SugarCRM: Seamless Mail Sync

The disclaimer first - my knowledge with SugarCRM has been limited and I only try to dig into things when I find something interesting enough. I have been playing around the latest version (6.12) of SugarCRM lately, and was fairly delighted to see a good email integration feature.

How it works is pretty straight-forward.
1. The user can setup his own account to connect to an email account - gmail, yahoo, MS Exchange enabled by default

2. Connect to email box and check things in Sugar

3. Import the received/sent email within Sugar, and build other entities like account, opportunity etc. around it

I was also impressed by the level of integration a calendar entry has. For example, a divisional manager sends a meeting request to his boss and the rep working on a proposal. This is what the rep gets in the email.

Ofcourse, the point to note is that this was sent from the SugarCRM calendar. There is greater flexibility if it was google calendar (yes, there is a mod to connect with Google calendar).

The reason I was so delighted should probably be attributed to the way PIM Sync works. Until that is re-written, we probably would not miss out on 'complex' projects to implement email integration.

Siebel: Importing data from files

I am back after a not-so-brief hiatus, and am back hopefully for good :). Here I am with yet another utility - this time something that will help you to import data from files into Siebel, with zero coding required from your end. ‘COG File Import Service’ as it is known, will hopefully simplify your life a bit.

Contrary to popular (and let me add, buggy) excel macros / VB COM programs that are available to load data to Siebel, this is a business service that can be imported to Tools / Client. But at the same time it does not offer as much flexibility, given below are a few things that make this tool stand apart.

Why another tool?
File import is nothing new to Siebel developers. But why use another tool when there are dime-a-dozen you say? Thus goes the story:

• The first thing that hits you - most of the tools to load Siebel data have inconsistent interfaces, and may require some amount of ‘getting-used-to’
• External objects or platforms are required to actually see what is going on, and hopefully to change the behavior. For example, you need Excel or Visual Basic software, or have a dependency on Windows platform to execute the code. And all that can be done, provided you understand what has been written there
• Customers might have their own restrictions in connecting to production systems using third party software and utilities

The Mechanism

COG Import Service is just a business service that can be applied to Siebel v7.5+, but has only been tested with 7.7 and 8.1. The service works with CSV/delimited files and has two distinct ways to handle them:

1. Simple Update - This is just a wrapper to the OOB CSV reader service, with a couple of enhancements thrown in
2. Update - A more sophisticated updater, which can do a few more things than what CSV reader can do

The steps involved in both methods are simple:

1. Read file (all at once)
2. Map fields to provided content
3. Use a data map, if specified
4. Update

Where they differ is in the way they process files.

When to use which method?

.. Simple Update

• Uses the 'CSV Reader Business Service', and hence needs an integration object (IO) to be available for the input data
• When the processing is simple and there is no need for processing more than one component/entity (in other words, entity and its children) at one time
• Processing should be fast
• Any errors should roll-back all transactions

.. Update

• Can be used with or without involving IO
• Delimited with be comma or something else
• Process entity and one child with one operation

How to Use?

Import the attached XML into Siebel Tools and compile to SRF, or imported into the Client (Site Map > Business Service Administration). Parameters to the service specify the parameters that are needed for a successful run. The file formats/structure has been documented in the service itself.

License

None, you can use it or throw it away. Use it at your own risk, unintentional bugs are all but risks of the trade.

You can watch this space (at your own risk, of course) for new versions - improvements or bug fixes.