Out-of-the-box, Sugar allows you to filter by Process Status and search by the Process Definition Name while this is useful if you are wanting to search for a process triggered for example, last week, you could still end up needing to scroll through pages of data.

We at Sugabyte have created an installable package that simply put; adds new filter options to the ‘Process Management’ List View page. This add on will allow you to filter your processes by Record Name|Date Created|Date Modified|Process Owner. This enhancement will drastically reduce the amount of time and effort it takes to locate a process and therefore allow you to check / review and update users with a quicker turn around. No more endless scrolling!

The filters will work in the same logic as any other List View filtering in Sugar, in that the filter can be a single line or a combination of multiple filters and can be saved for future use.

More information on this package can be found here.

The post How to filter and search in Sugars Process Management List View appeared first on Sugabyte.

Pre Workshop

Once the CRM Health Check was purchased, the first step was to have a call (over Zoom) with the key people in the business, in this case this was the CRM system administrator and the heads of Sales and Marketing. The call was to ascertain at a high level what the business does, what are the main uses of Sugar and what are the key pain points they have already identified.

“It’s important to send a bespoke survey because a generic one will be difficult in uncovering feedback that will assist us in disocovering what changes can make large impacts.”

Following the initial call, we curated a survey to all key users of Sugar. The customer opted for us to send this out, it was deduced that if the responses were sent to us directly being external from the business we’d hope to receive accurate and honest feedback, having this honest feedback is invaluable to ensuring that the key areas of discussion on the upcoming workshop day are not only relevant but that any areas identified for improvement are acknowledged by the users that are actually using Sugar for their day to day work. 

Example snipped of our survey, crafted specifically for our customer:

Upon receiving the questionnaire responses, we compiled the results into a readable data format and with the feedback given from the questionnaire and the original kick-off call we then compiled an agenda for the following Health Check workshop day. This ensures that we cover all relevant points specific to this customer.

The key pain points/areas to improve that we identified for the Agenda for our manufacturing customer were; inventory management, supply chain management, extended customer lifecycle and how to boost customer satisfaction. 

Day of Workshop

Based on the agenda we discussed at length all pain points and areas for improvement and what can be done to improve these, the options range from simple field creations/changes and layout updates to building custom modules, building automated flows to take care of the menial logical tasks/processes and setting reminders for users to ensure items aren’t forgotten to discussing integrating ERP systems. We also detailed plans on how to ensure that Sugar can be the main source of truth the use of custom dashboards per user group which allows each team to plan their days, see their current work, track processes and boost productivity, user adoption and ultimately customer satisfaction.

ERP Integration

We also proposed the exploration of Sales-i as one of the easiest ways to present “what have I sold you?”, “what haven’t I sold you?” and “what can I sell you?” with their ERP to Sugar integration solution. They were impressed with the detailed knowledge that their sales team can get, at-a-glance, when reviewing their accounts.

Post Workshop

All of the information gathered and improvements discussed were then provided to the customer via an Audit Report this will clearly illustrate all key points discussed along with the feedback and include a roadmap to start the journey of improving their CRM.

Is your SugarCRM project meeting expectations?
If you think you would benefit from discovering the untapped possibilities within your SugarCRM system with our tailored SugarCRM Health Check, please follow this link: https://www.sugaroutfitters.com/addons/crm-healthcheck-workshop

The post CRM Healthcheck Workshop – my experience with a recent customer appeared first on Sugabyte.

To provide a high level of customer experience across departments, each department should be empowered with the necessary data and tools specific to making their job easier and more efficient. By providing teams with cross-department data and tools specific to their function, organisations create a better experience throughout the Customer Journey and achieve better ROI on software investment overall.

Strengthening Sales & Support

Due to to the time and attention reps spend building relationships with customers and the many emails, phone calls and visits required to close sales. Reps generally have a better understanding of customers requirements and the specific details of products or services they use in comparison to support/service staff.

During support enquiries, customers expect the same personalised experience and high level of service they receive during the sales process.

Once a rep has built a strong relationship with a customer, the customer can often feel betrayed if support/aftercare are unable to provide the same level of experience.

A positive support experience builds trust and strengthens the relationship with the customer whereas bad support can leave customers feeling like they only receive a good experience during the sales process.

To avoid this issue, it is vital to ensure support staff have the necessary data and software they require to deliver on sales reps promises. This means being able to organise, prioritise and resolve issues as quickly as possible. Resulting in long-lasting customer relationships while ensuring reps are undisrupted and focused on selling.

Sugar Sell & Sugar Serve

In a bid to provide specific functionality to empower support staff and strengthen the communication between sales and support teams, Sugar introduced Sugar Serve as part of ‘The New Sugar’ (as a separate licensing option in 2019.) With Sugar Sell (Sugar’s cloud-based CRM) and Sugar Market (Sugar’s All-in-one Marketing Automation Solution) completing the trio.

Click here to learn more about ‘The New Sugar’.

Sugar Sell licenses harness advanced opportunity management features such as ()  With Sugar Serve licenses, this functionality is replaced with advanced Service Management functionality such as the Self Service Portal and Intelligent Case Rerouting.

Sugar Sell – The award-winning sales automation solution renowned for its intuitive user interface, extensibility, and customer satisfaction.

Sugar Sell Key Features

• Optimised for Sales professionals
• Advanced Reporting and Customisable Dashboards
• SugarBPM Advanced Workflows
• Accurate Forecasting
• 360-degree Customer View
• Easy Access to Product Catalogues
• Intuitive UI

Sugar Serve – Sugar’s new customer engagement centre solution designed to streamline case management and issue resolution.

Sugar Serve Key Features

• Optimised for Support/Customer Service professionals
• Advanced Reporting and Customisable Dashboards
• Time-aware Case Tracking
• Case Prioritisation
• 360-degree Customer View
• Intelligent Case Management
• Self Service Portal
• Knowledge Management
• Intuitive UI

Both licensing options are built on Sugar’s core CRM user interface, function the same in many ways and integrate seamlessly as a result. Leveraging Sell and Serve licenses results in a constant flow of Data and Insights between Sales and Support teams. Resulting in a complete customer view and stronger customer relationships overall.

As a vendor, Sugar pays close attention to customers requirements with a strong focus on innovation across the platform. Sugar regularly release innovative features independent to Market, Sell and Serve which increases Sugar’s ability to future proof each solution.

Other CRM’s on the market require heavy configuration to deliver a solution optimised for support cases like Sugar Serve, Sugar provides Serve as an out of the box licensing option with reduced pricing for users who require access to both Sell and Serve license types.

Concluding Thoughts

Leveraging Sugar Sell and sugar Serve licenses across your Sales & Support departments helps organisations create better Customer Experience and deliver better ROI on software investment.

Combining Sell and Serve licenses makes it easier than ever to create a bidirectional stream of data between Sales and Support without disrupting each department’s main focus. Allowing reps to focus on selling while empowering support staff with advanced features optimised for case handling results in a high level of customer experience throughout the customer journey. Ultimately resulting in satisfied customers and long-lasting customer relationships.

Key benefits

• Bidirectional Data Streaming between Sales & Support
• Advanced Insights across departments
• Faster Support Case resolutions
• Licence types specific to each department
• Seamless Integration
• Reduced pricing for combined licenses
• Continuous Innovation across the platform

If you would like to take a closer look at Sugar Sell or Sugar Serve please get in contact with one of our SugarCRM Consultants by clicking the link below to arrange a free screen-share demonstration.

Schedule a Free Sugar Sell/Sugar Serve Demonstration

The post Sugar Sell & Sugar Serve – Collaborating for Better Customer Experience appeared first on Sugabyte.

TLS stands for –  ‘Transport Layer Security’. The encryption protocol used to secure the connection between browser and application. As TLS continues to enhance security and performance levels, organisations using the encryption protocol are required to stay up to date with the latest version releases.

Previously SugarCRM had announced turning off support for TLS v1.1 and older to come in effect from November 8, 2019. This date has now been amended to Feb 1, 2020 for all customers using SugarCloud.

The importance of cloud security

To maintain the highest standards of cloud security, Sugar regularly update their cloud security levels to ensure any vulnerabilities found in earlier versions are strengthened and improved. Sugar prioritise – ‘integrity, confidentiality and availability’ of customers data stored in SugarCloud. These security updates ensure customers receive the highest levels of web security and are kept up to date with the latest protocools as and when they are released.

Not only SugarCRM Users

This security update is not exclusive to SugarCRM users. Due to TLS v.1.0 and TLS v1.1 protocols depreciating, providing insufficient cryptography for securely transmitting data and potentially containing vulnerabilities to certain malware attacks, all major browsers are also retiring support for these versions in 2020 – Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Mozilla have all announced that their browsers will no longer support TLS.

if you have any concerns regarding the security of your CRM please reach out and get in touch, one of our expert consultants will be more than happy to advise you in the right direction!

The post Security Update – End Of Life For TLS1 appeared first on Sugabyte.

With so many new features and products being introduced to Sugars portfolio and as with any traditionally on-premise solution rolling out a new cloud infrastructure, things can get confusing. In this post we give you a brief update overview, without losing you in the technical details.

For a more detailed post on the full features of ‘The New Sugar’ check out the link below which includes a Q and A’s section. We have also sprinkled links throughout this post for readers who wish to delve deeper into each topic.

The New Sugar – Q&A

SugarCRM Cloud Licensing Options

Fundamentally, SugarCRM’s recent rebrand comes in the form of three main cloud based products. Sugar Market (Sugars all in one marketing automation product), Sugar Sell (Sugars new flagship CRM element) and Sugar Serve (Sugars purpose built customer service product).

Sugar Sell and Sugar Serve are effectively different flavours of the same core CRM, both built on the same platform as Sugar Enterprise. Both licensing options include the Sugar CRM Developer Tools, Reporting and Dashboard functionality and of course the ability to record Tasks, Activities, Calls, Meetings etc. One difference between the two licensing options is that Sugar Serve replaces Sugar Sells Opportunities module with advanced ticket management features and Sugars powerful knowledge-based Self Service Portal.

Sugars new product structure allows customers to make more informed licensing decisions based on which elements best suit the different departments that make up their business. Choosing Sugar Serve licenses for your service/support users means they will benefit from specific functionality designed to make their job quicker and easier while also retaining the core CRM elements of Sugar.

Each element offers a range of specific functionality and can be interlinked depending on your requirements. We are not going to delve into too much detail about the individual product features in this post but keep your eyes peeled for more detailed information on Market, Sell and Serve as we reveal all over the coming weeks!

All three of Sugars new products are cloud based solutions and not available for on-site deployment. Users that opt for Sugars cloud offering leverage Sugars partnership with (AWS) Amazon Web Services, one of the most secure and powerful hosting environments in the world.

Benefits of Amazon Web Services (AWS)

• Global leader
• Flexibility
• Security
• Scaleability
• Ease of integration
• Continuous cloud innovation

A quick note on updates…

Sugars continuous cloud innovation means Market, Sell and Serve users can expect  regular updates. Sugar Market operates on a continuous update cycle, with releases approximately every two weeks whereas Sugar Sell and Sugar Serve operate on a quarterly release cycle (every three months).

More products?

To further increase the functionality of Sell, Market and Serve, Sugar have begun to roll out a number of tools to boost productivity, reporting and connectivity capabilities across the platform. These offerings come in the form of no touch information management, business intelligence, machine learning, intelligent insights, advanced analytics and more. These additional tools leverage innovative features from some of Sugars recent product acquisitions giving Sugar the competitive advantage against other CRM providers.

Two recent additions are Sugar Connect and Sugar Discover which you can read more about in our post below.

Sugar Connect & Sugar Discover

The end of on-premise?

Existing customers on Sugar Professional and Sugar Enterprise will have no forced upgrades to Sell and Serve and Sugar have made it very clear that they have no plans to bring Sugar Professional or Sugar Enterprise to End of Life, Sugar will continue to support these products and existing customers are still able to purchase additional licenses. The only change is that for new customers, Sugar Professional and Sugar Enterprise are available only as on-premise solutions moving forward.

Exciting things to come…

We cannot reveal too much, but Sugar have emphasised their plans to introduce a range of new features to both their on-premise and on-demand solutions, existing Sugar Professional and Sugar Enterprise users will continue to receive bug fixes and annual version updates with Version 10.0 being the next in line due for release in Spring 2020 which will include a multitude of feature enhancements over Version 9.0.

Fur any further information on SugarCRM get in touch!

We’re always happy to help…

The post SugarCRM’s New Cloud Products: In Layman’s Terms… appeared first on Sugabyte.