Hi all. New to SuitCRM but absolutely loving it. Especially the Responsive layout. its about time!!! I have been searching for a CRM that could do this for such a long time.
I like SuiteCRM because I think it already has the basics of what a CRM would have, without the fat that makes some other CRM’s complicated to use. And it has a pretty good API system (so I hear but I don’t know much about programming).
My idea is this.
Why does email need to be included in a CRM? Can it not be attached to the CRM?
Imagine a simple Webclient that has integration with carddav already and has html Push Notifications built right in. Below the To and CC fields is a dropdown box with selection for Accounts, Contacts, Leads, etc. Once one of these are selected, the next search box references the appropriate SuiteCRM database field using JQuery or something.
Once the email is sent, that email is tagged (Hopefully using the OpenMETA format which I am strongly supporting because its about time someone did it). When viewing the Account, Contact, etc, in SuiteCRM, you can see any email that was attached.
You could build the email view access right off SuiteCRM’s Role Management. The higher the role, the more they can ‘choose’ to see, As in, view own emails or view all.
Something like this would be extremely useful for the trades industry. Often we have the send Requests for Information or Notices of Delay. Imagine being able to email these directly from the email client, choosing the account or project, and choosing ‘RFI’ as the topic. Then having it come up under the Project as RFI’s sent. Then when a response is received, you can go into your inbox and choose Response and select one of the Outstanding Responses. Once selected the CRM can automatically close off the Outstanding response (SuiteCRM Task Integration).
Email stage in business is unavoidable. But we want to try and stop people from sending emails through their email client and not associating those emails with relevant contacts or projects. People often need to see what correspondence was sent to a client. The information must be shared.
I think the solution is death to MS Outlook and other email clients. An entire businesses email should be accessed by every employee via a trim, fast and easy to use Webmail client. HTML is getting so good these days that eventually we might not have a need for the Desktop or even Mobile app.
We should be trying to make it easier for our employees to share relevant information while at the same time keeping them mobile and agile.
Yes I know that there is an Outlook plugin and that the email built into SuiteCRM does most of what I am talking about. But is the Outlook plugin good for those on the go. Can you easily select an outstanding response request to tick it off? Does the Built in Email support Push Notifications? Is it fast and easy to use? Does it give employees a reason to ditch MS Outlook and IOS email?
It seems that email and a CRM go hand in hand. There are so many ways that these two systems can talk to each other. Would be good to build full Google Apps support as its cheap and has data storage, email, calendar and Contacts built right in. But IMAP, CardDAV and CalDAV would be good as well. Maybe eventually MS Exchange support as a lot of businesses will never venture away from Active Directory.
Hope people like this idea. I am not much good with code but I would gladly assist with development of this in any way. I am a project manager, mainly with Hardware installs, but I am a AgilePM Practitioner (Thought it might be good to have one day). But Im happy to just do testing.