CRM Online has developed an integration between SugarCRM and Expression, a high quality content management system that provides almost unlimited possibilities for integrating your website and CRM. The integration provides access to both public and private information within the CRM (configurable in the connector) and allows contacts to log into the website and authenticate their credentials against the CRM. Based on this authentication, contacts can then be provided with access to records that are related to their contact or account within the CRM (i.e. case history, license information, invoice history). The integration has the following key features:
- The ability to retrieve lists of records from the CRM. If the records are from a private module, the system is intelligent enough to restrict the list to those records that are related to the contact or account.
- The ability to create search forms to filter lists of information from the CRM
- The ability to upload notes or attachments withion the CRM
- The ability to update records within the CRM
- The ability to extend the API with custom functions and call these directly via an expression engine tag
- The integration is completely compatible with the SugarCRM module builder, meaning that new modules can be created with relationships to contacts or accounts, and this information can be displayed on the website in minutes
- Although the system authentiates against the CRM, the integration works seamlessly with Expression Engine's built in member management system, meaning that all default member functionality is still available within Expression Engine, including the forums.
Consider the following example:
A client of CRM Online provides training in a range of courses and units and need to be able to manage these courses, units and enrollments within their CRM. The company provided oaver 60 courses and hundreds of units, meaning that managing those in two locations would prove to be problematic. By utilising the connector for Expression Engine, CRM Online was able to provide a solution that displayed course and unit information on the company's website from the CRM as well as provide a student portal that allowed students to log in, access their course information and view unit results. This would not have been possible, or would have taken substantially more time to build from the ground up had it not been for the Expression Engine Connector for SugarCRM.
