1. Introduction

This document describes the functionality added to the CRM for customers of the SME package (Small Medium Enterprise). It also describes the assumptions and processes behind the applications.

Both the packages and this documentation are living elements. We will incorporate best practices and suggestions from our customers into our standard bundles.

Note that for specific needs, we also offer additional modules that can be used to extend the functionality of the base packages.

1. 1. Assumptions

For companies with specific differences in size and organizational complexity, there are three basic bundles.

• Starter: aimed at smaller businesses with a limited number of CRM users (1–5 users).

• SME: aimed at larger companies with a more complex organization and processes involving different roles within the company. Number of users between 3 and 15.

• Enterprise: Large companies with more advanced processes that require coordinated teamwork. Expected number of CRM users above 10 and possibly hundreds of seats.

The functionality offered ready-made for each type of company takes these high-level assumptions into account.

1. 2. SME Package

For the SME bundle, we assume that the company has several employees with different roles using the CRM. Each role has its own requirements. The SME package currently focuses on Sales and Support. We provide several standard roles:

• Sales: focuses on Sales and Opportunities

• Support: focuses on internal or external requests

• Operations: currently, we do not distinguish between Support and Operations, but we expect to do so in the future.

• Director: currently, we do not distinguish between Sales and Director, but we expect to do so in the future.

Collaboration between people plays a larger role here than in the “Starter” package, but less than in the “Corporate” package.

2. Functionality

To keep it simple, we have focused on what the user sees when they log in to the CRM. In SuiteCRM terms, this means “the home page”.

1. 1. The Home Page!

When the user logs in, the homepage is presented. We offer three tabs by default. These tabs are functionally intended for:

1. Activities and topics that may require action in the short term.

2. Information regarding ongoing activities that can be used as a reference to create new actions.

3. High-level overview of the status of activities.

In short: short-term, medium-term, and high-level overview.

The intention is that the user can take action from the homepage without (too much) navigating through the CRM. The focus is on simplicity, speed, and time-saving.

The various elements are described in more detail in chapter 4.

1. 2. The Rest (of the Modules)

The SME bundle contains quite a bit of functionality, including vReports, vCases, vNotes, MyTodoList, MyRoleHomePage, and an advanced WorkFlowManager. For more information about these modules, we refer you to the specific documentation you can find online.

3. Home Page Elements

Please note that what is presented here may (slightly) differ from your (latest) installation. However, it provides a good basis for understanding the apps available to you.

When you log in to the CRM, you will see part of the page below (what is shown is a “zoomed out” reproduction to give you a high-level overview).

1. 1. Sales Role

1. 1. 1. Main Home Page

The number after the name is used as a reference for more detailed descriptions.

Home page tabs (1)
To-do app (2)	Action dashboard (11)
Your calendar (3)	Your Opportunities with incorrect closing date (12)
Activity stream (4)	Your short-term opportunities (13)
	Your scheduled calls (14)
	Your scheduled meetings (15)

In the following sections, you will find more information about the various elements. We have marked each element with a domain. “Suite” means that this is a standard element of SuiteCRM, about which you can find more information in the SuiteCRM documentation.

You will see that with some elements you can view the information of an item (Opportunity, Account) in a new tab/window, for example by clicking on the name of an account.

We recommend that after checking that item, you close the new window and return to your home page to continue with your “work environment”. Note that if you make changes in another window, these will not automatically be displayed in your Home window. You can simply click on the tab again (or reload a page) to force a refresh.

As standard in SuiteCRM, you can also force the reloading of an element individually by clicking on the “refresh icon”: .

Element	Domain	Description
Home page tabs (1)	Beginner	Roughly ordered into actions “short term”, “long term” and overview. On the last tab, you can manage your dashboards.
To-do app (2)	Beginner	A business-oriented “to-do list”. See section 5.1 for more information.
Your calendar (3)	Suite	Provides an overview of your tasks, calls, scheduled meetings.
Activity stream (4)	Suite	List of activities within the company

Element	Domain	Description
Action dashboard (11)	Beginner	Overview of your short-term actions. This is now just an overview component. View your agenda, tasks, meetings, and calls on the same page!
Your Opportunities with incorrect closing date (12)	Beginner	Keep those opportunities up to date! You will see that the Closing Date column has a red border indicating that this item needs to be updated: Click on the “pencil” icon to make a concise form appear. Update the basic information. At least the expected closing date. Save the new information. After updating the date, you will see that the report automatically refreshes and you will see the counter go down. The goal of this element is, of course, to always be empty… You can also click on the name of the Opportunity or Account to open a new window and access those items.
Your short-term opportunities (13)	Beginner	Keep an eye on opportunities that are about to be closed.
Your scheduled calls (14)	Suite	List of scheduled calls. Make sure they are sorted in ascending order by start date.
Your scheduled meetings (15)	Suite	List of scheduled meetings. Make sure they are sorted in ascending order by start date.

1. 1. 2. Long-term Tab

On the main tab, the focus is on personal activities. On this tab, you will find more information about company-wide activities.

Schematically:

References & Controls
Company opportunities in the coming weeks (1)	Incorrect closing date for opportunity by owner (11)
Open Opportunities Top Accounts (2)	Company Incorrect Opportunity Closing Date (12)
Top accounts last 12 months (3)	Open opportunities for the next 12 months (13)
Top accounts 2 years ago (4)	Opportunities overview -12 and +12 months (14)
Lead conversion last 12 months (5)

Element	Domain	Description
Company opportunities in the coming weeks (1)	Beginner	Keep an eye on opportunities that are about to be closed. See what your colleagues are doing and compare!
Open Opportunities Top Accounts (2)	Beginner	List of the Top 10 Opportunities (by weighted amount), grouped by Account. The info icon gives access to the list of Opportunities per account. From there, you have access to the opportunities that open in a new window.
Top accounts last 12 months (3)	Beginner	Accounts ordered by closed won amount in the previous 12 months (rolling year).
Top accounts 2 years ago (4)	Beginner	Accounts ranked by Closed Won amount 2 years ago (based on rolling year).
Lead conversion last 12 months (5)	Beginner	Shows per month the ratio between converted and non-converted leads.

Element	Domain	Description
Incorrect closing date for opportunity by owner (11)	Beginner	Shows who within the company is not keeping the Closing Dates up to date. Use the paper airplane to send a helpful message to your colleague (see screenshot below). Click on the icon, adjust the message (optionally with a target date if you are the supervisor), save, and you’re done (a task is automatically created for the assigned person). Note that if no person is assigned, it will default to your details… The task could then be to find people to do the work… To change the text, modify vReport: “#OppWrongCloseByPerson”, input “Message Task”. See also section 6.
Company Incorrect Opportunity Closing Date (12)	Beginner	Note that this is company-wide data. Keep those opportunities up to date! You will see that the Closing Date column has a red border indicating that this item needs to be updated: Click on the “pencil” icon to make a concise form appear. Update the basic information. At least the expected closing date. Save the new information. After updating the date, you will see that the report automatically refreshes and you will see the counter go down. The goal of this element is, of course, to always be empty… You can also click on the name of the Opportunity or Account to open a new window and access those items.
Open opportunities for the next 12 months (11)	Beginner	Overview of the opportunities that are still open and expected to close in the next 12 months. Grouped by month and status.
Opportunities overview -12 and +12 months (12)	Beginner	Overview of the previous 12 months and the next 12 months, with the status. Successful opportunities must be Closed Won or Closed Lost.

Add task for colleague with Open Opportunities (paper icon in element 11):

1. 1. 3. Overview Tab

In this example, assuming you use the Invoices module, you can see the actual invoices versus expected (target) invoices.

You can adjust the Target by modifying the report “#InvLast12MNext12M”. See section Error: Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found

A funnel chart is also presented.

1. 2. Support Role

1. 1. 1. Main Home Page

The number after the name is used as a reference for more detailed descriptions.

Home page tabs (1)
To-do app (2)	Your action dashboard (11)
Your calendar (3)	Your Open vCases (12)
	Company Open vCases (13)
	Latest responses to my vCases (14)
	Your scheduled calls (15)
	Your scheduled meetings (16)

In the following sections, you will find more information about the various elements. We have marked each element with a domain. “Suite” means that this is a standard element of SuiteCRM, about which you can find more information in the SuiteCRM documentation.

You will see that with some elements you can view the information of an item (Opportunity, Account) in a new tab/window, for example by clicking on the name of an account.

We recommend that after checking that item, you close the new window and return to your home page to continue with your “work environment”. Note that if you make changes in another window, these will not automatically be displayed in your Home window. You can simply click on the tab again (or reload a page) to force a refresh.

As standard in SuiteCRM, you can also force the reloading of an element individually by clicking on the “refresh icon”: .

Element	Domain	Description
Home page tabs (1)	Beginner	Roughly ordered into actions “short term”, “long term” and overview. On the last tab, you can manage your dashboards.
To-do app (2)	Beginner	A business-oriented “to-do list”. See section 5.1 for more information.
Your calendar (3)	Suite	Provides an overview of your tasks, calls, scheduled meetings.

Element	Domain	Description
Your action dashboard (11)	Beginner	Overview of your short-term actions. This is now just an overview component. View your agenda, tasks, meetings, and calls on the same page!
Your Open vCases (12)	Beginner	Overview of the status of your vCases (assigned to you). Number of open vCases Number of open vCases with high priority Oldest vCase opened Average time vCases have been open. Number of open vCases you have created (and are still open) You can find two action buttons here: List of your open vCases List of open vCases you have created and assigned to others (paper airplane) From each of the list views, you can: Open a new window to access the vCase and work there Click on the info button: you will get a quick overview of the relevant vCase. This is OK if you want to quickly add a note, but it is best to open the vCase in another window if you really want to work on it. If you update a vCase, the underlying element is automatically updated.
Company Open vCases (13)	Beginner	This dashboard is similar to the previous one with the following exceptions: Instead of “To others”, you will find here the number of unassigned vCases On the same line, you can open the list of unassigned vCases to assign someone to them (icon with the person and the +).
Latest responses to my vCases (14)	Suite	Here you will find the list of vCases with the most recent comments on vCases that are assigned to you or that you have created. You can open the vCase to view the comments, or you can directly open a new window with the vCase.
Your scheduled calls (15)	Suite	List of scheduled calls. Make sure they are sorted in ascending order by start date.
Your scheduled meetings (16)		List of scheduled meetings. Make sure they are sorted in ascending order by start date.

1. 1. 2. Long-term Tab

On the main tab, the focus is on personal activities. On this tab, you will find more information about company-wide activities.

Schematically:

References & Controls
vCases latest notes (1)	vCases with top action (11)
vCases Old (2)	vCases Overview open status (12)
vCases Open Type Summary (3)

Element	Domain	Description
vCases latest notes (1)	Beginner	Here you will find the list of vCases with the most recent comments (company-wide). You can open the vCase to view the comments, or you can directly open a new window with the vCase
vCases Old (2)	Beginner	List of the oldest vCases that are still open. You have direct access to the vCase.
vCases Open Type Summary (3)	Beginner	Overview of the type of vCases that are open.

Element	Domain	Description
vCases with top action (11)	Beginner	List of open vCases with the highest number of responses in the last 30 days. A very high number of responses may indicate inefficient communication (maybe time to pick up the phone and call?).
vCases Overview open status (12)	Beginner	Overview of the status of open vCases (company-wide).

1. 1. 3. Overview Tab

In this example, assuming you use the Invoices module, you can see the actual invoices versus expected (target) invoices.

You can adjust the Target by modifying the report “#InvLast12MNext12M”. See section Error: Reference source not foundError: Reference source not found

A funnel chart is also presented.

4. Mini-apps

   1. My To-Do List

This is a mini-app that is part of the Starter package. It is a pragmatic, user-friendly application to keep track of your actions. Note that this app uses the standard Tasks information, so if you change a Task in another way, it will also be reflected here and vice versa.

The to-do list app consists of:

• To-Do tab (tasks).

• Done tab (tasks).

The selected tab is the darker tab (which contains a dark blue underlined element). The dark part corresponds to the standard SuiteCRM color scheme.

1. 1. 1. Tasks Tab

On the Tasks tab you will find:

• The Add Task button

• Page navigation buttons (only appear if you have more than 5 tasks)

• For each task:

  • Close button (you can click this when you are done with the task)

  • Edit button

• • Task description section

    • Information about the task status:

• • Status color:

• • 1. Green: active

    2. Orange: pending input

    3. Deferred: purple

    4. Light gray: inactive

    5. Dark gray: closed (not shown in To-do tab!)

• • Important indication (for priority “High” tasks)

  • Calendar (when you have defined an end date for your task)

    • Black if the timing is okay

    • Red if it is late

    • Task description

• Number of open tasks

The order of the presented elements is as follows:

1. Task status (see previous color section).

2. Priority level (see actual report calculation data)

   1. CASE WHEN ${this} = “High” THEN “1”

   2. WHEN ${this} = “Medium” THEN “2”

   3. WHEN ${this} = “Low” THEN “3”

   4. ELSE “100”

   5. END

3. Date modified (most recent first).

The order is based on a certain workflow:

• Active: These are the tasks you are really working on and spending time on.

• You have a list of “pseudo-active” tasks that are:

  • Pending input: in principle, you have already spent time on this task, but you are waiting for something to happen (ideally, there should be an internal action if it is internal).

    • If you are looking for more complex workflows, for example, where you want to create a task and assign it to someone, and where your original tasks automatically become active again when the other task is closed, you might consider our “SME” package with an advanced WorkFlowManager.

  • Deferred: these are tasks you have deferred. This should by definition be a temporary status, as it means you really want to continue with the task, but you do not yet want to set an “end date”.

• Inactive: these are things you want to do in the future. You create them so as not to forget, but in principle, you do not want to start working on them yet.

1. 1. 2. Done Tab

On this tab, you will find the history of your closed tasks.

This tab is similar to the ‘To-do’ tab with the following differences.

• The only way to add a task to this list is to close it first…

• You can see that the tasks are closed, as you can see the “checkmark”. Click it to uncheck: Task returns to the “To-do” list.

• The tasks are presented with a light “strikethrough” effect.

• The icons are also displayed in gray (in this state, it may be useful to know that certain things apply, but they should not be as relevant…)

• The tasks are sorted by “last modified” date. This means that you normally see the one you recently closed at the top of the list.

1. 1. 3. Special Notes

1. 1. 1. 1. I removed the Tasks list dashlet!

Let’s assume you removed the dashlet containing the “To-do list” (moment of despair?). No worries, you can get it back!

The mini-application “To-do list” is built using the ValeDale low-code environment “Forms and views”, and we have made it available via dashlets.

Select the “Actions” tab in the HomePage tabs and select “Add Dashlets”.

Select “ValeDale Views” here. A container will be added to your selected tab.

Click on the “Pencil” and search for “Todo”

Select the “#MyToDoTasks”, change the title to something less generic, and click “Save”.

Refresh the page and you are ready to go!

5. Configuration

The Starter package contains a list of elements on top of standard SuiteCRM. You can recognize them by the fact that they have a “#” at the beginning of the name.

These elements are managed by ECM2, are marked as internal, and are subject to change (evolution).

In the Starter package, as an admin, you have access to the vReports elements used (there are also Forms and Views).

If for any reason you want to make a change to one of the vReports, you should be aware that these may change in the future, so if you still want to make a change:

1. Contact ECM2 and propose a change. If approved, it will be included in a future release and become part of the standard package. This is the recommended option.

2. If option 1 is not applicable, you can make the changes in the relevant vReport. You can/must make a copy of this report for future use. Be aware that you will lose these changes with new releases. So:

   • • Make a copy of the relevant report. For example, add a “0” (zero) between “#” and the original name (no spaces!).

     • After receiving a new release (changes lost): delete the original vReport. Change the name back (remove the “0”), export it, and import it back.

     • You have restored your customized report.