vtiger

[jjkavanagh]

Hi , I am currently looking at vtiger as a solution for our company. We are a coach/ bus hire and public transport business. We have over 100 coaches. We need a CRM setup , and I am looking to evaluate vtiger. I have put some of our requirements below and would like to hear your views and if the following is supported in vtiger. Thanks

[b]1:Inputs:[/b]
We are looking to take our inputs (email, webform, and calls), enter them to the CRM system, assign the work to staff (ideally as a automatic workflow).

[b]2:View what is assigned[/b]
The different roles in the company can then view what is assigned to them from the inputs above: Complaints, coach hire queries, fare queries etc.

[b]3:Bookings[/b]
We would like to take the successful leads for coach hire and then turn them into a confirmed booking, this would be added to the calendar and we would assign a driver to the booking.

[b]4:Role based[/b]
We would require that certain roles with certain access.

5:Reporting , marketing etc (we understand the benefits of these and would like to use them, but the main priority is to capture the data first)

[brett.hooker]

Seems quite reasonable enough.

Re: Item 1

You might like to consider a Joomla based website, with the JM to VT integration so that you can more easily capture the web based leads directly into vTiger.

We use MBox here in Australia to automate collection of faxes and voicemails, and we've integrated inbound emails into the CRM so that they turn up as either leads or helpdesk tickets.

Re: Item 2

Standard functionality for vTiger. Setup profiles and Key Metrics, and then assign the profiles to each user. They'll be able to see their lists as KPIs right on the home page, and click to drill into detail.

Re: Item 3

You've got a couple of options here. You might like to first convert qualified leads into potentials so that you can track won/lost deals on the dashboard. Adding a won deal to the calendar would involve just making a calendar appointment, and assigning the driver to the appointment.

Re: Item 4

Plenty of options for managing marketing, and to do basic reporting. If it's a p2 for you, then the built in stuff should meet your initial requirements.

[jjkavanagh]

Thanks for the feedback, We are currently looking at Joomla for a new version of the site.

I will look into the integration of the two, and see if Joomla 1.5 is supported.


I was unable to find out how vtiger takes in emails ? does it support imap or pop 3? currently we use gmail to take in our main mails.


Thanks again for your help in this decision.

[ameagher]

Hi,

I sent you a PM a few days ago and then I realised it hadn't sent :oops:

You guys still have a base in Bray?

VTiger is a great system I've used it for inventory and crm! There can be some issues on release dates etc.. and bug fixes. But as you've probably noticed, there's good support on the forums as well!

The main advantages to vtiger are it is simple to use and configure, and the layout of the final install is easy to navigate, and thus to learn, which may be good for training in your end users!

You might like to look at OpenCRX. It's developed by a Swiss company Crixp. Like VTiger it's an open source project. It is on version 2.0 which has just been released and it has very good customisability. It's a Java solution rather than PHP.

If you want to chat or anything, you can pm me and I'll send you my email address. I'm always interested to hear about Irish companies using Open Source software ;) I'd be delighted to help in any way with your selection!

I'm based in Meath-Westmeath and I'm originally from Bray. We do web design and crm-erp stuff for small businesses.

Anthony

[ameagher]

BTW,

Do you use gmail for storage and retrieve via Outloook?

You should be still able to do that with the VTiger Thunderbird extension or Outlook extension.

[It's not very expensive to get your own hosted email server, even from an Irish hosting company. A few hundred a year would probably do it.]

Anthony