i was recently trying to connect a website contact form with SuiteCRM so that whenever someone submits the form a lead gets created automatically in the crm. initially tried a small custom api script but it quickly becomes messy when you have to deal with field mapping and multiple forms across sites.
for a few wordpress sites i ended up using a plugin called Contact Form to API which basically sends the form data directly to the crm api and creates the lead. setup was fairly simple once the endpoint and fields were mapped.
just wondering how others here are handling this kind of integration. are you mostly writing custom middleware or using some other connector for sending form data into suitecrm?
curious if there are other similar approaches people are using.
There is the Web2Person form that you can simply generate from SuiteCRM:
The advantages here are:
Very easy to setup
Then, I’ve got all thinkable other constellations as well, sorted by frequency in projects:
Forms to API request
Similar to what you’ve mentioned as well. There is a form builder out there, could be anything from WordPress / Drupal Webforms / Zoho Forms / Google Forms / perspective / form io / n8n Forms / ActivePieces Forms - anything what the marketing (sales / customer service / aftersales / project) department has in place already.
Those are then configured to send an API POST request.
I usually have a middleware like n8n / ActivePieces in place.
This is then handling some logic (duplicate check, attaching to existing opportunities / projects or similar).
Seldom I’d send from the form directly to Suite. If so, I’d usually do it via a custom module and build the logic inside the SuiteCRM workflow.
Advantages:
Duplicate / spam handling / further logic
All sorts of enrichment possible
Mautic forms
The “best” approach (depending on the requirements of course) is usually via Mautic.
One would build landing pages including forms in Mautic and then the data is being sent directly to SuiteCRM with the appropriate matching / duplicate handling etc.
That works with a custom middleware as well - the standard Mautic plugin to connect the two systems doesn’t fulfill most standard requirements in marketing and sales departments.
I’m working on a turnkey solution there:
Advantages:
Builds on the existing Mautic setup and performs nicely in marketing
Integrates directly with SuiteCRM and all down-stream processes
Forms to middleware in DMZ
Similar to forms to API middleware. That special approach is required when customers have their CRM in a private network / behind a VPN and data should still come in from the internet.
Here, I’ve developed some custom solutions to receive the request, do some validation / transformation and forward the payload to the CRM.
I’ve found the best solution for WP → SuiteCRM is Gravity Forms and the Webhooks plugin. It does take a bit of code to format the submission the way SuiteCRM likes it, but you allow the user more or less to be able to add/change fields without having to get a developer involved. Gravity Forms is a rich form builder with tons of features and also alot of developer features. You can pretty much do anyting with GF + Webhooks to SuiteCRM.
The Uncanny Automator can do the posting to suite (it takes two actions to get the API access_token and then send the data), it has many form plugin integrations (we use forminator and it has the ability to listen to forms from forminator). This is all on the free version of Uncanny Automator as well.
I have used this, N8N (with Forminators inbuilt Webhook plugin) and custom code in some instances as well.