I think they were smaller back then but the company got quite good rates on the product and never had any issues with it. They seemed to have a fixed price plan now but might be worth talking to them about it to see if they still negotiate on pricing.

    Some products on the Chrome Web Store for this now too which might be worth looking at, most are free now with intention to charge later so possibility to get stung maybe.


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    #6
    OREGATO
    Registered Users Posts: 898 ✭✭✭OREGATO


    Dragon6250 wrote: »
    Thanks Oregato
    Will do.

    Familiar with excel but I think someone who is a whizz with excel would be able to sort the data in a fraction of the time.

    If you want, I'll take a look at the structure of your excel for you, I can't promise anything, but even if you give me the headings of the data you have in Excel and how the SugarCRM want's these, I can see if I can do it up for you quickly, we do it a lot in work for a few things, so I don't mind taking a quick look.
    thebman wrote: »
    If looking at Salesforce.com look at things like additional data storage charges. One company I worked for ditched them after they were quoted basically criminal rates for a 100MB of extra storage. Maybe they bought the wrong plan initially or something but I heard the price charged (can't remember it) and my jaw dropped as did the rest of the IT teams.

    I would recommend also looking at one called OpenCRM.
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/openrcm/

    Hosted plans here:
    http://www.opencrm.co.uk/plans-a-pricing/overview.html

    That is what the company I worked for eventually switched to. I think they were smaller back then but the company got quite good rates on the product and never had any issues with it. They seemed to have a fixed price plan now but might be worth talking to them about it to see if they still negotiate on pricing.

    Some products on the Chrome Web Store for this now too which might be worth looking at, most are free now with intention to charge later so possibility to get stung maybe.

    Lol, you're not the first person I've heard where your jaw has dropped from seeing the quoted pricees for SalesForce. My own experience is that although it offers a hell of a lot, most of it is overkill, like taking a rocket launcher to an earth worm. Most of the time, a less complex system will do. SalesForce has too much IMO for what some users want and these little add ons (which you may not even know you have on your account) all cost extra.


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    #7
    croo
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 1,334 Mod ✭✭✭✭croo


    OREGATO wrote: »
    Sugar is freeware
    Actually it's Open Source rather than freeware! :)

    Sugar is one of those "commercial" open source projects. In my opinion this approach has downsides.. but I won't go into that more for now!

    But you'll find that with sugarCRM you can define quotes but you cannot define products (that you might expect on a quote). For that you need to purchase the commercial plugin... this the kind of thing you see.

    Personally my preference is for the "community" based project, forked from SugarCRM, called vTigerCRM. The cynic in me might think that once they gain traction we find vTigerCRM's community is sold out :(
    But they've been around and open for many years now and so far this has not been the case.

    Anyway the vTigerCRM is not quiet as slick, but you can create Products [and Sales Orders & Invoices too]. I've not done a detailed comparison in a few years so there might be more differences now.
    You can see a demo at http://demo.vtiger.com/index.php?action=Login&module=Users


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