SugarCRM Info For Insurance Agents

[Guest]

In the past week I've received several private inquiries about using SugarCRM from this forum. I answered each and thought I'd combine the emails into a post as it might benefit someone, somewhere out there.


I want to run Sugar locally on my 4 computer workgroup?

As for Sugar, if you want to run it locally (which I do) you can download what is called their "stack" installer which contains MySQL, PHP, and Apache along with SugarCRM and it will install the whole mess on your local machine (see Download CRM Sugar Community Edition Free | Open Source Business & Social CRM - SugarCRM)

This is not a bad solution... however I've never used it on my local Mac.

How do YOU install Sugar on your local machine?

I recommend that people use the XAMPP package apache friends - xampp as I think it is a bit more flexible. You get Appache running first, then create a MySQL database using the included myPHPAdmin program that comes with XAMMP and make sure that is set up.

Then download SugarCRM and install it following the Sugar instructions (see Sugar Community Edition Documentation | Open Source Business & Social CRM - SugarCRM just as if you were doing it on your web host.

I like to test each component of the system one at a time instead of throwing the whole mess onto the computer. It's like washing the whites separately from the colored clothes... or something like that. (In 30 years of marriage I've never learned how to use a washing machine!)

You could put the XAMMP package on one of the machines in your workgroup and let all the others network to it or you could dedicate machine to it on the network. You can run the whole mess on a low-powered laptop... even an old one since you are going to have such low volume of "hits" with only 4 people.

Do you work locally or on the web?

Personally, I would run Sugar on your web server. That means people can hit it from anywhere they are. That's what I do. I also compress the database each hour and store that file on the server as well as transmit a copy of it to another server AND I have a script on my Mac that goes out and download that file, uncompresses it, and re-loads the copy of Sugar I have locally. I can help you with the scripts. They are easy... you can have mine.

I NEVER work locally. I only keep a somewhat updated copy locally in case I lose internet connection (never happens here.) Working on the web is just as fast for me and I can do it from my iPad in my car when necessary.

Sugar is not perfect for insurance but if your requirements are not too stringent, it works just fine. I use the free "community edition" version, but with four agents in the shop you might want to spring for the 5-seat paid version that has more whistles and bells. I've been using Sugar for about 5 years now and I keep it updated (easy to do) and I've never had a major problem with it.

What about vTiger?

Sugar has a huge user community that will help with questions you post on their forum.

I also have tried vTiger. Nice system. It is a "fork" of Sugar (they stole it fair and square!) It has some nice invoicing modules built in where in Sugar you have to install an add-on module (which I've not done.) I have no need of invoicing. vTiger has a large user base but it is run by a few guys in India. Sugar is a fairly large corporation in the US with a large development team. I'm just not trusting my system to two guys in India just yet!!! But lots of people like it so what do I know?

What about customization?

My suggestion is not to start doing any customization until you have your work-flow sorted out. I find that for most agents, they can use Sugar out of the box with very little change. I'll be happy to tell you how I use it when we speak. Basically, I keep it simple and don't try to get too fancy with the system. I never use "campaigns" or "projects" etc. but some folks do.

What is your workflow?

Everyone always gets entered as a lead. Usually I do not usually use Contacts. A Lead might be "Jones, Tom." If it is a group case it might be "Jones Company" and if I think necessary I'll use a Contact for "Tom Jones" but then it has to be an Account (see below) and I have a different "rule" for accounts. Most often I don't need Contacts I don't usually need to keep data on what policy each employee takes.

The most important field to me is the Description field because that is where I "log" the information about a case... like a diary. If she is accepted I "convert" the Lead to an Account using the Convert module (built in.)

I see no reason to keep policy info in my database but sometimes I will and if so I'll do it as a Note/Attachment.

I don't use the Sugar Email module too often because I find it cumbersome. A lot of my emails are "did you get the file" and I don't have to save that. I'll just make an entry in the "log" that I sent an email. Same for phone data, but some guys will keep a record of each call using the "Log Call" feature. When you "close" a call it will go to History for that Lead or Account.

One thing I also don't do is upload documents to Sugar... such as app PDFs or insurance flyers, etc. Why? Because when you delete them they are not erased from the database... they stay on the disk, but you can't get to them at all. I prefer to save this stuff to my web server and put a link to it in the Lead record Description. Yes, it takes a bit longer to have to upload to my server, but I like doing it that way. (I password protect all apps that I save on my server.) That said, if you have plenty of room you can upload all the documents you like.

What is the worst thing about Sugar?

One weakness I find with Sugar is that you can't create a Contact for a Lead, only for an Account.

I'll be happy to answer other questions. Contact me. I don't charge for answers, even if you offer to pay (lots of people do... which is nice. I tell them to make a donation here if they want to.)

Al
I am here... same house, same wife, 30 years... I have no life!

 

[maksim]

Re: SugarCRM Info

Great post! Do you really upload the database every hour or have a script do that for you?

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Re: SugarCRM Info

Al, can you tell me how it compares with Zoho? It seems too much easier for the average person to set up and use.

 

[Guest]

Re: SugarCRM Info

Great post! Do you really upload the database every hour or have a script do that for you?

There are two simple scripts. One runs on my webserver that invokes a utility program to dump the MySQL database. We call this a dump-file (it's just an asci file). The script also compresses (zips) the file. Another program contacts two other server farms and sends the dump-file to each for safe keeping. One is a friend's site on Dreamhost, the other I pay for (like $19 a year) at rsync.net.That happens about every hour on the hour 24/7.

There is a script that runs on my local iMac (but will run on Windows too) every four hours that contacts my web server and downloads the dump file. It then un-zips it and then invokes a program to re-load (actually replace) the current local database that my local copy of Sugar is using. In fact you can see this script at the bottom of Apple's launchd For The Complete ***

And actually there is another part. I have another installation of Sugar on my server that I use for testing. It also gets reloaded each hour.

So, to recap, each hour the database is dumped and saved on my server, and on two other servers in different parts of the country. And every few hours I download the dump to my iMac to re-load the local file. Thus, if I lose my internet connection I'm only a few hours behind. I used to download each hour, but in the past five years I've only had one internet failiure which was only for 2 hours, so I dialed it back to six times a day instead of twelve and I probably should only do it twice.

How do you run a script at specific times or each hour or on certain days. You use the "cron" facility of your web server. Just about ever web host has one.

Same for your local computer.

On the Mac there is also a built in "cron" utility but Apple wants us to use the "launchd" program since Apple has deprecated cron (meaning they may discontinue it.) Launchd is a PITA and there isn't much info on it, which is why I wrote a short tutorial for myself and Mac people out there.

Windows has some kind of Task Scheduler that does the same thing from what I understand.

All of this is real simple stuff. There are ten tons of backup scripts for free on the internet. I'll be happy to give mine away. It's really not very strong magic as Harry Potter would say!

Al
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Al, can you tell me how it compares with Zoho? It seems too much easier for the average person to set up and use.

I've looked briefly at Zoho and I know a lot of agents like it. I don't see anything wrong with it. My only issue, and it is a minor one, is that I'm not sure who owns and runs it, but I believe it is off-shore. My comfort zone is just not that high if that is the case.

If I were to go with a 3rd party service I'd be looking at Radius or FreeCRM.

Personally, I like to run my own systems... not only do I know where the data is at all times but I know that if the system goes down, I know whom to call and since I am their customer I know they will pick up the phone.

All of this is to say that I've not tried to do a direct feature to feature comparison with Zoho and Sugar but my guess is that if I did that I'd find that either would work equally well for the average agent in the field.

It all (and always) comes down to what YOU like... not what anyone else likes. There is no "best" system out there for everyone... there is only a "best" system for you. SugarCRM is the "best" system for me. I know how to install it and how to upgrade it and how to back it up and how to get answers to problems and I am confident they won't go out of biz tomorrow but if they do, since it run on my web server, I'm still in biz.

YMMV.

Al

 

[ksigmtsu]

Sugar is also installed now by some of the fantastico style systems on hosting providers.

If you're doing a 1 person setup and not concerned with data performance from a bogged down mysql on a shared server, it's a workable solution.

Sugar has some flaws in the free version related to reporting (it has none) and automated process management (it also has none). You can get plugins that will fill both those needs, I suggest process manager, the free version is workable if you can learn to use it, its sort of hard, and either zuckerreports or kimanu reporter, there is also a mysql interfacing open analytics software that'll do reporting externally to sugar, but none of those are perfect solutions.

There are better paid modules out there to do most things.

Sugar also lacks group security which is needed for larger agencies, but unnecessary for 1-10 people in most cases. They keep the group security in the paid variant.

As far as free CRMs go, it's top of the pile. It is not easy to learn in comparison to pre-configured options out there, but is highly powerful in what you can make it do because of the open source nature of the software.

You want to make a CRM that can alert you annually when people come up for medicare/health/life/annuity policy review, create you a task to review at the time, have automated drip marketing that relates to that? Good luck doing that with zoho.

The beauty of sugar is that you can program anything you want because the program source is open to modification. You also own your data.

Vtiger has a lot of the same features as sugar and has a working process management tool, group security, reporting, etc, however Vtiger has some broken things that make it even rougher to set up. Last time I attempted a Vtiger install, the whole email system was broken until I modified 3 or 4 files in the code to make it use sendmail instead of the smtp system.

It was easier to add reporting and process controls back to sugar than it was to fix the broken stuff in vtiger.

Sugar, like Al says there, is probably the 2nd most supported CRM platform on the planet, right behind Salesforce, unlikely they're going to go out of business, and its open source, you have the software on your own server.

If you're wanting a managed solution with less headache, I'd suggest Radius every time. The difference is in customization, you can make sugar do anything you want, Radius has a platform that is designed to work a certain way. If Radius fits how you work it's brilliant, if you want something else, and want it heavily customized, it can be done with Sugar but there is a price tag on that.

 

[Guest]

SugarCRM used to have a demo that you could use without signing up for it, but it seems to have been replaced by a 7-day free-trial after giving your name and email.

In this link there are several videos and the button to sign up for the free trial. I'm pretty sure it is the "pro" version and not the free Community Edition (known ad "CE" in the forums.)

As Brook said above, Sugar does not do EVERYTHING in the CE, but there is usually a free or low-cost plug-in. They are on SugarForge. There is also a SugarExchange. I've never known the difference... perhaps Brook and explain it as he knows the internals of SugarCRM far better than I do.

I'm also in agreement with Brook that you have to be willing to invest some hours in learning Sugar. I think the install is pretty simple... they have a good tutorial. Many web hosts have it pre-installed or will install it for you for a small fee. But seriously, if you can read and follow directions AND know how to create a mySQL database using your web host's control panel (login) it is not a big deal. And I think learning how to use Sugar is a lot easier than understanding all the moving parts to a fixed indexed annuity or UL!!

There is one other good option that I liked. It is called FreeCRM. This is like Zoho in that it runs on someone's server. I always liked FreeCRM and it is great if you can stand the colors and the ads. (They hope you will upgrade to the$15 a month version without the ads.) There is a nice Flash "tour" on the site but it does not render well on my iMac with Firefox or Safari unless you make the window real BIG! (I hate Flash!)

HTH and YMMV.

Al

 

[rousemark]

Wish I knew what the heck this thread was all about.. In my day sugar was something you used to make corn likker.. .. This old man feels the world has passed him by when he wasn't looking.

 

[ksigmtsu]

I really wanted vtiger to work, it has all the paid sugar features, but it has so much screwed up it wasn't usable for me, I took 2 hours to find just the email bugs, I can't imagine the investment needed in time to make it all work.

Sugarexchange is mostly paid stuff for ce/pro/ent sugar, forge is mostly open source free stuff that works on ce.

I'm gonna do some videos on it for iliaa showing how to self install it, etc.

 

[Guest]

I'm gonna do some videos on it for iliaa showing how to self install it, etc.

Perhaps you will also make them available on the Agent Navigator Organization site too?

Why not put them on YouTube for everyone since it's not really insurance related.

I find the big issue when I talk to agents is in creating the mySQL database using their ISPs control panel. They need to come away with 4 entities:

host (almost always 'localhost')
database-name
user-name
pass-word

You pop those into the Sugar install system and that's about it!

The other issue is when people upload the ten gzillion Sugar modules, it is often necessary to set permissions to 755. I'll let Brook explain that one... but most often it is best to ask the web host company to do it for you. Only takes them a second.

For years here I got the snot beat out of me by people saying that Sugar was too hard to install or use... and that the web was not safe... and that it was not "insurance-centric" but for some reason this free version of the CRM is getting a fair degree of interest and acceptance here in the past few months. I don't know why.

Al

 

[ksigmtsu]

They'll also be on youtube and on the free area of ILIAA.

I'm redesigning the ILIAA site now, a large portion of it is going to be free to use and much more user friendly.