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Routing with a Process

2012-01-13T22:25:43Z

Process Manager Pro does not support the combination of Workflow and Routing in one process. This means that routing rules in Process Manager can not have stages assigned to them.

Routing Precedence

2012-01-09T16:40:25Z

If multiple routing rules can be operated against one object, the rule that takes precedence is the one that routes most recently. If you were to create a rule that assigns created opportunities to Employee A, and you also have a rule that assigns modified opportunities to Employee Z, Employee Z will own that object after modification.

PM Pro v2

2011-12-21T18:15:13Z

We are kicking off 2012 with a new version of Process Manager Pro - PM Pro v2. PM Pro is powerful workflow for SugarCRM. All new features and a refined interface. PM Pro v1, released in August of this year was a huge hit for SierraCRM. We picked up many of new customers with this release and upgraded quite a few of our older Process Manager product.

As many of you know, there is no Workflow in SugarCRM CE and the Workflow in SugarCRM Pro is limited in its' functionality. When we released Process Manager Pro this past summer, we took all three of our products and merged them into one. Now that we have had a chance to have all these new customers use PM Pro - there is a long list of feature requests. Expect new features such as filter fields that check related modules, cleaner user interface, online help, better email support such as entering a fixed from address.

We expect to kick off the project in early 2012 and have beta ready for testing at the end of Q1.

Let us know if you are a current user of Process Manager and have a feature request. Now is the time to get these to SierraCRM for inclusion into PM Pro v2.

--Bill

Webinar in Collaboration with SugarCRM

2011-12-13T18:46:17Z

SierraCRM has recently joined SugarCRM in presenting the Process Manager Pro workflow module for SugarCRM. The video can be viewed here: Webinar

What is workflow and why is it important in CRM

2011-11-21T22:07:43Z

Workflow is basically the best business practices in your organization. You have a business flow in one or more departments that you do everyday that may or may not impact another department in your company. Write-up a matrix of these practices and see how they work together and how information flows through your company. Now take a look at your current Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and review it to see if the processes you have setup are working for you or do you still find yourself creating tasks for yourself? Then look at the technology of the CRM and see if you have a full solution to your workflow, or if you can add tools to your CRM to give you time managed workflow, thus automating a number of the best of business practices you have in your company. SugarCRM Pro offers some basic workflow, and we believe that with Process Manager, you can take this to the next level.

SierraCRM in Europe

2011-11-04T18:26:10Z

Sierra's CTO is currently finishing up a tour of customer visits throughout parts of Europe. Visited countries include United Kingdom, Austria, and Germany

Upgrade Pricing

2011-10-20T00:18:54Z

Sugar Users,

If you are a previous customer of SierraCRM and hold a prior copy of Process Manager, you can upgrade to the new Suite version for $249.

Routing in the new PM Pro

2011-10-17T23:27:25Z

Hello SugarCRM and SierraCRM customers,
We have been getting asked about the new routing feature in Process Manager Pro. For this first release of PM Pro, routing only works on the create or modification of an object. You could setup a process to run 'At This Time' in which you get leads or contacts and then call the Process Task - Modify Field - and set the id = the id of the new user. However, notification would not happen.

We are adding this as a feature for PM Pro v2.

Thanks
SierraCRM, Inc.
http://www.sierracrm.com

Observations from customers of PM Pro

2011-10-07T16:25:14Z

Hello SugarCRM users and SierraCRM Customers,
As many of you know, SierraCRM released a new product in August that was a blend of all three of our products into one. This new product will eventually become the only product we sell for workflow for SugarCRM. Plans are to discontinue selling Routing Manager, Marketing Manager and the original Process Manager. With that said here are some support issues we have dealt with since we released the product in early August:

Modify Field as a Process Task: A new feature of PM Pro was the ability to modify a field in an object on the create or modification of that object. Some of our customers reported to us that the drop down list that holds the object fields was not filling. We had found that these customers were trying to create a stand alone Process Task, and not actually going through the Create Process -> Create Process Stage - > Create Process Stage Task. The newly created Process Stage Task has to be related back to the Process via the Stage to know what the object that triggered the process is.
Populating emails with object data: As many of you know, when creating an email template in SugarCRM, you are only allowed to get Lead/Contact/Account/User data to fill the email template. Process Manager uses Sugar Email templates when sending emails. We added a new feature in PM Pro to allow any data from the object that triggered the process to be inserted into the email template. For example, if you wanted opportunity data to go out in the email then all you need to do is to put $opportunities_fieldname and PM would go and get this field and put in the outgoing email
Routing Issues: on our initial release of PM Pro, we had an issue in which on object modify where the process is to route the object, the object would not get routed. This was an error on our part and an updated file was sent to all existing customers
Sending Emails on Calls: We have a customer who has asked us to add the ability to send an email to the object related to a new Call. For example, if you created a Call and related to an Account - have Process Manager get the related Account email and use that as the to address and send the email to this Account
Related Filter Fields - we have customers asking if we can add the ability to filter processes on related objects. As many of you know, we allow up to five filter fields to be included in a process. These filter fields can be either and/or. What some customers are asking for is to include the ability to get a related object to the object that triggered the process and also add filter fields for the related object.

As we receive more customer support calls and emails, we will add to this blog.

Regards,
Bill Convis
CTO SierraCRM, Inc.

Process Manager Pro Routing and SugarCRM Pro

2011-08-16T14:56:53Z

Hello SugarCRM Community,
We just found an issue with SugarCRMPro and our new product Process Manage Pro when setting up a process to route/assign leads. SugarCRM Pro includes teams and we are not correctly setting the team_id when updating the assigned_user_id. Working on the patch and will get the update out to our customers shortly.

Thanks,
Support
SierraCRM, Inc.

Run Process Manager 'At This Time:' - Queries

2011-08-12T20:39:48Z

As mentioned below, this new version of Process Manager is now a product in which Marketing Manager and Routing Manager have been integrated. Also, the Start Process Trigger has been updated to include 'Run At This Time' which is what enables the scheduled work-flow, taken from Marketing Manager. With this feature, you have the option to run a query against the objects in Sugar, and then apply the process to those objects. Process Manager now comes with 10 pre-loaded processes, some of which have these queries.

If you need new queries built, we suggest using these as framework for your custom queries, or you can have us build them.

Thank You.

Process Manager Pro Released

2011-08-09T22:07:52Z

Hello SierraCRM Customers and Sugar Community,
We have just released the newest product from SierraCRM, Process Manager Pro v1.0. This new product takes the original Process Manager and merges the best features of Marketing Manager and Routing Manager into one simple to install and use Sugar Business Process Management module.

All new website with new videos and tutorials showing how to setup business processes to help Sugar customers 'Create Customers for Life'.

Process Manager Pro - 'Turning Interactions into Profits'

--Bill

Update on PM 6.2

2011-08-09T16:30:38Z

Folks,
In beta testing for a completely new version of Process Manager Pro v. 1 for SugarCRM 6.2. Took the best features from Marketing Manager and Routing Manager and rolled them all into Process Manager. You can now schedule processes to run at specific times daily, weekly or monthly. You can now route/assign objects to users or groups of users in a round robin fashion. Support for all modules/tables in SugarCRM. More features to numerous to mention here. Hope to have this shipping by end of July.

Bill

Process Manager Pro update

2011-08-01T18:22:03Z

We are finalizing the beta testing of this new product from SierraCRM. Expect to ship the product this week. We are including 10 new process templates that cover all new features. Additionally, a new section of the documentation will show how to setup many different types of business processes.

Thanks
Bill Convis

New Process Manager

2011-07-21T15:27:41Z

Does your deployment of SugarCRM do what it's supposed to do when its supposed to do it? We assume that in most cases, the answer to this is no. With the new release of Process Manager, it will be able to know what to do, when to do it, and how to do it.

Here is an example: Every Monday morning at 6AM, find all the leads that were created the past 7 days that have not been modified or changed by your sales reps and that are not deleted or converted. Get all these leads and assign to a new rep.

And another example: When an opportunity is Closed - setup a year long drip email campaign that auto sends a Company Newsletter to the Accounts or Contacts for the opp once a month.

And another example: At the end of every month, find all Cases that were closed the past month and send a survey to the customer.

The new PM can do all of this. Over 20 pre built processes and templates will be included in the new PM.

--Bill

Task Start Time Delay Type

2011-05-27T17:38:35Z

One of the functions of Process Manager is the delay of stages and tasks. Upon the creation of the task for your process, you can choose the task "Start Time Delay Type." This field is specifically related to the type of process you are running: the process starts upon the Creation or Modification of an object.

If you choose "Create" and delay your task 90 minutes, the task will be scheduled for 90 minutes after the creation of the object. If you choose "Modify" then the task will be scheduled 90 minutes after the point in time when the object was modified.

Process Filter Fields not showing

2011-05-19T16:34:13Z

Hello SierraCRM Customers - if, after install of Process Manager - you do not see Process Filter Fields filled when selecting an object on Process Create - the fix is to copy a file to the root of your sugar install.

During installation of Process Manager - a post install script is setup to copy a file called getFilterFields from the PM_ProcessManager folder to the root of sugar. Open a shell to your sugar instance and check to see if getFilterFields.php is present in the root of sugar (same location as config.php) - if not then copy the file from /modules/PM_ProcessManager folder and set the appropriate permissions for owner and group.

Thanks
Bill Convis
SierraCRM, Inc.

Process Manager Install: Scheduler Issues

2011-05-18T01:36:00Z

After you install your instance of Process Manager, it is highly recommended to set up the Scheduler to run Process Manager automatically. If upon the creation of the Scheduler task, you do not see 'runProcessManager' in the drop down list, here is the fix. Navigate to ADMIN, and then click on repair. Next, click 'Repair Javascript Languages' which should clear the cache and make 'runProcessManager' visible. Finally, check the create scheduler drop down and it should appear.

How to manually uninstall Process Manager

2011-04-01T14:16:00Z

Here are the instructions on how to uninstall Process Manager

Login to the database and remove any tables that have pm_ - for example pm_process_completed_process

Updated - 5-16-2011
Customer called and ask to update with more explicit instructions:
Login to your favorite mysql admin tool like phpMyAdmin.
Open up your sugar database and remove all tables that have pm_ in their name - there will be quite a few.
Delete these from the database. Then follow the next instructions below:

If not already removed by unistall process:
- remove /modules/PM_ProcessManager
- remove /modules/PM_ProcessManagerStage
- remove /modules/PM_ProcessManagerStageTask

Remove zip files in /cache/upload/PM_CE_60_MYSQL_V2.zip - or the name of the PM file you uploaded

Check the folder /cache/uploads/upgrade/module - remove any Process Manager files

Now run the following sql select * from upgrade_history
Delete any entries in this table for PM

Check the db table tasks - if the column is_pm_created_task is present - delete it

Check the db table upgrade_history - you will see an entry for Process Manager - delete it

Run quick repair and rebuild

New Features in Marketing Manager

2011-03-17T18:25:00Z

Customer is requesting the ability for Marketing Manager to be able to run a specific day of the month, each month. Looking into that and hope to have that out to maintenance customers and new customers this quarter.