Sugar CRM Tips

                At work I use Sugar CRM for keeping track of customers, potential sales, and other contacts.  Here are a few things I have learned using Sugar that will help you get the most out of the system.

1.  Don’t Delete
                For potential sales I set-up “Opportunities”.  If a sale did not occur rather than deleting the opportunity erase its probability and set the “Sales Stage” to “Closed Lost”.  The point of a CRM system is to know the “who, what, when, where and why” of your marketing fruits, deleting any information just doesn’t make sense.

2.  Track Calls
                When you talk to someone enter the call, this way you know how often you are calling or getting called by a specific customer or person.

3.  Modify the Home Page
                This is a very simple task that has made my life easier, I rarely use a full list, most functions can be reached from the Home page.  I list my “Top Open Opportunities”, with” Open Tasks”, “Assigned Bugs”, and “My Contacts” (for easy access to my newest contacts) below that, and have the “JotPad” and “All Opportunities By Lead Source By Outcome” chart to the right.

4.  Modify the Entry Forms
                The Contact form is especially cluttered by default.  Remove and rearrange the fields so that they are easiest for you.  I put all the fields I usually fill-in in the left column, that ay I can just tab and type my answers without using a mouse.