Creating a CRM runing under MODx CMS

Hello folks!

I really need a new CRM on my company, the sugarCRM is not the better solution for our kind of business, I’m planning building a CRM system as a new context to my company’s website, so I have the following doubts:

• I may use the resources, and TV’s as the data for the CRM, or create custom tables on the MODx DB?
• Using MODx User Management is secure enought for operations like these?
• Based on user roles, can I change the access to some snippet part or I have to create separate Snippets?
• Anyone out there have interest on this script?

Thanks for reading this, and maybe you guys will find alternatives or will help developing this one.

Greetings from Brazil

Quote from: Daniel at Jan 10, 2011, 09:27 AM

• I may use the resources, and TV’s as the data for the CRM, or create custom tables on the MODx DB?

I would recommend custom tables, since that data will be easier to manage in the long run. You can use the Resources as views, and in those Resources, make Snippets that pull the custom data out.

• Using MODx User Management is secure enought for operations like these?

Definitely.

• Based on user roles, can I change the access to some snippet part or I have to create separate Snippets?

Yes.

• Anyone out there have interest on this script?

I’m sure a few do.

Thanks for the feedback! I’ll start creating here at my office the first steps for this to start, then I’ll publish this on github!

Daniel, I’m about to start on this as well for a client. where are you on github, lets swap notes

I’m interested in. Please share GitHub Pro Link here.
If you need someone for German, English translation, here I am. If you need sth. about UX/UI feel free to ask me, too.
https://github.com/smooth-graphics

I’m happy to see the interest on this project, I saw too http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,59595.0.html"" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">a topic about timesheets, it could be part of this system.

Okay, let’s start this project now, I’m creating a sketch with the enviroment of this system. This envolves database structure and everything, I would really apreciate suggestions on this.

I’m not using github right now but my user is located at: https://github.com/taghouse I will use as well for developing this project.

Anything come of the CRM system? I previously used SugarCRM CE and it was okay but bulky for what I needed. vTiger is another I have played with but really find it to be clumsy. Would love to have something built around MODx

We are an SugarCRM Partner and had lots of Problems with Sugar... Lots of bugs that don`t get fixed. Lots of Problems in the API and modules are really horribly.

Some months ago we start to create an CRM Like Environment for Managing Customers, Registrations, Lecturer and lots of other things with overall about 25 Database Tables. XPDo is an great tool to bring this to an User-Interface. We Build it in an separate Context in the MODx of this customer. We used much of JeasyUI and other jQuery things to render the User Interface. Also we used an Template for easily generating the Management Pages Like "List here all customers" "List here all customers that have an Volume of more then X"

Hunderts of operations are build automatically like check if an field is an foreignKey, if it its render an combobox with an " + " next to it to add Datarows with just all required fields.

So overall I think the MODx manager is not the right place to create an CRM, but the Object Model can Handel that really good. The ACL`s can be defined that precise so its easy to set all rights of the users. I Like the way which it behaviors and we have dublicated it 3 times so far with different databases and targets.

It's interesting that this question of CRM came back up, I'd like to know whatever came of this project as well.

I've thought a lot about building CRM and marketing automation functionality in MODX, though I haven't done anything like this so far except for my webinar management system. Anyway, for what it's worth I have some thoughts on the matter:

I think integration with other systems is key. Most companies will already have one or several systems that have customer and/or prospect data - not only CRM systems like Sugar and Salesforce, but also accounting systems, marketing automation and email systems, SAAS systems both internal and external, blogs or other websites with user login, etc. So I think you want to design from the ground up with as much ability to integrate with other database systems and API services as possible. Think about how you are going to build API clients for other systems, how these will plug into your system, how you will deal with multiple data sources and priorities, etc.

Unless you have strong reasons for doing otherwise, I think the Users table is the best place to store contacts. You want all of your "people" objects in one place. You can use other linked tables for storing related data, but the core "person" object should be the same (modUser) for all types of people. I think Salesforce made a huge mistake by having two separate tables (leads and contacts) to store people, and this has caused me more headaches than any other aspect of Salesforce.

I'm not entirely convinced that using the manager as the primary internal interface would be a bad idea. ExtJs has a lot of useful functionality built in, and you could do a lot with CMPs and avoid having to build your whole interface from scratch.

Quote from: esnyder at Dec 07, 2012, 01:33 PM

… I haven't done anything like this so far except for my webinar management system.

I'd love to find out more about this, as it sounds like you have some great experience that might benefit us as we look for a way to manage the Ambassador program and the meet-ups around the world (all tied into the MODX users, of course). Can you share some more information about what you did?