What are good resources/links for developing a Sales CRM?

5 points by supershobu 9 years ago | 10 comments

I want to create a lead and scheduling based appointments system. Please recommend good resources which will explain how a crm works and how to design one? Need to understand both technical and architectural point of view. For example stages of leads and the database structure along with which framework will be best.

vayarajesh 9 years ago |

SuiteCRM is a good place to start. It is opensource and based on top of SugarCRM with lot more useful features. With 4 years of experience in working with SuiteCRM and SugarCRM i would really prefer SuiteCRM, even when it comes to adding custom business logic and workflow design.

It also comes with good REST API for all the modules and any custom module you create using the module builder.

The community modules are really good too and https://www.sugaroutfitters.com makes some nice paid modules which are useful too.

wprapido 9 years ago | |

suiteCRM is awesome and very developer friendly

IAMsterdam 9 years ago |

I have tried to build a similar app 3 years ago. I used twitter bootstrap, but unfortunately failed. Bootstrap was the most flexible since the average (open source) CRM solutions have too many features to build an app that meets your requirements for a MVP. You could consider the Appexhange framework from SalesForce to directly push it to a broader audience, but then you have the dependancy of building on an external API. Good luck i truly believe you are on something valuable!

supershobu 9 years ago | |

Thanks for the answer. Lead life cycle management will be a part of that product I am trying to build, so I dont want to depend on external sevices. That's why I am trying to understand how crm's work.

tyingq 9 years ago |

SugarCRM has schema documentation: http://apidocs.sugarcrm.com/schema/7.8.0.0/ult/

supershobu 9 years ago | |

Thank you for this. This provides a good overview of the schemas that needs to be used. Any good resource for the lead allocation logic for the crm? As there will be different agents /owners.

LarryMade2 9 years ago |

Sounds like you need a Customer Relations for Dummies type guide or some time simulating doing CRM work using some open source CRM to a get the feel of what exactly CRM is as well as to foster ideas to make it better.

supershobu 9 years ago | |

Yes I tried looking for open source solutions but they seemed a bit complicated. I need basic implementation of a CRM

tixocloud 9 years ago | | |

The most basic implementation of a CRM could be an Excel spreadsheet. Based on my research as I was doing a similar project, that's what I've been told by business owners.

Depending on how complex you want things to get, you'll need a contact list and their statuses throughout the funnel.

silvaben 9 years ago |

You can find some good resources here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12950874