I am interested in having functionality similar to a table kiosk for SuiteCRM.
I envision my employees logging into SuiteCRM via a tablet browser (Chrome for example). Upon login, the user would be presented with a very customized view of SuiteCRM instead of the normal home screen view. It would be optimized for only the particular tasks I want them to perform. This view would deviate from SuiteCRM with minimal menu options and removal of SuiteCRM functionality/views/access that I don’t want the kiosk “mode” to have.
I think I have two major ways to accomplish this. I laid out what I think the pros and cons are for each approach
Approach 1: Create custom SuiteCRM theme.
Pros:
- I don’t have to concern myself with the SuiteCRM connection and calls as I would with REST or SOAP.
- Easy to keep upgrade safe if it is just a theme
- Building on existing and established codebase.
Cons:
Time involved to create custom theme and ensure all undesired functionality is removed or locked down.
Approach 2: Create stand alone web application that makes SuiteCRM REST or SOAP calls.
Pros:
Access and availability of many free tools and tablet themes ready to use. No need to invent/produce a new theme from scratch
Cons:
Dealing with REST/SOAP
I am sure there are many more pros and cons to each, but I wanted to get some feedback and opinions from the community about each approach.
Well…what do you think?
Let me ask the community.
Has anyone created a custom theme to do anything out of the ordinary?
And…has anyone built a robust SuiteCRM web application using REST calls?
Hello
just to add an
Approach 3: use QuickCRM, which is already a simplified, mobile version of SuiteCRM, and is somewhat customizable. Check out the Developer’s Guide from this page:
http://www.quickcrm.fr/mobile/en/
It has both a free and a paid version. I’m not fully sure of what is included in each, you would have to check.
There are some advantages to having a native app in a tablet or a smartphone, like better connection to the device’s services (contacts, calls, maps, etc).
From what I gather, the app installed locally is just a simple web browser, because if I go to http://mysuitecrm.com/mobile on my desktop browser, I see essentially the same thing.
I hope this helps.
P.S. - I wish there was an open platform for this kind of thing (https://www.suitecrm.com/forum/suitecrm-7-0-discussion/7716-where-s-our-open-source-free-customizable-native-mobile-solution)
QuickCRM looks like a great solution for access lots/all of the CRM data. My use won’t need so mush flexibility. For example, I will have a few people that maintain assets going around with tablets entering in the status and notes of certain assets. That is all the “kiosk” mode will need to allow. So no need to access clients, emails, maps, phone, etc. Really simple functionality.