After this Wednesday, March 31, 2010, SugarCRM will no longer provide customer support, maintenance patches or bug fixes for Sugar 5.1.0.

Check the End of Version plan to learn about the upcoming End of Version dates.

Knowledgesync is an Alerts and Workflow solution for numerous business applications. A few of the more basic uses are:

• Business activity monitoring for events customers want to know about.
• Business Process automation. Automatically deliver confirmations, quotes, thank you emails, etc.
• Alerts for warnings regarding issues with clients.

How can these items be accomplished? Here is a short list of some basic capabilities:

• Triggered emails based on events in a database or email inbox.
• Web dashboards using html with graphs, etc.
• Deliver crystal reports via email as a pdf on a schedule.
• Trigger crystal reports sent as a pdf to a group of people.
• Inbound email marketing
• Triggered updates integrating several databases or applications.

Off the top of my head, I can see several very good uses for this application within Technology Advisors for the Customer Advocate position.
Such as:

• Automatically send pdf ticket reports to customers.
• Send alerts to the Customer Advocate and Support about issues that need to be followed up for a customer.
  • Tickets, Contract Status, etc.
• Alert emails to Customers and the Customer Advocate
  • Tickets opened & closed.
• Alerts to the Customer Advocate
  • Ticket without an updated for 7(3?) days.
  • Customers the Customer Advocate has not contacted in the last 30 days.

These basic functions would not take long to setup, but could save our users several hours a week in effort. Not to mention avoiding headaches from issues that might slip through the cracks otherwise.

Best of all, SalesLogix users can download a free 30 day trial at http://www.sageknowledgesync.com. For best results, I would advise our customers to work with Technology Advisors to make sure the trial is beneficial and used to its fullest potential.

Entrepreneur.com has an article up on 5 Simple Ways to Show Customers You Care:

1. Share Your Knowledge
2. Ask, Listen, Respond, Adapt
3. Reward Customers
4. Hold a Customer Appreciation Event
5. Do Good

It's a great article and I recommend you check out. Here is my take on how you can apply these points to your own business.

1. Sharing Your Knowledge.  Social CRM is here.  As has always been the case, with it you can manage your e-mail newsletters.  You can now also manage your incoming and outgoing Social CRM communications with applications such as Twitter or Facebook.

2. Ask, Listen, Respond, Adapt.  Without a CRM application, how will you be able to keep track of all of your correspondence with your customers.  Newer CRM packages have the ability to integrate with all forms of communications.  Fax, Email, Snail Mail, Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, etc.

3. Reward Customers.  With the proper CRM application you can track Campaigns where you use Coupons, Gifts, Events, Targeted Mailers, Phone Calls, Social Media, etc.

4. Hold a Customer Appreciation Event.  Customer Appreciate Events or User Groups are a great way to keep your name in a customers mind.  With CRM you are able to invite your customers or potential customers to the events, track registrations and report on attendance and survey results.

5. Do Good.  Doing good is a great thing, but how will your customers know about it if you aren't able to track and effectively communicate your "good."

Using newer CRM products goes far beyond just a giant electronic Rolodex of names and phone numbers.  With a properly setup CRM application and trained user base, you should be able to manage your complete customer experience from prospect to repeat business.  And then some.

The Illinois Technology Foundation, a Chicago-based non-profit organization dedicated to fueling the technology talent and human capital pipeline through facilitated collaboration between academia and industry, has begun accepting nominations for 50 for the Future, an event honoring Illinois’ most promising technology students. 

The event, now in its fourth year, is designed to provide students using technology in innovative ways a means to excel by connecting them with business leaders early in their academic careers.  The program is open to candidates enrolled in institutions of higher learning throughout Illinois. 

Over 30 of the region’s top technology companies, supporting organizations, and institutions of higher learning have become involved in the competition, offering their C-level executives as judges. 

Students who win the award will receive recognition at an April event attended by the competition’s judges and nominators, have access to prospective employers via round tables, web seminars and mentoring programs through the Illinois Technology Foundation, and will have preferred status for limited-capacity activities. 

To find out more information or to nominate an outstanding technology student, visit www.50forthefuture.org.

Crmbuyer.com has a story up on CRM for the small business, specifically on when to invest.  There is some good information in there.

When to Buy

When small businesses start out, they are usually focused on building a list of prospects and customers, noted Garns. The value of a business is usually in the size and quality of that list.

Read the full story here.

SalesLogix has two methods of accessing your data when you are not in the office: Remote Desktop and Remote Database.

The remote desktop option allows you to log into a computer that is in your office from wherever you may be. If this is a method that multiple people will use, often then a terminal server will need to be set up with SalesLogix installed on it. Some type of VPN will also have to be set up so that your company's local network can be accessed from the outside.

The remote database option allows you to have a copy of the database on your computer. Depending on your access in SalesLogix this could be the entire Database or just the accounts you have access to. When utilizing the Remote Database you can access and update your data even when you have no internet connection. When you have a connection you will run a synchronization cycle with the main database. This will send any changes you have made since and any updates made by other users since your last synchronization. This method requires an additional server (the Synchronization server) to be set up at the office and some method of accessing the upload/download directory (VPN, FTP, etc).

Each option has its advantages and disadvantages.

The Remote Desktop allows for instant updating of accounts. Other network users see changes as soon as you make them and you see their changes as well. If you are remotely accessing your office desktop to use SalesLogix then you have access to all of your files just like you would if you were sitting at your desk. If multiple users are accessing a terminal server, then only one computer needs to be maintained and updated vs. multiple individual laptops out in the field.

The downside of Remote Desktop is that you must have an active internet connection the entire time you are using SalesLogix. Plus the connection needs to be stable and reasonably fast so that you don't have any annoying lag between what you are doing and what displays on the screen.

The Remote Database allows you to access and update your data even if you do not have an internet connection at the time. All of your data is stored on your computer. You can add accounts and update contacts at any time.

The main disadvantage of the Remote Database is that you have to synchronize your SalesLogix with the main database to send/receive changes. The process is generally very quick but this means that others will not see the updates you have made and you will not see theirs until you have an internet connection and run a synchronization cycle. If you are offline for two days you will not see any new information entered during that time until you sync.

Today I was working with several instances of the SalesLogix Administrator, Architect, and Client for an upgrade.  My computer seemed to be running slower than normal, so I did a quick search and found the following things to try.

1. I searched the internet and found out about the prefetch command.  Open Start Menu -> Run -> prefetch.  This opens C:\windows\prefetch\.  I'm not exactly sure what these files do, but it appears you can delete them and Windows will automatically re-create them, which can sometimes help with speed issues.
2. I deleted all of the temporary files in C:\Windows\Temp and  C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temp.
3. I defragmented my hard drive.  After a quick google search, I found that there are many disk defragmenting tools out there.  I used AusLogics Disk Defrag, http://www.auslogics.com/go/diskdefrag/en/software/disk-defrag.

After doing these things my computer appears to have sped up considerably.  Some of these steps may be outside the scope of a normal users day, so I advise consulting with your IT staff before trying any of these options.