Easy CRM for activeCollab 3 | USWebStyle Blog

Now activeCollab 3 can be more than just a Project Management tool, but also a complete CRM System.

We target to keep all the information about the clients in one place in order to have things organized and easily?analyzed to?track leads?and?generate sales.?Meet Easy CRM in activecollab 3?that can replace your complex and expensive CRM.

General CRM Information (Customer?Relationship?Management)

Easy CRM allows you to improve the communication with the customers by keeping maximum information about the customers, relationship with them, and store maximum data by using extended profile.

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Main features of the module incorporated in aC3:

• Extended Customer profile;
• Track all incoming & outgoing email communications;
• Store related to customer files attached to profile;
• Keep track on history of budget changes at quotes, project requests;
• Analyze lead sources to improve sales managed from Settings;
• Make predictions on upcoming sales;
• Get reminders on client?s important events in life ? reminders;
• Use Customer social activity.

Installation & Updates

As any other module in activecollab 3, installation instructions are pretty easy.

1. Unzip archive to any directory on your computer;
2. With the help of ftp client or web interface, upload easy_crm from archive ?to custom/modules directory. Overwrite all folders if asked;
3. Go to AC-> Admin-> Modules-> Easy CRM and Install it;
4. Go to Administration ->CRM Settings or CRM Sources to set it up according to your company needs;
5. Add new Leads by using Quick Add or ?at People page and set extended profiles at your current customers.

Note: Make sure you have Daily Scheduled Tasks setup in activecollab to send notifications about customer dates to remember.

Updates & Update Notifications:?as any other module from USWebStyle, you?ll be automatically notified about release of new version at Administration -> Modules page to update your current release from Download area.

Module Settings & System Permissions

When Module is installed some information is automatically added in almost every area of activecollab to?adopt?it to the logic of CRM:

• People section ?- adds new company ?Potential Leads?;
• System Roles ? ?Lead No Rights? to prevent system access and assign leads automatically;
• Quotes and Requests ? extra fields to track budget history;
• User Profiles ? adds several tabs like CRM with Email and simple communications inside, Social Activity & Extended info data;
• CRM Sources ? the source where you?ve got lead or knew customer from;
• Email Templates ? send dates to remember notification that you?ve set up at customer profiles;

Sources

At Administration -> CRM Sources you can manage the list of sources that are shown at User Profile in Extended info. By default module adds several sources.

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At the settings you can enter?recipients?to be notified about dates to remeber at customers profile, whether emails should be deleted from server or not and selection of CRM box to be used for email correspondence.

Create Lead Users

Add Lead users to the system. Create a Lead user that won?t be able to login to the system, but in the meantime you will be able to track all the conversations with him, and keep necessary information. You can convert such a user into a real customer easily.

Add Lead User using quick add:

In the dialog window add user?s email, and optionally user?s name and title:

A user without ability to log into the system will be created automatically and added to the ?Potential Leads? Company by default. In order to convert a Lead user into a real customer, go to the user?s profile, and change his role and company.

Extended User Profile

Extended Contact Information. Compared to the default activeCollab 3 profile, now you can add more than one phone number to the contact details:

Add several AIM?s and social media accounts (twitter, facebook, linkedin). Be aware of client?s life by watching his news on facebook and twitter (of course if his account is public):

To keep maximum information, we have added several more fields to the profile that are optional, but will help you to store some background, notes and source where your customer or lead came from.

Sources are managed at Administration -> CRM Sources and when module is installed, there are default to associate customer with.

Social Activity

Note: ?if Twitter, LinkedIn or/and Facebook accounts are entered, all activity from social profile will be shown at Social Activity tab.

On the profile of the user you will see tab ?Social activity? where all the updates from the user social accounts (facebook & twitter) will be grabbed:

Dates to Remember

You will never forget about an important event in client?s life with the help of dates to remember feature. E.g. add client Birthday date to repeat every year:

You can add as many dates as you need. There are also options to repeat on weekly, monthly or yearly basis. Select who will receive notifications about dates in Module Settings.

User Files

Keep all the files related to a user such as NDA?s, project details, etc. at the user profile page.

CRM

CRM is the main tab at user profile to keep all the communications between manager and customer. It can be email correspondence stored in database and retrieved automatically from CRM email set in the module settings.

Email Communications

All emails sent to and from customer are saved under his profile, no matter if it?s lead or your current client. You just need to create new email box at Administration -> Emails and disable it, then go to CRM Settings and select it as a CRM box.

The system will check this email frequently, so that you need Frequent Tasks be set up in the system, and activecollab associate automatically the email with the customer.

The main rules: always put in copy the recepient ? CRM email box when you send emails to customer, and customer should receive emails from email box that is stated as CRM box in activecollab. That way all communications are saved in the system.

If there is no such user ? to whom you are sending email, it?s automatically added as a Lead into system + Project Request is created with details from email. Just make sure you CC CRM email box while replying to customer to tell the module that it?s potential lead and it will be registered with ??Lead ? No Rights? Role.

Project Request is created from email and Lead is subscribed to it with email notification to this request for further communication.

Communications

There is a way to add communications with customer manually. Just set Title, Description, Date and Time, incoming or outgoing and ?Source that can be phone call, meeting, fax or email.

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All Communications are shown in the list. If description is big and you want to read it, just click on the title link that brings popup with all communication details.

Send Emails

You have ability to send emails directly from activecollab by clicking on Send Emails button from User Profile and state Subject with email description. It will be automatically saved as outgoing email under this user profile.

Budget History

Budget History is saved in the system from the moment project request is created in the system. You can set default budget, source it comes from and currency. Just go to Administration ->Project Requests and set these details if you need.

Every time you change the budget the values are saved with dates, and represent Budget History in Requests that can be converted to Quotes and finally Project with all history saved. Next to the budget, you?ll see History link by clicking on which, popup will appear.

So you?ll save that?information?from the very beginning the leads comes to you till the project completion.

Note: History is visible to Administrators and Project Managers?

Source: http://www.uswebstyle.com/blog/easy-crm-activecollab-3.html

macauly culkin joe namath stefon diggs nazi ss andrej pejic naomi watts macaulay culkin