We are currently on Suite7 (a highly customized version of Suite7). And the biggest complaint we get is performance type issues (search performance) and email issues of having emails synced up correctly, etc.
We are thinking about either upgrading to the latest 8.5/8.6 version and going that route with Suite 8. Or moving to something else (either EspoCRM or Vtiger, etc). But, have been with SuiteCRM for so long we are worried about jumping ship.
What I am really wanting feedback on from the community is this:
Do you think Suite8 is ready to roll out in a production environment with a very large dataset?
Do you think they have fixed any of the issues from the past? (specifically the slowness of the application, and searching)
How do you feel about the future of Suite8 and the community as a whole?
You need to look at this not as an upgrade, but as a full migration. You really will need to set up a different server with v8, and attempt several migrations of each feature and customizations and see how it works.
Most UI customizations won’t work at all, unless you set the module to legacy mode.
Some core features are simply not there in v8. You need check each one you use.
When you finally achieve a state where the test-system v8 is sufficiently ok for your case, then you migrate the live server that users are actually using.
It would be not a good option to switch to 8 since you have a lot of customisations, most of them would not be working in version8.
For your issues with v7, Slowness of the Application is either due to your custom hooks/js or any other logics that you may have added.
Searching works very fast if you are on Elastic Search.
Just tweak and optimise the v7 and you can have a good running CRM.
Sorry, I don’t even know all the features SuiteCRM has, after all these years, occasionally I still learn a new one. SuiteCRM is a huge app. You have to remember that old SugarCRM at some point had over 100 developers working on it. So it’s hard to say what is missing in v8, if there are even things I don’t know from v7 in the first place.
The typical things to look out for: that extra button that only this specific module has. Like “convert to contact” in Leads module. When SuiteCRM v8 was launched, the basic work that was done was the generic stuff in the List View, and the Record view (which covers for the old Detail and Edit views). When moving modules from legacy to v8, the generic stuff is usually quick to get right, but not so much for the specific tasks that do special things.
But since people typically use just, say, 10%? 20%? of what SuiteCRM offers, they can just try the modules and features they really need and check them out in v8.
If you are in suitecrm7 i would suggest to stay there donot upgrade lol…
If you want to start clean suitecrm8 is working good but almost all good plugins from suitecrm7 are broken for me for things as simple as smarty template engine upgrade on suitecrm8 breaks all suitecrm7 plugins…
I had to bite the bullet and drop all of the bells and whistles in suitecrm7 and did a clean install on suitecrm8 and i like it so far.
My advice as of now would be: Make a plan to move on.
Suite8 will not be the Suite we have now.
You would need to rewrite almost every customization from scratch, without the same documentation and useful examples all over.
Additionally SalesAgility is not interested in fixing bugs. There are year old bugs, fixed by changing 1-5 lines of code still not fixed because they do not care.
I think reprogramming SuiteCRM completely from scratch was the biggest mistake they did. And as of now there are only 1.5 years left to EOL of Suite7, so I have to plan now for the future. So moving on is my favorite option as of now.
I agree that the architecture changes will be challenging for many, and will cost losing some SuiteCRM users.
But it is also a much better architecture and I have good hopes that many things we used to do from PHP, we will now be able to do from the UI, or config files. So less people will have to bother with what is under the hood.
I think it is quite challenging for long term suite users to have such a drastic shift. I wish more effort was put into youtube videos and how-to’s on how to migrate from a suite 7 framework mindset as a developer over to a suite 8 mindset (a simple example would be logic hooks for example which is a common item to code with suite 7).
@swhitlow I haven’t tried it personally yet, but I would think Logic Hooks would operate exactly the same. SuiteCRM 8 only changes the front end logic. Logic Hooks are backend logic and won’t change (at least that’s my understanding, I haven’t invested too much time in exploring 8 myself as I kept running into issues and thought I’d check back at a later date). I have my first client on SuiteCRM 8 for a new project and so far so good. It’s not super complex, so I haven’t really tested the limits yet.
For sure I know one major issue was that Targets could not be converted to Leads. I imagine the campaign stuff might be a problem because “opt in” status is missing and replaced with “opt out” so I think that’s going to break campaigns whre you on only send to opt in status as required by many spam laws. So these two things are big reasons I haven’t used it more widely.
I was just about to add another thing here, the call reschedule action in the calls detail view is missing in SuiteCRM. This is really key if you’re making calls in volume. Other wise to record your call attempt the reps will create new call report for each attempt, clogging up th system and wasting time! While looking for other posts on the forum about this issue, I found this thread, and pretty much everything here is still an issue as I’m seeing in my first production implementation of SuiteCRM 8.
