Sugar Community Edition 6.5.0 Application Guide

The Sugar Community Edition Application Guide introduces you to some basic CRM concepts and helps you get familiar with the Sugar system. It describes how to access Sugar through a personal computer and a web browser. It also describes how to perform a broad range of customer relationship management tasks and related administration tasks.
Readers are not required to have any programming or software development knowledge, but should be generally familiar with the use of a personal computer and a web browser such as Mozilla Firefox.

Topics

• Preface
  Welcome to Sugar Community Edition, a commercial open source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application.
• Getting Started
  This guide assumes that you have the required resources to access the Sugar application and you are familiar with how to use them. Contact your system administrator for issues and concerns.
• User Interface
  The Sugar user interface consists of various modules designed to help you manage customer-related records such as contacts and accounts. Each module, representing a record type, groups the tools and functions needed to perform specific tasks. This enables you to work more efficiently.
• Home
  When you log into Sugar, you will see your Home page. Tabs for other modules display alongside the Home tab. Other users do not have access to your Home page. The Home page displays a collection of Sugar Dashlets that display information related to your activities such as meetings and calls. It also displays records assigned to you, such as Accounts, Opportunities, and Cases. Sugar Dashlets are user-configurable panels that you can add, remove, and move as needed. For more information, see Managing Sugar Dashlets.
• Leads
  Leads are early contacts in the sales process. Use the Leads module to create, manage, and track sales leads or unqualified opportunities along with related activities, sales campaigns, and history. You can associate a lead with any type of campaign to track the effectiveness of the campaign in generating opportunities for your organization.
• Contacts
  Use the Contacts module to create and manage contacts for your organization. A contact is any individual who is a valid sales lead; a lead that has been evaluated and assessed for a possible sales opportunity. You can associate a contact with any record such as an Account, Opportunity, or Campaign. Associating a contact with a campaign enables you to track the effectiveness of the campaign in generating opportunities for your organization.
• Accounts
  Use the Accounts module to create and manage customer Accounts for your organization. An Account contains your customer information such as name and address. Each Account can be associated with other records such as Opportunities and Contacts.
• Opportunities
  Use the Opportunities module to create and manage sales opportunities, qualified leads, and view related records. An opportunity specifies the estimated amount of a sales deal and is tied to a sales stage. A sales stage, such as Qualification, Closed Won, or Closed Lost identifies how close you are to making the sale. The administrator defines and sets the sales stage depending upon the requirements in your organization. The estimated amount can vary depending on the sales stage.
• Documents
  Use the Documents module to create and manage files that you share with users and contacts.
• Calendar
  The Calendar Module has been introduced as a separate module in Release 6.2.0 to allow for ease of use and access. Use the Calendar module to schedule and manage activities such as calls, meetings, and tasks.
• Calls
  The Calls Module has been introduced as a separate module in Release 6.2.0 to allow for ease of use and access. Use the Calls module to log, view, and import calls.
• Meetings
  The Meetings Module has been introduced as a separate module in Release 6.2.0 to allow for ease of use and access. Use this module to schedule, view, and manage meetings.
• Emails
  The Emails module enables individual users to send and receive emails from within Sugar.
• Tasks
  The Tasks Module has been introduced as a separate module in Release 6.2.0 to allow for ease of use and access. Use the this module to schedule and manage tasks.
• Notes
  The Notes Module has been introduced as a separate module in Release 6.2.0 to allow for ease of use and access. Use the this module to create, view, and import Notes and attachments to records in Sugar.
• Targets
  Use the Targets Module to track and manage targets as part of mass marketing campaigns. You can create many types of campaigns as described in Creating a Campaign.
• Target Lists
  Use the Target Lists Module to track and manage mass marketing campaigns. You can create many types of campaigns as described in Creating a Campaign.
• Campaigns
  Use the Campaigns Module to track and manage mass marketing campaigns. You can create many types of campaigns as described in Creating a Campaign.
• Cases
  Use the Cases module to track and manage services-releated problems reported by your users and customers. After you create a case, you can associate it with related bugs.
• Bugs
  Use the Bug Tracker module to report, track, and manage product bugs.. Bugs are defects or features associated with a particular revision of a product. The administrator populates the drop-down list of product releases. After you create a bug, you can associate it with the related case. Note: This module is hidden by default. The administrator must display it for your use.
• Projects
  Use the Projects Module to create and manage projects for your organization.
• Export
  You can export Sugar records in .csv format to your local machine. Use Microsoft Excel, Notepad, or other text editors to open .csv files. The .csv file displays column titles, including the Record ID (a long string of letters and numbers used as a unique reference to each account record) and all the other fields in the module. Note: When exporting values for drop-down list options, Sugar exports the ID associated with each option (that is, item name) and not the display labels.
• Import
  Import data for modules such as Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Targets, Calls, Meetings, and Tasks with the help of an easy-to-use User Import Wizard. Refer to the tool-tips and instructions provided in the wizard at every step of the import process.
• Employees
  Use the Employees module to view information such as name, title, and email address for employees in your organization. All Sugar users are employees, not all employees are Sugar users. An employee needs a username and password to log into Sugar to be a user.