This is an exciting new update for SugarCRM and includes some long awaited new features. Here are the highlights.
- Upgraded email module – this now uses the ‘sidecar’ framework, which gives us the same look and feel as the rest of Sugar. The main advantage we think users will enjoy is the ability to preview emails when on related Account and Contact records. This save the time of having to open emails manually to read the contents. A big time saver!
- Upgraded business rules engine for the Advanced Workflow module. It’s all about automation and this continues to strengthen Sugar’s visual workflow builder which is one of it’s unique and high value features for business users. The business rules component is now more functional and easier to use. This will enable clients to achieve more with continue to further operationalise their workflows in order to create better client and employee experiences.
- Upgrade to the Contracts module. This module now has the same look and feel as the rest of Sugar. It will also enable contract data to be previewed on Account and Contact records.
- Dashboard sharing – another long awaited feature! If you’ve ever spent time creating dashboards and then tried to share them with other teams or users you know how time consuming and painful this has been. We’ve done some testing for clients already with this feature and the feedback has been very positive. This will mean you can spend time on designing dashboards and not worry about the time required to distribute them to users. We also really like the fact that individuals can use the dashboard you’ve shared with them but still further customise there copy. A good example of how Sugar continues to but the ‘i’ (individual) back into CRM.
- Dashboard drill-downs. The most requested feature for dashboards is now hear. You can now get access to the data that makes up the graphical dashboards. E.g. if you see a bar graph dashlet, you can now drill into the underlying data.
I’d recommend watching the video below for further detail on the above items and some additional minor enhancements.
Remember, SugarCRM is now releasing 4 updates per year for clients hosted On-demand and once per year if you are hosted on-premise. If you are on-premise it is worth reviewing if you can migrate to On-demand in order to get access to more regular updates, and enjoy the free service of Sugar performing all your upgrades at no additional cost. It’s always great to be alerted to new and beneficial functionality and not have to do anything, or spend anything in order to access it.