Vtiger510:Usermanual: O O O O O O O O O O O O
Vtiger510:Usermanual: O O O O O O O O O O O O
Vtiger510:Usermanual: O O O O O O O O O O O O
From vtiger.com
Contents
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1 CRM BASICS
o 1.1 CRM Functions
o 1.2 Common CRM Terms and Concepts
2 vtigerCRM Product Overview
o 2.1 Sales Force Automation Features
o 2.2 Marketing Management Features
o 2.3 Customer Service/Support Features
o 2.4 Inventory Management Features
3 Getting Started with vtiger CRM
o 3.1 Before You Begin
o 3.2 Logging Into vtiger CRM
o 3.3 Changing Password
o 3.4 Changing Date Format
o 3.5 User Interface Overview
3.5.1 Accessing Different Modules
3.5.2 Preferences
o 3.6 CRM Home Page
3.6.1 Home Page Content
CRM BASICS
This chapter explains what CRM is, and introduces the main concepts and terminology. This chapter is intended for users and business
managers unfamiliar with CRM and CRM concepts.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) refers to the strategy, processes, and systems, used to manage a company's interaction
with customers, users, and sales prospects. CRM is an integral part of every business, and CRM systems enable businesses to
streamline and better manage their customer interactions. CRM systems help increase sales, enhance marketing, and improve
customer service and support.
CRM software products, such as vtiger CRM, enable you to deploy CRM systems for your business. These products support useful
CRM functions that help a business automate and manage a wide range of business activities, particularly those that deal with
customers and sales prospects. With a CRM product, businesses can quickly setup a CRM system for their customer related activities,
and use this system to manage and drive productivity in sales, marketing, andcustomer service and support functions.
CRM systems cover many different functional areas, including many aspects of sales, marketing, and customer support and service.
However, a business may use a given CRM system for only part of their business activities. Not all businesses use all CRM system
capabilities, and certainly many small businesses do not use a CRM system at all. Moreover, businesses that use CRM systems often
use them in many different ways. For example, a business may use CRM only for sales management while not using any CRM
systems for customer service or marketing, while another may use a CRM system only for customer support. CRM systems therefore
need to support a wide range of usage scenarios as required by diverse businesses. vtiger CRM allows you to use the system just for
specific business activities, or any combination of the business functions supported by the software.
In order to get the most out of the CRM implementation, business processes for the selected business functions must use and align
with the CRM systems employed. This often requires changes in employee activities, e.g. entering sales data into the CRM system
instead of paper records or spreadsheets. Without such changes to ensure their proper use, CRM systems will have limited value. This
use is typically focused in functional areas, i.e. the entire business does not need to use the system, but only staff in the chosen
functional areas such as sales, and the business managers that need to monitor that activity.
To deploy a CRM system for your business, you will first want to understand the functions and features provided by the CRM
software, so you can determine which of these capabilities will be useful and can be deployed for your business. You may choose to
start with a simple subset of what is possible, to enable you to try out the system and gradually increase the use of the system for more
of your business activities. You will also decide whether to start with a subset of users as a pilot or trial use of the CRM system. Once
you have determined the functions to use in your initial implementation, you will install and setup your CRM system to support those
business functions and setup user accounts for your CRM users with the requisite roles and permissions for each user. Your CRM
users will need guidance on how they will use the system in the course of their business activities, to ensure that the system is used as
planned. After a successful initial implementation, you may choose to use new functions in the CRM system to cover additional
business activities.
Let's first look at the important CRM functions provided by CRM software.
CRM Functions
CRM may include a diverse set of critical business functions, and CRM software products support automation and management for
most of these business functions. Three of the most important CRM functions are Sales Management (known as Sales Force
Automation), Marketing Management (also known as marketing automation, and Customer Service and Support.
A Sales Force Automation system provides a set of tools to streamline various phases of the sales process, and automate and manage
many of the tasks performed by the sales staff. Sales Force Automation includes a management system for tracking and recording
every stage in the sales process for each prospective customer, from initial contact to final disposition. Many Sales Force Automation
applications also include features for opportunity management, quote generation, sales forecasting and pipeline, workflow automation,
and product inventory.
Systems for Marketing Automation help the enterprise identify and target its best customers and generate qualified leads for the
sales team.A key marketing capability is managing and measuring marketing campaigns, including email, and direct mail. Marketing
automation also includes capabilities for managing prospect lists, collateral, and internal marketing resources.
A Customer Service and Support system enables tracking and management of customer service activities and support issues.
Customer service is an important differentiator for many businesses, and CRM systems help them improve their customers’
experience while increasing efficiency and reducing costs. CRM systems provide tools to manage customer issues and service
requests, e.g. track and resolve support requests. They provide tools such and knowledge bases to help customer self-service, and help
service staff more quickly respond to customer requests.
CRM systems may also provide an array of related tools and functions such as Inventory Management, which helps businesses
manage their inventory of products to ensure reliable and efficient procurement from suppliers and delivery to customers,
Calendering, Email, Security Management, and many other useful business tools. Please see the vtiger CRM product overview section
for more detailed information on vtiger CRM provides in each of these functional areas.
As with any business activity, there are a number of concepts and terminology used in CRM, many of which are simply common
business terms and concepts. You will find it most helpful to be familiar with these terms and concepts when you use the CRM
system.
Lead : A lead is a prospective customer. In a CRM system, prospective customers are first entered into the system as leads.
You may collect leads from your marketing events such as conference, advertisement, trade show etc. The goal is to convert a
lead into a customer. Not all leads will result in a sale and be converted into a customer. This lead will contain all the
information about the contact or the account available at this sales stage.
Potential (also known as Opportunity):A potential is an opportunity to make a sale, i.e. a potential sale. When you determine
a lead could generate a potential sale, the Lead will be converted to a Potential. In addition, an Account and Contact entries for
this lead will be automatically created in the CRM system. Each businesses will determine when a lead should be converted to
a potential. For example, a business may decide a lead that requests a quote can be converted to a Potential. The Lead entry
will be deleted to avoid confusion and duplicate entries. All the information collected for the Lead is still available in the CRM
system, but will now be presented in records for Contact, Account or Potential.
Account: An Account is a customer account record for a customer or prospective customer. When a Lead is converted to a
Potential, an Account for the prospective customer is automatically created in the CRM system.
Contact: A Contact is the contact information for a given customer or prospective customer. When a Lead is converted to a
Potential, a Contact for the prospective customer is automatically created in the CRM system.
Quotes : A Quote is a records information for a sales quotation, i.e. price, quantities, and other terms, for a potential sale to
prospects. The CRM system supports you in the creation of quotes for potential customers. A quotation can be created for a
Potential, for easy and automatic transfer of the customer data to the quote.
Purchase Order: A purchase order (PO) is a commercial document issued by a buyer to a seller, indicating types, quantities,
and agreed prices for products or services the seller will provide to the buyer. The Purchase Order is a formal notification and
approval for a customer order, and kicks off the next stage in the sales process when the PO is received.
Sales Order: A Sales Order is a document used internally by businesses to track and complete a customer order. A sales order
may be for products and/or services. A CRM system allows you to record and manage Sales Orders and related information as
part of your sales process. Once a quotation is approved, a Sales Order can be created directly from a Quote detail view. All
the relevant data from existing records will be automatically populated in the Sales Order.
Invoice: An invoice is a commercial document issued by a seller to the buyer, indicating the products, quantities, and agreed
prices for products or services the seller has provided the buyer. Once a quotation is approved, an Invoice can be created
directly from a Quote detail view. All the required data will be automatically added to the Invoice.
Campaign: A Campaign (or Marketing Campaign) is a marketing effort to increase sales through a set of marketing activities.
The goal of this effort is often to generate new leads and help convert them to new sales. A campaign can have other goals, e.g.
improve the awareness or brand of the company. A CRM system can help manage, execute and monitor marketing campaigns.
Product: A Product is a business offering from a business to it's customers. A CRM system allows a business to record it's
Products and related information so that sales staff and other CRM users can use product information fully and correctly in
their business activities.
Vendor: A Vendor is a supplier of a product. The Inventory Management portion of a CRM system allows tracking of
inventory being supplied by multiple Vendors.
Price Books: A Price Book is a named collection of products and pricing created to serve a specific purpose, e.g. a segment of
the market. For example, a business may have a Price Book for government sales, where prices are discounted, or include
additional charges. Price Books in a CRM system allow sales staff to more easily quote prices when serving different types of
customers that need differentiated pricing strategies.
Trouble Ticket (sometimes called Service Request): A Trouble Ticket is a record of information related to a customer issue
or service request. A CRM System, as well as many other Help Desk and Issue Tracking systems, use Trouble Tickets to
capture, track, and manage, customer issues or service requests.
Security Administration : The user security administration functions are the core of CRM security management, and are used
to control the access to the CRM system for each user. vtiger CRM provides a privilege system that allows you to control who
can view, edit, delete or create each type of CRM data. Roles, Profiles, and Groups, are used to make it easier to manage
privileges for multiple users and managers, and eliminates the need to setup each privilege individually for each user. Instead,
you can setup privileges for a Profile, and use the Profile for multiple users and Roles. Roles are organized hierarchically and a
user can have multiple Roles, which provides an efficient way to assign privileges to users and managers performing multiple
functions.
Profiles : Profiles are a set of security privileges for executing CRM operations, and can be assigned to users. Profiles make it
easier to control detailed security privileges without having to specify them individually for each user. Specific security
privileges can be granted once in a Profile, and then assigned to users as needed.
Roles : Role based security allows security setup using hierarchical roles that capture user and manager responsibilities in an
organization. Each Role is primarily one or more Profiles, i.e. a set of security privileges. These Roles are then assigned to
users. Security administration with role based security consists of determining the operations that must be executed by persons
in particular jobs, and assigning Roles to users as needed.
Groups : In addition to restricting security privileges for each type of data, vtiger CRM provides some security control to
permit access to specific subsets of data. For example, you may need to setup access to data for a specific customer account so
that specific people can see the data. For better manageability, the CRM allows to collect users and Roles in Groups. Specific
data, e.g. a specific Account, can be assigned to the group so that everyone in the group has accesses to that data.
Sharing Access : Sharing Access controls are used to determine what level of data sharing is enabled between users, e.g. can
one salesperson see another's leads. By default the sharing access settings may allow all users to see all CRM records, even if
the record is not assigned to them. Sharing Access allows you to restrict or allow such access for each type of CRM data.
Field Access : Field Access is used to control visibility of specific fields in each module to users of the module. You can use
this function to either show or hide particular fields to the entire organization. Default field access settings include custom
fields you may have created before. By default it is configured to display all data provided in the CRM system.
Tag Cloud : Tag Clouds are a convenience for CRM data access that has been tagged with labels. They are designed to
improve the usability of the CRM by making it easier to access. They help to categorize the records based on a user's
requirement from categories set by the CRM system. Tag Clouds are used to pool objects based on subjective or other values.
Calendar Reminder : Each user can activate an activity reminder function by setting a reminder interval in My Preferences. If
activated a popup browser window will be displayed every time an activity is due. The popup window displays the time, status,
and subject of an activity. It offers you the options to postpone or to close a reminder message. If postponed the message will
popup again after the next reminder interval until it is closed.
Chat Functionality : The chat functions offered by the CRM provides instant messaging capabilities in a form of real-time
communication between two or more CRM users. The CRM offers public as well as a private chat capabilities in so-called chat
rooms. The public chat allows all CRM users to share a common chat room where each user can read all messages and can
contribute if desired. The private chat room serves as a platform for the communications between two users.
vtiger CRM is an open source software product that enables you to quickly deploy a CRM system for your business. It implements
many of the common CRM functions needed by small and medium sized businesses, to enable them to quickly and easily use CRM to
enhance their business functions for sales, marketing and customer service and support. vtiger CRM is a widely used product with
thousands of users in dozens of countries. It has a vibrant community of users driving the product forward, and contributing to it's
development. Over a million copies of vtiger CRM have been downloaded by our users. vtiger CRM is designed to be used over the
web by multiple users as illustrated below. It runs on a Linux, Windows or Macintosh system, and can be accessed by multiple
authorized users over the Internet using a web browser. Each user has access to the data and functionality according to their roles and
ownership of the CRM data, and the policies you set for such access.
vtiger CRM provides a complete set of CRM capabilities for the CRM business functions. It enables automation and management of
the following CRM and related functions:
Sales force automation
Marketing automation
Customer Support and Service
Inventory management
Security management
Calendaring
E-mail integration
In addition, vtiger CRM provides many additional tools and features that help CRM users in a variety of related business activities.
Many of these tools are mentioned in the feature list below, in the functional areas in which they are most used. As discussed in the
earlier chapter, each business will need to choose which of the capabilities provided by the CRM software will be used in their
business. Some businesses may start with a limited subset of the functions, or even a subset of their teams, and grow as the users get
more comfortable with using the system. Alternately, a business may do a full scale deployment and use a wide range of the
capabilities right from the get-go, with proper planning and execution.
Let's look at the features provided in support of these business activities in more detail. Please refer to the CRM Basics chapter for an
introduction to the functional areas and the terms used.
Sales leads are a vital resource for sales and vtiger CRM offers sales teams a full range of lead management functions. vtiger CRM
provides the following features to manage sales leads.
Manage leads end-to-end (from creating leads to converting them into opportunities, i.e. Potentials)
Capture leads directly from your Web site and transfer to vtiger CRM using vtiger CRM Forms
Customize online lead form as per your organization requirements
Import leads from external sources, such as Web downloads, trade shows, seminars, direct mail, and other types of campaigns
Add multiple products to the leads
Qualify leads to next stage based on information captured in lead details
Convert leads into sales opportunities, accounts, and contacts with a single-click
Lead conversion mapping for all the custom fields
Create fully customizable lead reports
Export leads to spreadsheet software, such as Microsoft® Excel®, OpenOffice®, and others for further analysis
Sales staff need to track and pursue every sales opportunity to maximize their success. Opportunity Management is another important
sales function covered by vtiger CRM. Opportunities are called Potentials in vtiger CRM. vtiger includes the following features for
Opportunity Management:
Customer Account Management is central to sales, and vtiger CRM provides a number of Account Management features:
Track all accounts and related contacts, opportunities, cases, and other details from a common repository
Specify parent-child relationships between accounts and their subsidiaries or other divisions
Import accounts from external sources, such as ACT, GoldMine, and other applications
Generate quotes, sales orders, and invoices for the accounts
Track purchase history of the customers and analyze opportunities for up selling and cross selling
Create fully customizable account reports
Export accounts to spreadsheet software, such as Microsoft® Excel®, OpenOffice®, and others to analyze the buying patterns
of a customers and set up loyalty programs
Attach customer-specific documents to accounts for a quick reference in future
Contact Management is another key sales requirement, and vtiger CRM provides a number of Contact Management functions to
ensure sales teams maximize the value of their contact lists.
Track all contacts and related opportunities, cases, activities, and other details from a common repository
Create the hierarchy of contacts within a company to have a better coordination while dealing with customers
Import contacts from external sources, such as ACT, GoldMine, and other applications
Export contacts to spreadsheet software, such as Microsoft® Excel®, OpenOffice®, and others for further analysis
Synchronize contacts with Microsoft® Outlook®
Sales Activity Management is used to ensure the sales team's work activities and tasks are managed for maximum productivity. vtiger
CRM offers the following Activity Management features.
Add all important customer-related e-mails to vtiger CRM for quick reference in future
Store all the details of customer meetings and calls in a n intuitive calendar
Manage daily tasks of the vtiger CRM users to have a streamlined sales process
Sales teams need good Reports & Dashboards to analyze and improve their sales efforts. vtiger CRM provides a number of tools in
this area.
Campaign Management is an integral part of marketing and vtiger CRM offers a number of features to manage and monitor your
marketing campaigns.
A number of Lead Management functions are provided in vtiger CRM to help in marketing efforts to your leads.
Capture leads directly from your Web site and transfer to vtiger CRM
Customize online lead form as per your organization requirements
Import leads from external sources, such as Web downloads, trade shows, seminars, direct mail, and other types of campaigns
Qualify leads to next stage based on information captured in lead details
vtiger CRM provides other marketing-related modules, such as Calendaring, Contact Management, File Attachments, etc. to help
streamline your marketing efforts.
Ticket Management is a set of functions related to handling customer support issues, queries, and other service requests. A trouble
ticket is the term used for a support request from a customer. vtiger CRM provides the following Ticket Management features.
Track all trouble tickets related to customers end-to-end as per organization's customer support process
Associate trouble tickets with accounts, contacts, products, and other modules to have a better visibility on the trouble tickets
Create fully customizable list views as per Support person's requirement
Provide solutions to the trouble tickets submitted through Customer Portal
Automatically update the status of tickets through E-mail
Create fully customizable ticket reports
Create customer support statistics to help the managers to plan for a better customer support process.
Create custom fields as per your organization requirements
In order to help customers quickly find answers to their queries and support issues, as well as help support staff find answers more
quickly, vtiger CRM provides a Knowledge Base with the following features.
Manage product-wise Knowledge Base in a centralized location for a better resolution of trouble tickets within least possible
time
Associate Articles with trouble tickets and products
Provide public access to the Knowledge Base only after approval
Maintain up-to-date Articles in vtiger CRM based on customer suggestions & comments
vtiger CRM enables you to provide your customers with a Customer Self Service Portal, which is a web portal that your customers can
log into and report and track issues, and get answers from the knowledge base. The vtiger CRM Customer Portal provides the
following features.
vtiger CRM provides a Products Management module to capture and use product information, including pricing, so that your sales
team and other staff can apply this information in their sales, marketing, support and other customer related activities. the vtiger CRM
Products Management module provides the following features.
vtiger CRM provides functionality to anable sales teams to easily generate sales quotes for customers. The vtiger CRM Sales Quote
module provides the following features.
Once a sale is made, Order Management kicks in, which is a set of functions to ensure the order is properly serviced and fulfilled for
the customer. vtiger CRM provides a number of features in support of Order Management.
Streamline organization-wide procurement and fulfillment processes with integrated approach of vtiger CRM
Track outstanding orders from the orders list view
Procure products from the best available Vendors/Manufacturers/Resellers list in vtiger CRM
Manage up-to-date stock position by seamless integration between order fulfillment and available stock in your warehouse
Customize Purchase Order (PO) and Sales Order (SO) fields as per your organization requirements
Avoid duplicate work by dynamically displaying the Billing and Shipping addresses of the prospect while creating orders
Add line items to the Orders and update subtotal, taxes, adjustments, and grand total amounts automatically
Create printer-friendly Order (PO/SO) and deliver to the Vendors/Customers through inbuilt E-mail service
Once the Sales Order is accepted, create Invoice from Sales Order with a single click
Periodically notify the stock position to the parties concerned in your organization so that stock is always available to fulfill the
outstanding orders
vtiger CRM also provides a set of functions to support generation of Invoices. Invoices for customer billing are a critical step once a
customer order has been fulfilled.
Before you can start working with the CRM system you must identify yourself to the CRM system as an authorized user. This is done
by a login procedure which requires a Username and a Password. Both are provided to you by your CRM system administrator.
Logging Out
To sign out of vtiger CRM, use the Sign Out link at the top right of your vtiger CRM screen.
Changing Password
After logging in first time, you may change the password for a better security. It is better to use a combination of letters, numbers, and
symbols in your password.
To change password
dd-mm-yyyy
mm-dd-yyyy
yyyy-mm-dd
To change date format 1.In the vtiger CRM Home page, click the My Preferences hyperlink.
2.In the User: <User Name> page, click the Edit button.
3.In the User: <User Name> page, select the date format from Date Format pick list.
4.Click Save. The date format will be changed for all the date fields in all the modules.
User Interface Overview
The vtiger CRM User Interface is organized into functional modules such as Leads, Accounts, Contacts, etc. All the modules include a
common set of user interface components like pull-down menus and buttons. Some of the menu options and buttons vary with each
module, so that only relevant operations are enabled for each module.
The following shows the top header that is common to the vtiger CRM user interface across all modules.
The top line has the vtiger CRM header logo, and the following set of links:
Gmail Bookmarklet: A script provided by vtiger CRM which makes it easy to incorporate links to emails in your Gmail
account into specific CRM records.
My Preferences: A link to setup your preferences, e.g. the list of standard widgets on your Home Page.
Help: Link to help information.
About Us: Link to vtiger CRM information on the team and contributors.
Sign Out(user): The link to sign out of this user session. The current user is listed so you know at all times which user you are
logged in as.
The second line in the common header is a set of pull-down menus organized in functional groups, including CRM functional areas
such as Merketing, Sales, Customer Support, etc. Use these menus to access different modules as explained in the next section. At the
end of the pull-down menus is a Quick Create drop-down list, to add new records quickly without needs to navigate to each module
and then click create/add.
The third line in the common header is a set of links to related modules. The image shows three links in the Home Page module, but
these links are different in each module. Below these three header lines, is a tool bar as shown below:
http://forums.vtiger.com/vtiger/demo/wiki_images/vtiger510-header2.jpg-{{{2}}}
This toolbar shows which specific module you have navigated to (in this case the Home Page), followed by a set of toolbar buttons,
such as Add, Open Calendar, Show World Clock, etc. These buttons vary according to the module currently open. You will use these
pull-down menus, buttons, and links, as well as context-specific buttons, links and other elements within each screen, to navigate
between different screens and modules of the user interface.
Click on the desired module to be taken to the home screen of that module, e.g. click on Leads to access the Leads module. Each of
the standard vtiger CRM modules are described in the rest of this manual. When you are in a specific module, e.g. Leads, links to the
modules that are functionally related to the current module are shown in the third line of the header as described above. This provides
another, more direct, way of accessing the related modules. In addition to using the drop-down menus to go to the main screen of
different modules, you may find the following tools useful to get you directly to specific module screens or specific module data.
Quick Create: This drop-down select in the header bar offers direct access to the create forms of many of the modules in vtiger
CRM.
Search: Use search to quickly access specific records in any of the vtiger CRM modules.
Preferences
Click on the My Preferences link at the top right of your vtiger CRM screen to be taken to your preference settings page. Here you
will be able to view and/or configure a number of user preferences and information for your vtiger CRM user account.
CRM Home Page
After login, you will see your Home page screen as shown in the image below. Note that each individual CRM user has his/her own
Home page. Based on the theme selected, the system settings chosen by your administrator, your selected preferences, and the data in
the CRM system, your own vtiger CRM homepage screen will look different.
The following section explains how you can personalize the Home Page so that the information most important to you is readily
available.
The main area of the Home Page is designed to display a summary of CRM and other information most important to you, so that you
see it quickly and easily. The information is presented as a set of widgets that you can add or remove as desired. You can change the
order of these blocks by dragging and dropping. You may also change the content of your home page. There are multiple ways to
customize the content of your home page.
The first option is to select from a list of standard widgets by using the home page edit function or by selecting home page
components in My Preferences. The second is to create your own widget with CRM data, which can be a list of data or a dashboard
chart. Next, you can display data from any RSS feed in a widget. And you can create a Notes widget to write and track notes.
There are the following widget types available in vtiger for now:
Default widgets – We have 15 default widgets for vtiger homepage. These are:
Upcoming Activities – This widget will display the upcoming activities for the user for the day.The Admin Users can able to
view all Upcoming activities for the day regardless to whom ever it is assigned to
Pending Activities – This widget displays the pending activities for the user for the day. The Admin Users can able to view all
Pending activities for the day regardless to whom ever it is assigned to
Top Accounts – This widget displays the top accounts for you. A top account is one with the highest amount and for which the
related potentials sales stage is not Closed Won/Closed Lost.
Home Page Dashboard – This widget displays the number of leads, accounts, contacts etc that are available (or assigned) for
the current user. This widget is hidden by default. Check the show/hide widgets section for details on how to enable this
widget.
Top Potentials – This widget displays the top potentials for the user. The criteria for a top potential is that it has the highest
amount and it's sales stage is not Closed Won/Closed Lost.
Top Quotes – This widget displays the top quotes for the user. A quote is a top quote if it has maximum total and the quote
stage is not ejected/Accepted. Valid Till field must be greater than or equal to current Date.
Key Metrics – This widget displays the custom filters that have been marked to be shown in key metrics, and the module and
the number of records for the filter(s).
Top Trouble Tickets – This widget displays the top trouble tickets for the user.The criteria for a trouble ticket to appear here
is that, it's status should not be closed.The order of the tickets depends upon the status.The tickets with status Open will come
first,then the tickets with status In Progress and then tickets with status Wait For Response.
My Group Allocation – This widget displays the records allocated to the group(s) of the user.
Top Sales Orders - This widget has all the sales orders which have a due date greater than or equal to the current date ordered
by amount, descending.
Top Invoices – This widget displays the top invoices for the user. These are ones with highest total and status not as Paid.
My New Leads – This widget displays the new leads for the user. The criteria for a new lead is that it should not be Lost
Lead/Junk Lead.
Top Purchase Orders - This widget has all the purchase orders which have a due date greater than or equal to the current date
ordered by total (descending).
My Recent FAQs – This widget shows the most recent FAQs for the user which don't have status Obsolete.
Tag Cloud – This widget displays the tags available for the current user.
Custom Widgets – vtigerCRM gives you the ability to add four different types of custom widgets. These are:
Module – This type of widget gives you the ability to see the contents of any module in a listview format in the homepage.
You can use any available filters for the module to create the widget contents. The number of columns in the widget is limited
up to two.
RSS – You can add live RSS feeds to vtiger using this type of widget. The contents of the RSS feed are displayed in the
widget.
Dashboard – You can add custom dashboard type widgets for vtigerCRM homepage using this option. The dashboard type
widgets have a default width of two columns. All the dashboards present in the vtigerCRM dashboards module can be used
here as widgets.
Notebook – You can create a notebook type widget in vtigerCRM. This gives you the capability to add/edit your notes on the
fly to vtiger. Refer to the documentation on vtiger Notebook widget for more details on this.
Use these widgets as needed to create a useful summary view of information including CRM and other external information. This can
be valuable to quickly give you access to key information.
Sales Force Automation
Sales Force Automation is a key CRM function to manage and enhance sales. It is enabled by a set of tools to manage many of the
tasks performed by salespeople. Sales Force Automation includes a management system for tracking and recording every stage in the
sales process for each prospective customer, from initial contact to final disposition. vtiger CRM Sales Force Automation includes
features for opportunity management, quote generation, sales forecasting and pipeline, workflow automation, and product inventory.
Sales Process
In this section we provide a brief view of how vtiger CRM tools for Leads, Potentials (opportunities), Customer Accounts, Contacts,
Quotes, Invoices, and Sales Orders are used in a typical sales process. To enable this, vtiger CRM must be setup and each member of
the sales team and their managers provided a user account to use the CRM system.
The first step in a typical sales cycle is lead generation. Leads may be generated in a variety of ways, e.g. from a marketing campaign.
These leads are entered into vtiger CRM and then assigned to salespersons according to the policies of the organization. Each
salesperson then works with the leads assigned to them with the goal of converting each lead to a paying customer. They may gather
information, call, email, have meetings, and perform a number of tasks to qualify and convert the lead, and use the CRM system to
manage and track these activities. (Some of these qualification and other activities on the Lead may be performed by Marketing as
discussed in the Marketing section).
Once a lead is qualified and determined to be a potential sale, the Lead is converted to a customer Account, Contact, and a Potential
in the CRM system. The Potential has details on the opportunity, e.g. deal value, product, activity history, and target dates. Once again
the salesperson to whom the Potential is assigned, may gather information, call, email, have meetings, and perform a number of tasks
to make a sale, and use the CRM system to manage and track these activities. One or more Quotes may be created and provided to the
prospect as part of this Potential sale. When the customer accepts the quote and places an order, a Sales Order is created in the CRM
system to ensure the customer order is tracked and delivered. An Invoice is created in the CRM system and sent to the customer.
Most businesses benefit from such tools to manage and enhance sales, provided these tools fit with and are properly used within the
sales processes used in the business. Sales processes may vary between organizations, but practically every business has to deal with
Leads, Potentials (opportunities), Customer Accounts, Contacts, Quotes, Invoices, and Sales Orders. The details of each companies
sales process will vary, e.g. qualifications to convert a Lead to a Potential, or when is an Invoice created and sent to the customer.
The following sections describe how to use vtiger CRM modules for Leads, Customer Accounts, Contacts, Potentials (opportunities),
Quotes, Invoices, and Sales Orders in more detail.
Managing Leads
Leads are your first contacts that may get converted to prospective customers. You may collect leads from your marketing activities
such as trade shows, advertisement, presentations etc. All of your leads may not result in a sale, but the goal is to maximize the
number that become customers, i.e. convert most of them to customer Accounts, each with one or more Contacts. When you open the
Leads module, a paged list of leads will be displayed on your screen. From this screen you can perform operations on leads. vtiger
CRM supports a number of operations on leads, which include
View different lists of leads, including custom subsets (using filters) of leads
Create, delete, and edit leads
Search leads
Find duplicates
Mass edit, used to edit properties of multiple leads at one shot.
Send email to one or more leads
Import and export leads
When you click on a lead, the Lead Detail View will be shown on your screen. This lead detail screen displays information on the
lead, which may include (this form may be customized by your administrator for your organization and may contain other fields and
sections).
In the Lead Detail View screen, you can perform a number of operations on the lead. You can edit each of the lead property fields in
this form by enabling edit for the specific field, or click the Edit button to open a form where all the property fields are editable.
Operations available in the Lead Detail View include (This may vary a little if your Administrator has customized this form)
Navigating Leads
You can navigate the leads according to the status of the leads. To navigate leads
Searching Leads
You can search leads with basic details, such as first name, last name, company, or all the details in advanced search. You can also
search lead names alphabetically.
To search leads
2.In the Leads Home page, click the Search toolbar icon.
3.In the Leads Home page, under Lead Search section, do one of the following:
Enter the search criteria in First Name, Last Name, and/or Company fields and click the Search button.
Or
Select the Advanced hyperlink, enter the search criteria, and click the Search button.
Or
4.In the Lead List page, a list of leads is displayed as per search criteria.
Creating Leads
In the Lead: Edit form, you need to specify the lead-related information. The following table provides descriptions of the various
standard fields in the form.
Salutation Select the salutation from the drop-down list. Pick list
Last Name* Specify the last name of the lead. This field is a mandatory. Text box, Alphanumeric (80)
Company* Specify the name of the company where the lead is working. This field is a mandatory. Text box, Alphanumeric (100)
Designation Specify the designation of the lead. Text box, Alphanumeric (50)
Lead Source Select the source of the lead, that is, from where the lead is generated. Pick list
Industry Select the industry to which the lead belongs. Pick list
Annual Revenue Specify the annual revenue of the company where the lead is working. Text box, decimal value (19).
Assigned To Select the name of the vtiger CRM user to whom the lead is assigned. Pick list
Phone Specify the phone number of the lead. Text box, Alphanumeric (50)
Mobile Specify the mobile number of the lead. Text box, Alphanumeric (50)
Fax Specify the fax number of the lead. Text box, Alphanumeric (50)
Lead Status Select the status of the lead from the drop-down list. Pick list
Rating Select the rating of the lead from the drop-down list. Pick list
No of Employees Specify the number of employees in lead's company. Text box, integer value (50)
Yahoo! ID Specify the Yahoo E-mail address of the lead. Email (100)
Street Specify the street address of the lead. Text box, Alphanumeric (250)
City Specify the name of the city where the lead lives. Text box, Alphanumeric (30)
State Specify the name of the state where the lead lives. Text box, Alphanumeric (30)
Postal Code Specify the postal code of the lead's address. Text box, integer value (30)
Country Specify the name of the lead's country. Text box, Alphanumeric (30)
Description Specify any other details about the lead. Text area (long text)
Creating Leads Individually
You can create leads manually whenever there are very less number of leads. For example, you might have met a person in travel, and
in normal chat, he/she has shown some interest in your product/service. After that, you have exchanged business cards and were asked
to contact him/her later with more details about the product/service. The next day morning, you can create a lead manually with the
available details. The best way to handle this type of scenarios is to create leads manually where you can fill the available details
instantly. A lead can be created from the quick create menu or from Sales -> Leads -> Click on the “+” icon which is for creating a
new record in any module across the CRM. The Lead creation page would appear as shown in the image below. Your Lead creation
form may be slightly different, i.e. with additional fields or different order, if you Administrator has customized it for your
organization..
The fields in the form are self-explanatory. The required fields are marked with an asterisk.
Note: Last Name and Company fields are mandatory. Refer to the “List of Standard Lead-related Fields”
section for more details.
4. Click Save. Lead details are displayed in Lead: <Lead Name> page where you can perform the additional operations. Refer to the
Associating Leads with Other Records section for more details.
2. In the Quick Create drop-down menu click the New Lead option, enter the mandatory details, such as Last Name and Company
name.
3. Click Save. Lead details are displayed in Lead: <Lead Name> page where you can update the additional details or perform the
additional operations.
5. Click the Save. Lead details are displayed in the Lead: <Lead Name> page where you can perform the additional operations.
Importing Leads
Importing leads from external to the CRM system is one of the most important activities in marketing and sales, when you are using
different systems to gather leads data. For example, you may be purchasing leads from external sources, capturing product requests
through Web site, getting leads from a different business unit within organization where there is a chance of cross-selling of products,
or migrating data from your old system to vtiger CRM. In all these cases, importing leads enhances your productivity.
You can import leads, if you are authorized to perform this operation. Otherwise, Import Leads button in Leads Home page will be
hidden in your user interface. By default, lead ownership is held up with the user, who imports the leads. You can change the lead
ownership while importing by adding a lead owner column in import (*.CSV) file and map to the Assigned To field. This will
automatically assign leads to particular users. Use the exact vtiger CRM users' names while creating the lead import file, otherwise
leads are not created in vtiger CRM.
You can import leads from CSV (comma separated value) data from Excel spreadsheets or other sources. Use the following steps to
import lead data.
1. Create the CSV data file if not already available, e.g. save your spreadsheet in CSV format.
2. Got to the Leads module and click on the Import Leads button at the top of the page.
3. A form opens, where you need to select your CSV file on your computer using the browse button.
4. To proceed, click Next, and your CSV file is uploaded and a form to map fields opens. Use this form to specify how you wish to
map fields from your CSV into the Lead data fields in the CRM system.
The import leads capability in vtiger CRM provides additional features that may be useful, i.e.
Duplicate Merging: Your CSV data may contain duplicate entries that need to be eliminated or merged to properly import the data into
the CRM system. To enable Duplicate Merging, select the Duplicate Merging checkbox and specify the fields to be matched.
Save Import Data Mapping: You can save the configuration you used for this import, so that it can be used in future for similarly
formatted data.
CSV Format: The exact format of the CSV data can be specified, specifically the delimiter used, and header availability.
Important Tips
2. In the Leads: Home page, click the Import Leads toolbar icon.
3. In the Import Leads page, browse the Leads-related data in *.CSV format and then click the Next button.
4. In the Fields Mapping page, map the *.CSV column header with lead fields in vtiger CRM.
5. Click the Import Now button. It will take a few seconds to complete the importation.
6. In the Leads: Home page, imported leads are displayed under the Leads List section. You can continue the importation further or
complete the operation.
After creating leads, you may need to associate leads with other records, such as to dos, events, e-mails, products, attachments, and
notes until the lead is reached to a certain stage where it can be converted to potential as per your organization's sales process.
In the Lead: <Lead Name> page, you can update the following details:
Open Activities: To add to dos and events (meetings, and calls).
Emails: To send e-mail messages to the lead
History: To archive the closed activities and sent E-mails.
Products: To add products
Attachments: To attach documents and notes to the lead
Campaigns: To associate campaigns with lead
You can send E-mails to the leads from the Leads module. Before sending E-mail, ensure that the lead contains a valid E-mail address;
otherwise, E-mail will not be sent to the corresponding lead.
2. In the Lead: Home page under the Lead List section, select the required lead name.
3. In the Lead: <Lead Name> page, click the Send Email button.
4. In the Email: < > page, write the email message and click the Send button. After sending E-mail to the lead, a copy of the E-mail
message is stored under lead’s Email section for future reference.
You can create mail merge documents, such as personalized form letters, address labels, and others for bulk mailings to your leads in
vtiger CRM. To open the mail merge document you must have Microsoft Word 2000 or above installed in your machine.
Note: You can create mail merge documents only if your vtiger CRM administrator already created the mail
merge templates.
If you are unable to select templates, discuss with the administrator.
2. Click the Merge button. It will take a few seconds to create document in *.doc format and open it in Microsoft Word.
3. Save the document locally in your machine. Afterwards, you may print the document and/or send to the required users.
Exporting Leads
Occasionally it is very useful to export the leads from vtiger CRM to Spreadsheet programs, such as Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice, and
others for further data analysis.
2. In the Leads: Home page click the Export Leads toolbar icon.
3. In the File Download pop-up dialog, Click Save to save the leads details in *.CSV file format.
Once lead status has reached a certain stage, where it can be qualified as an opportunity, i.e., there is a chance of further negotiations
with the lead, it can be converted to account, contact, and opportunity. It depends on your organization's sales process.
A lead can directly be converted to a contact without re-entering the details. A link is provided in the Actions section of the detailed
view to “Convert Lead”.
A new Contact, Account and a Potential can be created from a lead page. You`ll be prompted to enter the Account Name and other
Potential details on clicking the link. Creating a Potential is optional and can be skipped by checking the check box as shown in the
below image.
Lead Conversion Principle
While converting a lead to an opportunity, first a new account and contact are created with the relevant lead data, and then a new
opportunity is created. The following table provides descriptions of the various fields converted to account, contact, and opportunity
(optional) during lead conversion:
Account: Phone
Phone
Contact: Phone
Account: Fax
Fax
Contact: Fax
Account: Street
Street
Contact: Street
Account: City
City
Contact: City
Account: State
State
Contact: State
Account: Country
Country
Contact: Country
Note: Once a lead is converted into opportunity, it will be invisible under Leads List in Leads Home page.
However,
lead-related information will be available in the vtiger CRM database.
3. In the Lead: <Lead Name> page, click the Convert Lead button.
4. In the Convert Lead: <Lead Name> pop up page, enter the following details:
5. Click Save
Deleting Leads
Occasionally, you may need to remove some of the unnecessary leads from the vtiger CRM system for a better user experience. You
may consider removing leads that are not useful for future reference.
Warning: Removing leads is a destructive operation, hence use this option carefully.
1. Click the Sales » Leads' tab. 2. In the Leads: Home page, go to the Lead List section and select the check boxes corresponding to
the leads to be removed. 3. Click the Delete button. 4. In the Confirmation dialog, click OK to remove the selected leads permanently.
Managing Accounts
The Accounts module deals with records for customers or prospective customers. When you open the Accounts module, a paged list
of accounts will be displayed on your screen. From this screen you can perform operations on accounts. vtiger CRM supports a
number of operations on accounts, which include
View different lists of accounts, including custom subsets (using filters) of accounts
Create, delete, and edit accounts
Search accounts
Find duplicates
Mass edit, used to edit properties of multiple accounts at one shot.
Send email to one or more accounts
Import and export accounts
When you click on an account, the Account Detail View will be shown on your screen. This account detail screen displays
information on the contact, which may include (this form may be customized by your administrator for your organization and may
contain other fields and sections).
In the account Detail View screen, you can perform a number of operations on the account. You can edit each of the account property
fields in this form by enabling edit for the specific field, or click the Edit button to open a form where all the property fields are
editable. Operations available in the account Detail View include (This may vary a little if your Administrator has customized this
form)
Navigating Accounts
To navigate accounts
2. In the Accounts Home page, under the Account List section, select one of the views from Select View drop-down list to display the
list of accounts according to the type of the account (For example, Prospect, Investor, Reseller, and others).
3. In the Account List section, click the Start, Previous, Next, or End links to access the respective list of accounts.
Searching Accounts
You can search accounts with basic details, such as Account name, City, Web site, and Phone or all the details in advanced search.
You can also search account names alphabetically.
To search accounts
Or
Click the Advanced hyperlink, enter the search criteria, and click the Search button.
Or
4. In the Account List page, list of accounts are displayed as per search criteria.
Creating Accounts
In the Account: Edit form, you need to specify the account-related information. The following table provides descriptions of the
various standard fields in the form.
Field Name Description Data Type
Account Name* Specify the company name. This field is mandatory. Text box, alphanumeric (100)
Website Specify the URL of the company's Web site. URL, alphanumeric (30)
Ticker Symbol Specify the ticker symbol of the Company. Text box, alphanumeric (30)
Member of Select the parent company name from the Change pop-up dialog. Lookup
Employees Specify the number of employees in account's company. Text box, integers (10)
Ownership Specify the type of ownership of the company. Text box, alphanumeric (50)
Industry Select the type of industry from the drop-down list. Pick list
Type Select the type of account from the drop-down list. Pick list
Assigned To Select the vtiger CRM user to whom the account to be assigned. Pick list
Phone Specify phone number of the account. Text box, alphanumeric (30)
Fax Specify fax number of the account. Text box, alphanumeric (30)
Other Phone Specify other phone number of the account. Text box, alphanumeric (30)
Annual Revenue Specify the annual revenue of the account. Text box, integers (10)
Billing Address
Street Street, alphanumeric (250)
City City, alphanumeric (30)
Specify the billing address of the account to send the quotes, invoices, and
State State, alphanumeric (30)
other agreements.
Postal Postal Code, alphanumeric (30)
Code Country, alphanumeric (30)
Country
Billing Address
Street
City
State Specify the shipping address of the account to deliver the shipment. - Do -
Postal
Code
Country
Description Specify any other details about the account. Text area (long text)
Creating Accounts Individually
Note: By default, the person who creates the account owns the account. If you want to assign the account to a
different user, in
account creation form, select the user name from Assigned To field. In addition, the account status is marked with
a default account
status, as per your organization's sales process.
2. In the Accounts Home page, click the New Account toolbar icon.
Note: Company Name is a mandatory field. Refer to the “List of Standard Account-related Fields” section for more
details.
4. Click Save to save the account details. Account details are displayed in Account: <Account Name> page where you can perform the
additional operations. Refer to the Associating Accounts with Other Records section for more details.
3. Click Save. Account details are displayed in Account: <Account Name> page where you can update additional details or perform the
additional operations.
5. Click Save. Account details are displayed in Account: <Account Name> page where you can perform the additional operations
Importing Accounts
You can import your accounts from other legacy Business applications to vtiger CRM to have a better-centralized database.
Tips
Before importing accounts into vtiger CRM, you must have the accounts details in *.CSV file.
You must have privilege to import the accounts into vtiger CRM.
Before importing the accounts into vtiger CRM close the *.CSV file and the Spreadsheet program.
Remove apostrophe if present in any place in the CSV file (For example, ABC's).
To import accounts
3. In the Import Step 1: Select File section, browse the accounts file in *.CSV format. Also select the Has Header check box, if the *.CSV file
has any header information.
4. In the Import Step 2: Confirm Fields and Import page, map the vtiger CRM database fields with *.CSV header rows. (Note: Account Name
is a mandatory field, hence you must map the Account Name with one of the *.CSV header rows to proceed further).
5. You can select the Save as Custom Mapping check box and provide the mapping name to use the same import fields mapping in future also.
7. In the Import Step 3: Import Results page, click one of the following buttons:
8. Finally, click the Finished button to import the data to vtiger CRM server. Once importation is completed, the data is displayed under the
Account List section.
You can create a 360 degrees view of the account to display all the associated details, such as contacts, potentials, trouble tickets, activities,
attachments, and notes in a single view.
2. After updating the associated records, you can move to the next record.
You can create mail merge documents, such as personalized form letters, address labels, and others for bulk mailings to your accounts in vtiger
CRM. To open the mail merge document, you must have Microsoft Word 2000 or above installed in your machine. For creating mail merge
templates, refer to the Chapter “Creating Mail Merge Templates” section.
Note: You can create mail merge documents only if your vtiger CRM administrator already created the mail merge
templates. If you are
unable to select templates, discuss with administrator.
1. In the Account: <Account Name> page, select the template from Select Template drop-down list.
2. Click the Merge button. It will take a few seconds to create document in *.doc format and open it in Microsoft Word.
3. Save the document locally in your machine. Afterwards, you can print the document and send to the required users.
Exporting Accounts
Occasionally it is very useful to export the accounts from vtiger CRM to Spreadsheet programs, such as Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice, and
others for further data analysis.
3. In the File Download pop-up dialog, Click Save to save the Accounts files in *.CSV file format.
Deleting Accounts
Rarely, you may need to remove some of the unnecessary accounts (customers) from the vtiger CRM to have a better control over the existing
accounts. You can delete accounts that are not useful, individually or in bulk.
Warning: Removing accounts is a destructive operation, hence use this option carefully.
To delete accounts individually
2. In the Accounts: Home page, go to the Account List section and select the check boxes corresponding to the accounts to be removed.
Account Hierarchy
vtiger CRM Account Hierarchy feature lets CRM users quickly identify relevant contacts in the parent company and all of its divisions or
subsidiaries. It enhances the functionality of vTiger when you have related Account entities, by providing visibility and access to all the
Account Subsidiary contacts directly from the Parent Account. From the detail view of an Account, you can access the Account Hierarchy for
that particular Account. The link to access the hierarchy is available through More Actions > Show Account Hierarchy (following is the
snapshot to illustrate this)
Following snapshots illustrates how Account Hierarchy (The account name highlighted in black indicates the Account for which, the Account
Hierarchy is shown) :-
Managing Contacts
A Contact is the contact information for a given customer or prospective customer. When a Lead is converted to a Potential, a Contact for the
prospective customer is automatically created in the CRM system. When you open the Contacts module, a paged list of contacts will be
displayed on your screen. From this screen you can perform operations on contacts. vtiger CRM supports a number of operations on contacts,
which include
View different lists of contacts, including custom subsets (using filters) of contacts
Create, delete, and edit contacts
Search contacts
Find duplicates
Mass edit, used to edit properties of multiple contacts at one shot.
Send email to one or more contacts
Import and export contacts
When you click on a contact, the Contact Detail View will be shown on your screen. This contact detail screen displays information on the
contact, which may include (this form may be customized by your administrator for your organization and may contain other fields and
sections).
In the contact Detail View screen, you can perform a number of operations on the contact. You can edit each of the contact property fields in
this form by enabling edit for the specific field, or click the Edit button to open a form where all the property fields are editable. Operations
available in the contact Detail View include (This may vary a little if your Administrator has customized this form)
Navigating Contacts
You can navigate contacts available in the Contact List.
To navigate contacts
2. In the Contacts Home page, under the Contact List section, select one of the views from Select View drop-down list to display the list of
accounts according to the type of the account (For example, Prospect, Investor, Reseller, and others).
3. In the Contact List section, click the Start, Previous, Next, or End links to access the respective list of contacts.
Searching Contacts
You can search contacts with basic details, such as First name, Last name, and Account Name or all the details in advanced search. You can
also search contact names alphabetically.
To search contacts
3. In the Contacts Home page, under the Contact Search section, do one of the following:
Enter the search criteria in First name, Last name, and/or Account Name and click the Search button. Or Click the Advanced hyperlink, enter
the search criteria and click the Search button. Or Select one of the alphabetical search links.
4. In the Contact List page, list of contacts are displayed as per search criteria.
Creating Contacts
In vtiger CRM, you can create contacts as given below:
If you want to enter contact information, please click New Contact in the Quick-Create menu or goto Sales -> Contacts and click the “+” icon.
You will see a contact create page as shown in the below image.
The fields shown in the Basic Information tab are self explanatory. You can have a look at the More Information tab below.
Following fields from the More Information tab need more explanation :
1. Email Opt Out : Contacts which have this check box selected will not receive email messages such as notifications or ticket information
which are normally sent to them by the CRM system automatically. These contacts will also not be available for mass mailing.
2. Reports To : Here you can chose the name of the supervisor if the contact has been entered already.
3. Do Not Call : Mark this field to indicate that the contact does not wish to receive calls.
4. Reference : You can use this field to indicate whether this contact is willing to serve as a reference for your business with other customers.
5. Notify Owner : The CRM owner of the contact will be sent an alert email whenever there is a data change in this contact if the field is
checked in.
6. Portal User : On checking this option, the contact will be given customer portal access which he/she can use to file trouble tickets or view
FAQ`s or information related to him/her in the CRM.
In the Contact: Edit form, you need to specify the contact-related information. The following table provides descriptions of the various fields
in the form.
Note: By default, the person who creates the contact owns the contact. If you want to assign the contact to a
different user,
in contact creation form, select the user name from the Assigned To field.
2. In the Contacts Home page, click the New Contact toolbar icon.
Note: Last Name is a mandatory field. Refer to the “List of Standard Contact-related Fields” section for more
details.
4. Click Save. Contact details are displayed in the Contact: <Contact Name> page where you can perform the additional operations. Refer to
the Associating Contact with Other Records section for more details.
2. In left hand-side under the New Contact section, enter the contact’s last name.
3. Click Save. Contact details are displayed in the Contact: <Contact Name> page where you can update with additional details or perform the
additional operations.
4. In the Edit: <Contact Name> page, modify some of the contact details.
5. Click the Save. Contact details are displayed in the Contact: <Contact Name> page where you can perform the additional operations.
Importing Contacts
You can migrate your contacts from other Contact Management and Address book applications. Before migrating data, you must convert the
data into CSV format.
Tips
Before importing contacts into vtiger CRM, you must have the contacts details in a *.CSV file.
You must have privilege to import the contacts in vtiger CRM.
Before importing the contacts into vtiger CRM close the *.CSV file and the Spreadsheet program.
Remove apostrophe any place in the CSV file (For example, ABC's).
To import contacts
1. Click the Sales » Contacts tab.
3. In the Import Step 1: Select File section, browse the Contacts file in *.CSV format. Also select the Has Header check box, if the *.CSV file
has any header information.
4. In the Import Step 2: Confirm Fields and Import page, map the vtiger CRM database fields with *.CSV header rows. (Note: Last Name is a
mandatory field, hence you must map the Last Name with one of the *.CSV header rows to proceed further)
5. You may select the Save as Custom Mapping check box and provide the mapping name to use the same import fields mapping in future.
7. In the Import Step 3: Import Results page, click one of the following buttons:
Undo Last Import - To cancel the import operation. Import More - To import more data. Finished - To complete the importation of current
data.
8. Finally, click the Finished button, to import the data to vtiger CRM server. Once importation is completed, the data is displayed in the
Contact List section. Now you can start working with new contacts.
1. In the Contact: <Contact Name> page, you can update the following details:
2. After updating the associated records, you can move to the next record.
1. In the Contact: <Contact Name> page, select the template from the Select Template to Mail Merge drop-down list.
2. Click the Merge button. It will take a few seconds to create document in *.doc format and open it in MS Word.
3. Save the document locally in your machine. Once the document is stored, you can print the document and/or send to the required users.
2. In the Contact: Home page under the Contact List section, select the required contact name.
3. In the Contact: <Contact Name> page, click the Send Email button.
4. In the Email: < > page, enter the Email-related details, and click the Send button. After sending Email to the contact, a copy of the Email is
stored under contact’s History section for future reference.
2. In the Email: Home page under the Email List section, select the E-mail message.
3. In the Email: <Email Message> page under the Contact List section, select the required contact names. You can select multiple contacts one
after another.
4. Click the Bulk Mail button to send the Email to the selected contacts. After sending E-mail to the contacts, a copy of the Email is stored
under contacts’ History section for future reference.
Exporting Contacts
Occasionally it is very useful to export the contacts from vtiger CRM to Spreadsheet programs for further data analysis.
3. In the File Download pop-up dialog, click Save to save the contacts files in *.CSV file format.
Deleting Contacts
Rarely, you may need to remove some of the unnecessary contacts, which are moved from the existing account or not doing business with you
for a long time. This will help you manage your contacts in a better way. You can delete contacts either individually or in bulk.
Warning: Removing contacts is a destructive operation, hence use this option carefully. Once the record is removed
you cannot
retrieve the data.
2. In the Contacts: Home page, under the Contact List section, select the contacts to be removed using the Select Contacts check box (first
column).
View different lists of potentials, including custom subsets (using filters) of potentials
Create, delete, and edit potentials
Search potentials
Find duplicates
Mass edit, used to edit properties of multiple potentials at one shot.
Import and export potentials
When you click on a potential, the Potential Detail View will be shown on your screen. This potential detail screen displays information on
the potential, which may include (this form may be customized by your administrator for your organization and may contain other fields and
sections).
You can also create Potentials directly either through the Quick Create menu or through the Sales -> Potentials -> Click on “+” icon. A
potential create page would appear as shown below.
Sales Pipeline Chart
The chart below shows you how the CRM would display the Sales in Pipeline in a graphical view.
Navigating Potentials
You can navigate potentials available in the potentials list according to the status of the potentials.
To navigate potentials
2. In the Potentials Home page, under the Potential List section, select one of the views from the Select View drop-down list to display the
list of accounts according to the type of the account (For example, Prospect, Investor, Reseller, and others).
3. In the Potential List section, click the Start, Previous, Next, or End link to access the respective list of potentials.
Searching Potentials
You can search potentials with basic details, such as Potential Name, Account Name, or all the details in advanced search. You can also search
opportunity names alphabetically.
To search potentials
3. In the Potentials Home page, under the Potential Search section, do one of the following:
Enter the search criteria in Potential Name and/or Account Name, and click the Search button. Or
Click the Advanced hyperlink, enter the search criteria, and click the Search button. Or
Select one of the alphabetical search links.
4. In the Potential List page, a list of potentials is displayed as per search criteria.
Creating Potentials
In vtiger CRM, you can create potentials as given below:
In the Potential: Edit form, you need to specify the opportunity-related information. The following table provides descriptions of the various
fields in the form.
Note: Company name is a mandatory field. Refer to the “List of Standard Potential-related Fields” section for more
details.
4. Click Save to save the opportunity information. Potential details are displayed in Potential: <Potential Name> page where you can perform
the additional operations. Refer to the Associating Potentials with Other Records section for more details.
2. In left hand-side under New Potential section, enter the mandatory details, such as Potential Name, Account Name, Expected Close Date,
and Sales Stage.
3. Click Save. Potential details are displayed in Potential: <Potential Name> page where you can update the additional details or perform the
additional operations.
4. In the Edit: < Potential Name> page, modify some of the opportunity-related details.
5. Click Save. Potential details are displayed in the Potential: < Potential Name> page where you can perform the additional operations.
3. Click on <Create Invoice> option 4. Fill in the details of the invoice and save. (refer Invoices module for more details)
Importing Potentials
You can migrate your potentials from other sales force automation applications. Before migrating the data, you must convert the data in to
CSV format.
Tips
Before importing potentials into vtiger CRM, you must have the opportunity details in *.CSV file.
You must have administrator privilege to import the accounts.
Before importing the potentials into vtiger CRM close the *.CSV file and the Spreadsheet program.
Remove apostrophe any place in the CSV file.
To import potentials
4. In the Import Step 2: Confirm Fields and Import page, map the vtiger CRM database fields with *.CSV header rows.
Note: Potential Name and Account Name are mandatory fields, hence you must map the Potential Name and Account Name
with some of the
*.CSV file header columns to proceed further
5. You may select the Save as Custom Mapping check box and provide the mapping name to use the same import fields mapping in future.
6. Now click the Import Now button to start importing the data.
7. In the Import Step 3: Import Results page, click one of the following buttons:
8. Finally, click the Finished button, to import the data to vtiger CRM server. Once importation is completed the data is displayed in the
Potential List section. Now you can start working with new potentials.
1. In the Potential: <Potential Name> page, you can update the following details:
2. After updating the associated records, you can move to the next record.
Exporting Potentials
Occasionally, it is very useful to export the potentials from vtiger CRM to a spreadsheet programs for further data analysis.
1. Click the Sales » Potentials tab. 2. In the Potentials: Home page, click the Export toolbar icon.. 3. In the File Download pop-up dialog,
click Save to save the Potentials files in *.CSV file format
Deleting Potentials
Rarely, you may need to remove the unnecessary potentials, which are lost. This helps you manage your potentials in a better way. You can
delete potentials either individually or in bulk.
Warning: Deleting potentials is a destructive operation, hence use this option carefully
2. In the Potentials: Home page, under the Potential List section, select the potentials to be deleted using Select Potentials check box (first
column).
Managing Quotes
The CRM system supports you in the creation of quotes for potential customers. When you open the Quotes module, a paged list of quotes will
be displayed on your screen. From this screen you can perform operations on quotes. vtiger CRM supports a number of operations on quotes,
which include
View different lists of quotes, including custom subsets (using filters) of quotes
Create, delete, and edit quotes
Search quotes
Mass edit, used to edit properties of multiple quotes at one shot.
When you click on a quote, the Quote Detail View will be shown on your screen. This quote detail screen displays information on the quote,
which may include (this form may be customized by your administrator for your organization and may contain other fields and sections).
In the Quote Detail View screen, you can perform a number of operations on the quote. You can edit each of the quote property fields in this
form by enabling edit for the specific field, or click the Edit button to open a form where all the property fields are editable. Operations
available in the Quote Detail View include (This may vary a little if your Administrator has customized this form)
You can create a Quote from the More Information tab of the detail view of a potential by clicking at the “Add Quote” button. This
would automatically transfer the potentials master data to the quote.
You can also create a quote directly by clicking at the “+” icon at the quote list view. This will require you to set all references, for
instance to a potential, manually.
A quote relies on your products and/or services and the appropriate price lists. Hence, you should have entered your products and services and
as well as your prices in the CRM before you create a quote. The following image shows a Quote create page.
A quote can be emailed as a PDF attachment to the contact from the CRM directly. You can also have a copy of the PDF for yourself by using
the Export to PDF link in Tools section of a Quote detail view page.
Managing Invoices
An invoice is a commercial document issued by a seller to the buyer, indicating the products, quantities, and agreed prices for products or
services the seller has provided the buyer. Once a quotation is approved, an Invoice can be created directly from a Quote detail view. All the
required data will be automatically added to the Invoice. When you open the Invoices module, a paged list of invoices will be displayed on
your screen. From this screen you can perform operations on quotes. vtiger CRM supports a number of operations on quotes, which include
View different lists of invoices, including custom subsets (using filters) of invoices
Create, delete, and edit invoices
Search invoices
Mass edit, used to edit properties of multiple invoices at one shot.
When you click on a invoice, the Invoice Detail View will be shown on your screen. This invoice detail screen displays information on the
invoice, which may include (this form may be customized by your administrator for your organization and may contain other fields and
sections).
In the Invoice Detail View screen, you can perform a number of operations on the invoice. You can edit each of the invoice property fields in
this form by enabling edit for the specific field, or click the Edit button to open a form where all the property fields are editable. Operations
available in the Invoice Detail View include (This may vary a little if your Administrator has customized this form)
When you open the Sales Orders module, a paged list of invoices will be displayed on your screen. From this screen you can perform
operations on quotes. vtiger CRM supports a number of operations on quotes, which include
View different lists of sales orders, including custom subsets (using filters) of sales orders
Create, delete, and edit sales orders
Search sales orders
Mass edit, used to edit properties of multiple sales orders at one shot.
When you click on a sales order, the Sales Order Detail View will be shown on your screen. This sales order detail screen displays information
on the sales order, which may include (this form may be customized by your administrator for your organization and may contain other fields
and sections).
Sales Order information fields: Detailed records pertaining to this sales order.
Recurring Invoice information: vtiger CRM supports recurring invoices which can be setup for a sales order. This is useful to enable
periodic billing for a service or product. The recurring invoice information for this sales order is shown here.
Address information: Address details for this sales order.
Product Details: The detailed information on products in this sales order
Terms and Conditions: Terms and Conditions for this sales order
Description information: A description, i.e. how you describe this sales order.
Item Details: Listing of products services, with pricing information, etc., in the sales order
Invoice: Invoices for this sales order.
Activities: List of scheduled activities, i.e. calls, to do's, meetings, etc.
Activity History: History of past activities associated with this sales order
Documents: List of documents associated with this sales order.
In the Sales Order Detail View screen, you can perform a number of operations on the sales order. You can edit each of the sales order
property fields in this form by enabling edit for the specific field, or click the Edit button to open a form where all the property fields are
editable. Operations available in the Sales Order Detail View include (This may vary a little if your Administrator has customized this form)
Edit: Use this button to open a form to change sales order properties
Duplicate: Use this button to create a new sales order record with similar properties
Delete: To delete this sales order from the CRM database
Generate Sales Order: To create a new Sales order from this sales order
Generate Sales Order: To create a new Sales Order from this sales order
Export to PDF: To create a PDF for this sales order,
Send Mail with PDF: To send email with a PDF of this sales order to the contacts of the account which this sales order is associated
with
Add To Do: Add a task (To Do) associated with this sales order, which are listed in the activities list for this sales order
Select or Add Documents (same as Add Note): Select from the set of existing documents, or add a document or simple note to be
associated with this sales order
Tag It: To tag this sales order with some label that can be used to access this sales order using labels
You can create a Sales Order from a previous Quote by opening the detail view of the corresponding quote and clicking the Generate Sales
Order link. This will automatically transfer the Quote Information to the new Sales Order. You may also create a new sales order by clicking
the plus icon at the sales order list view. In both cases a new window will open as shown in the image below. If you have used a quote before,
you will note that all entry fields have been filled automatically.
Marketing Management
Marketing in an enterprise may include many types of business activities, e.g. generating business, building a brand, product management, etc.
A focus area for CRM systems is the set of marketing activities, usually referred to as marketing campaigns, with one or more of the following
goals
A key marketing capability is managing and measuring marketing campaigns, including email, and direct mail. Marketing also helps a
business identify and target its best customers and generate qualified leads for the sales team. Thus, Marketing also includes capabilities for
managing prospect lists, collateral, and internal marketing resources.
vtiger CRM supports Marketing through a set of tools to manage, execute and monitor marketing campaigns. It also provides tools to manage
prospect and customer lists, marketing and sales documents, price books and other information related to products and services, generate sales
and marketing reports, and other tools.
The following sections describe how to use vtiger CRM in your marketing activities.
Managing Campaigns
vtiger CRM supports your marketing efforts with a Campaign module. You can find the Campaigns module in the Marketing section. A
Campaign (or Marketing Campaign) is a marketing effort to increase sales through a set of marketing activities. The goal of this effort is often
to generate new leads and help convert them to new sales. A campaign can have other goals, e.g. improve the awareness or brand of the
company. vtiger CRM can help manage, execute and monitor marketing campaigns.
Many CRM campaigns work with a list of leads or contacts as the starting point. These leads may be obtained in a number of ways, e.g. trade
shows, and imported into the C RM system, e.g. as a CSV file from a leads spreadsheet. As required by the campaign, these leads are then sent
communications via phone, email, direct mail, etc., and the responses recorded. Campaigns are then tracked for response rates and other
success criteria, e.g. number of sales.
When you open the Campaigns module, a paged list of campaigns will be displayed on your screen. From this screen you can perform
operations on campaigns. vtiger CRM supports a number of operations on campaigns, which include
View different lists of campaigns, including custom subsets (using filters) of campaigns
Create, delete, and edit campaigns
Search campaigns
Mass edit, used to edit properties of multiple campaigns at one shot.
When you click on a campaign, the Campaign Detail View will be shown on your screen. This campaign detail screen displays information on
the campaign, which may include (this form may be customized by your administrator for your organization and may contain other fields and
sections).
In the Campaign Detail View screen, you can perform a number of operations on the campaign. You can edit each of the campaign property
fields in this form by enabling edit for the specific field, or click the Edit button to open a form where all the property fields are editable.
Operations available in the Campaign Detail View include (This may vary a little if your Administrator has customized this form)
You can create a new Campaign either through the Quick Create menu or from Marketing -> Campaigns -> Click on the “+” icon. The create
view of a Campaign would appear as shown below
Leads, Contacts, Potentials & Activities can be related to a campaign through the More Information page of a campaign detail view.
Navigating Campaigns
You can navigate the campaigns according to the status of the campaigns.
To navigate campaigns
2. In the Campaigns Home page', under the Campaign List section, select one of the views from Select View drop-down list to display the list
of campaigns according to the status of the campaigns (For example, Upcoming, Planned, Withheld, and others).
3. In the Campaign List section, click the Start, Previous, Next, or End links to access the respective list of campaigns.
Searching Campaigns
You can search campaigns with basic details, such as name, status, expected revenue, or all the details in advanced search. You can also search
campaign names alphabetically.
To search campaigns
3. In the Campaigns Home page, under Campaign Search section, do one of the following:
Enter the search criteria in First Name, Last Name, and/or Company fields and click the Search button. Or
Select the Advanced hyperlink, enter the search criteria, and click the Search button. Or
Select one of the alphabetical search links.
4. In the Campaign List page, a list of campaigns is displayed as per search criteria.
Creating Campaigns
In vtiger CRM, you can create campaigns by manually entering the data in Campaign Details form, quickly from the Quick Create section, or
duplicating from the existing campaign information.
In the Campaign: Edit form, you need to specify the campaign-related information. The following table provides descriptions of the various
standard fields in the form.
Campaign Name* Specify the name of the campaign. Text box, alphanumeric (40)
Start Date Specify the date on which the campaign starts. Date
End Date Specify the date on which the campaign ends. Date
Expected Revenue Specify the revenue expected after launching the campaign. Currency
Actual Cost Specify the actual amount spent on the campaign. Currency
Budgeted Cost Specify the planned amount to be spent on the campaign. Currency
Number sent Specify the number of leads/contacts to whom the campaign details has been sent. Integer
Description Specify additional details about the campaign. Text area (32KB)
Note: By default, the person who creates the campaign owns the campaign. If you want to assign the campaign to a
different user,
select the user name from the Assigned To field in the campaign creation form.
Campaign name is a mandatory field. Refer to the “List of Standard Campaign-related Fields” section for more
details.
4. Click Save. Campaign details are displayed in Campaign: <Campaign Name> page where you can perform the additional operations. Refer
to the Associating Campaigns with Other Records section for more details.
2. In the Quick Create drop-down menu click the New Campaign option, enter the mandatory details, such as Last Name and Company name.
3. Click Save. Campaign details are displayed in Campaign: <Campaign Name> page where you can update the additional details or perform
the additional operations.
4. In the Edit: <Campaign Name> page, modify some of the campaign details.
5. Click the Save. Campaign details are displayed in the Campaign: <Campaign Name> page where you can perform the additional
operations.
After creating campaigns, you can associate them with other records, such as leads, contacts, tasks, events, products, attachments, and notes
until the campaign is reached to a certain stage where it can be converted to potential as per your organization's sales process.
1. In the Campaign: <Campaign Name> page, you can update the following details:
2. After updating the associated records, you can proceed to the next record.
4. In the Campaign: <Campaign Name> page, change the Campaign owner from the Campaign Owner lookup field.
5. Click Save.
2. In the Campaigns: Home page, go to the Campaign List section and select the check boxes corresponding to the campaigns. You can also
select all the Campaigns.
4. In the Campaigns: Change Owner page, select the user from the Select New Owner pick list and click the Update Owner button to change
the owner of the Campaigns permanently.
To delete Campaigns
1. To delete a campaign, select the check box of the campaign you wish to delete.
2. You can use the delete button here to remove the campaign.
More Information
You can click on the More Information tab in the Campaigns section to see the following information.
Add Contacts
The details of name, account details, email details, owner of the campaign are all displayed here.
Load List: You can load the list of all your contacts here by selecting the filter for viewing contact addresses, Birthdays or All contacts.
Select Contacts: You can select a particular contact for creating a campaign.
Add Contacts: You can also add new contacts from here.
Add Leads
The details of name, account details, email details, owner of the Leads are all displayed here.
1. Load List: You can load the list of all your Leads using the filter for displaying leads under Hot Leads, leads for this month or All leads.
2. Select Leads: You can select a particular Lead for creating a campaign.
3. Add Leads: You can also add new Leads from here.
From the More Information section, you can also use the options to add new potentials and ToDos using the respective buttons in the UI.
Email Marketing
Email has become a useful marketing tool for businesses to reach out to new prospects and stay in touch with existing customers. Typical uses
of email marketing include
Vtiger CRM supports email marketing to lists of leads or customer contacts. It provides the following tools for email marketing
Email Templates: A desirable feature is personalization of emails sent to lists of prospects or customers, i.e. include the name or the prospect or
other personal information in the email sent to a prospect. Email templates allow writing communications with personalized fields from the CRM
database inserted for each email sent out. For example, the prospect can be referenced by his/her first name in the email communication.
Email Lists: vtiger CRM supports sending email to lists of leads or contacts in the CRM database, as well as imported mailing lists. Along with email
templates, this makes it easy to send personalized emails to selected lists of prospects or customers.
Email Tracking: Once emails are sent out to a list of prospects or customers, you want to know which of those customers viewed the email that
you sent. Vtiger CRM counts the number of views of each email by a prospect, and displays this in the list of emails sent to a lead or contact. This
relies on an image embedded in the email, which unfortunately under-counts whether emails have been viewed since embedded images are not
always opened when the email is opened.
Mail Scanner: vtiger CRM provides the ability to scan a response mailbox and attach responses to the corresponding contact record in the CRM
database. This can be used to automate the tracking of responses to the marketing emails sent out.
Email Templates
If you use the CRM for sending standard emails frequently it is most helpful to have such emails available as templates. To see any existing
email template list, click the Email Templates menu. The CRM comes with templates as shown in the image below. You may modify existing
templates or create an unlimited number of new templates. Note that there are public and private templates.
Public templates are available to all CRM users. Private templates are only provided to particular users. Using Email Templates for
communicating Customers provides opportunities for you to provide better, faster communication to boost service, sales, employee relations.
The goal of the Templates feature is to allow users to quickly insert blocks of text into email messages, without having to type that text over
and over again to send personalized Emails rapidly to individuals and multiple recipients at one click.
Modules Supported
Leads
Accounts
Contacts
Users
The Templates creation feature can be accessed from Settings Tab > Email Templates.
The predefined templates are shown in the List.. You can start building a new template by Clicking New Template.
In create view, Specify the following which appear in email template as following Subject - Subject of Email when template is included while
composing Email. Description -Holds the description of the template. The template description should ideally hold the function/use/type of
the template. Selected Field Type – In this section we can select field variables from vtigercrm which will be replaced with that particular
record values when email is sent. We can add standard fields and custom fields of these modules to the templates. There is one more category
called General Fields in which we can add Current Date and Current Time to the template.
Step 1 Select module
Step 3 Copy the variable. Image showing how to use field variables in message body.
Message - The template content is merged while composing Email for the supported modules with the website to generate the page you see on
the website.
User can select current date and time through general fields in step1.
Using created template : While composing an email in vtiger there Select Email Template to add template and choose any one from the list.
Clicking on the template name will take you to the Template Content section, as it is the most likely template part that would be updated after
a template has been created.
Click the templates name to see the detail view of an existing template. An example is shown in image shown below. Note the merge field
values highlighted in this figure. Merge field values are used to dynamically include data from your CRM into the mail. In this example mail,
the merge field value $contacts_name$ represents the name of a contact.
You may include dynamic merge fields into your template at the edit view as shown in the image below. The merge field dialog supports you
for defining the merge field syntax. You may include standard as well as custom fields as merge field. Use the copy and paste to enter the field
codes. You must fill in all mandatory fields. You shall not mix field codes from different modules. For instance, if you use "Contact Fields" as
shown in the figure you shall not add "Account Fields" to this template.
All emails are sent in the HTML format. You may use the HTML editor functions to design a special layout. You may also include HTML
code which has been created by an external editor. But make sure to test your results, not all HTML code options are supported.
Email Tracking
Once emails are sent out to a list of prospects or customers, you want to know which of those customers viewed the email that you sent. vtiger
CRM counts the number of views of each email by a prospect, and displays this in the list of emails sent to a lead or contact. This relies on an
image embedded in the email, which is tracked by vtiger CRM so that a counter is incremented each time a user opens the email. (Note: This
method under-counts whether emails have been viewed since in many email clients embedded images are not always opened when the email is
opened.) Email tracking records the number of times each email is opened, and stores the data in the CRM database. You can view this
information in the Detail View screens of leads and contacts to whom emails have been sent out by vtiger CRM.
vtiger CRM provides a number of useful tools and features to manage leads. These have been described earlier in this manual in the Managing
Leads Section under Sales Force Automation. Many of the same tools can be used to manage marketing actiivities.
List Price: The manufacturer may sell the product with different prices to their resellers and customers. These variable prices for the same
product are called as List Prices. The List Prices may vary according to the manufacturer’s understanding with the reseller.
2. In the Price books Home page, under the Price Books List section, click the Start, Previous, Next, or End link to access the list of price
books. Searching Price Books
You can search the price books with basic details, such as Price book Name, status of the price book. You can also search price books
alphabetically.
2. In the Price books Home page, under the Price Book Search section, do one of the following:
Enter the search criteria in Price book Name and click the Search button. Or
Select one of the alphabetical search links.
3. In the Price books List page, list of price books are displayed as per search criteria.
In the Price book: Edit form, you need to specify the price book-related information. The following table provides descriptions of the various
fields in the form.
2. In the Price Books Home page, click the New Price book toolbar icon.
3. In the Price book: < > page, enter the price book details.
Note: Price book Name is a mandatory field. Refer to the “List of Standard Price book-related Fields” section for
more details.
2. In the Price books Home page, under the Price book List section, select the required price book. 3
Warning: Deleting price books is a destructive operation, hence use this option carefully
2. In the Price books: Home page, select the price book to be deleted.
2. In the Price books: Home page, go to the Price books List section and select the price books to be deleted using the Select check box.
4. In the Confirmation dialog, click OK to delete the selected price books permanently.
Contents
[hide]
1 How to access vtiger sql database in windows
2 How to auto-start vtiger CRM as a Service in Windows OS
3 cannot sign out properly
4 How to install vtiger CRM on a hosting service
5 How to backup vtiger CRM database?
6 Error while installing imap-2001. Quitting setup ...
7 Migrating vtiger source and database from one machine to another one on Windows
8 How to start and stop vtiger in *nix?
9 How to take the backup and restore of vtiger Source on *nix?
10 How to install vtigercrm 510 When the Installation fails with php Server API CGI/FastCGI
11 How to Restore back up database
12 How to install vtiger CRM on Debian server?
13 How to translate vtiger CRM 5?
14 How to translate and support RTL in vtiger?
15 When having installed the Vtiger using safe mode off, can I switch it on to safe mode? If no, why is the safe mode = off needed?
16 How to run VTiger behind my router and Firewall?
17 How to apply patches?
18 How to install language packs?
19 How to set languages
20 How to configure vtiger CRM notification scheduler in Windows?
21 How to make vtiger accessible to other users?
22 How to install multiple instances of vtiger CRM
23 100 notices after install on Windows SBS2003
24 Is it possible to upgrade v5 RC1 to the GA release using the built in Migration tool?
25 Login does not work. Page always refreshes.
26 Is vtiger Macintosh friendly?
27 During install on my linux,vtiger/install.php informs me that GD Graphics are not installed.
28 How to run VTiger with zero setup using the VTiger JumpBox
29 How to run VTiger with zero setup using eazybusiness
30 How to do Installation on Freebsd
31 How to do Installation on GoDadday
32 How to take backup of vtiger CRM ?
33 How to start and stop vtigercrm5.1.0 in windows?
34 How to install PhpMyAdmin on vtigerEXE?
35 How to remove the Gmail Bookmarklet and vtiger news and other links?
36 How to change the company logo on vtiger CRM header?
Ans: To access vtiger start your command line by going to the Start Menu > Run and type cmd change your directory in cmd to wherever you
installed vtigercrm mysql
Example : In (C:drive)
show databases;
Ans: Running the startvTiger.bat file will start the Apache and then MySQL Server. The vtiger CRM Apache and MySQL servers can be
started as a service, so that every time on rebooting the machine, the Apache and MySQL server will be started by automatically.
Once a MySQL server is installed as a service, Windows will start the service automatically whenever it is started. The service also can be
started immediately from the Services utility, or by using the command NET START
For more details about installing and starting the mysql as a sever, refer to:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/Windows_start_service.html
Please refer to the vtiger CRM Source Installation procedure underInstallation Manual
Under Settings >Other settings> Backup Server, configure the BackUp Server option.
The backup file will be present in the home directory of the ftp server that you have specified during the backup server configuration. The
name of the backup file will be in the following format: backup_date_time.sql Warning: for Mac users it is better to visit official Mac How to
find out how to backup mac
on Debian you need to install the uw-imapd package to get over this.
Migrating vtiger source and database from one machine to another one on Windows
First take a backup of vtigercrm5.1.0 on your old machine to take dump click here. You can see the vtigercrm5_dump.sql file in C:\Program
Files\vtigercrm-5.1.0\mysql\bin\
After taking the dump goto command prompt in your new machine change your directory in cmd to wherever you installed vtiger mysql :
Example : In (C:drive)
C:\> cd C:\Program Files\vtigercrm5\mysql\bin
login to mysql Now use these commands to import mysql old dump into your new machine To log in to mysql use this command
mysql -u mysql username(ex:root) -p mysql password(ex:admin)-p -Pmysql port number(ex:3386)
create database new_db_name(ex:vtigercrm510_1) DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
use vtigercrm510_1
source give the path where you kept the old sql database dump file
Example:source C:\Documents and Settings\vtiger\Desktop\vtigercrm510_dump.sql
Now goto config.inc.php and edit the database file name the default path for this file is
C:\Program Files\vtigercrm5\apache\htdocs\vtiger
Example:$dbconfig['db_name'] = 'vtigercrm510'
change vtigercrm510 to newly created database Example:vtigercrm510_1 Now replace the other two files which you taken backup from the
vtiger and access vtiger through the browser.
example:/home/vtiger5.1.0/vtigerCRM510/bin
After starting the vtigercrm5.1.0 Start your Web browser and navigate to http://localhost:port_number/
http://localhost:81/
./stopvTiger.sh or sh stopvTiger.sh
To take the backup of vtiger in the working server (your server_dot_com ) follow the steps
after this it will prompt for password of mysql enter the password (ex:db)
Now send these two files( vtigercrm.zip,vtigercrm510.sql) into the new server
Note : Before restoring the database you need to install apache,php5.2.x,mysql in your new server.
and then use the following command to create a database with utf8 character
>create database vtigercrm510 DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT COLLATE utf8_general_ci;
>use vtigercrm510
Now to import the old database sql file give the path of the vtigercrm510.sql file
Now keep the vtigercrm folder in your apache web root and unzip the vtigercrm folder by using this command
#unzip vtigercrm.zip
# cd vtigercrm
Now goto config.inc.php and edit the database file name before editing take a backup for this file
open the file and change these things database name, mysql username and password siteurl,path according to your new server credentials
$dbconfig['db_username'] = 'root';
$dbconfig['db_password'] = 'db';
$dbconfig['db_name'] = 'vtigercrm510';
$site_URL = 'http://localhost:;
// root directory path
$root_directory = '/home/vtiger1/vtigerCRM5/apache/htdocs/vtigerCRM/';
In root directory give the path of vtigercrm In site_URL give your ipadress or localhost
http://localhost/vtigercrm
How to install vtigercrm 510 When the Installation fails with php Server API CGI/FastCGI
Section – A
Download Vtiger CRM 5.1.0 database dump file from our website
Drop the database that was partially created during installation and re-create a empty database with same database name and utf8
charset.
mysql command :create database same_database_name DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT COLLATE
utf8_general_ci;
Import the downloaded mysql dump file into this re-created database.
mysql commands :
1) mysql>use <new_created_database_name>
2) mysql>source <Path of downloaded database dump file> (Extract downloaded zip file and give path
of sql file)
Section - B
Click here Download the required file for failed installation from our website
Unzip this into the Vtiger CRM source directory. (eg: /var/www/html/vtigercrm)
Access vtigerCRM through URL 510-DumpSetup.php file as mentioned below.
http://your-website.com/vtigercrm/510-DumpSetup.php
TBS
TBS
To be Started
When having installed the Vtiger using safe mode off, can I switch it on to safe mode? If no, why is the safe mode = off
needed?
1. Issue1:I have a Netgear FVS318 Router/VPN/Firewall in case that makes a difference. I think though that the problem is apache
because we are routing ports with the same router for other applications and they work great.
Italic text
UPDATE :
This problem is due to the internal interface reserving port 80 for web related traffic. if you mapped port 80 on the internal interface of the
Netgear and the router accepted this setting you would find that you could view the internal web server from the external site.
In this sencario it would be Http://yourulr.com:8181 ( which then gets forwarded to internaladdress:80 )but the problem would arise if then
internalip attempts to any external page as that would mean = internalIP:80 would then translate to extrenalIP:8181.
One : Your router is a cheap home router that doesnt allow you to do crazy things to mess up your internet connection .
Two : you should have a public IP address if you want to do this so you can create a static route between the public IP and the web server on
port 80 external and internal ( ideally 80 outside , 80 inside ).
Basically, your vtiger server is just a web server / mysql server with it's own IP address -- actually, it should have an internal address:
192.168.0.1 or something, and then your firewall / router has an external address like: 68.4.4.200 or whatever -- those are made up numbers.
So, first off -- test to see whether from within the lan you can see your vtiger by it's IP address -- the external address. Then do the same
experiment outside the LAN with the same external IP address.
If you've got your dns setup correctly -- same thing -- you might have a sub-domain called crm -- you'd have some sort of re-direction setup
then -- crm.yourdomain.com would translate to your IP address as above. Should work the same, whether it's outside the lan or inside.
If you're hitting your server from inside with something like: http://crm -- then you've most likely have a hosts file entry on your local machine
that's superseeding the DNS. _________________
http://vtiger.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=57
3. Modify the config.inc.php file present under directory, add a value for your language language in "languages" array as given below:
For example, if you are installing Brazilian Portuguese language then modify the $language as given below:
change,
$default_language = 'en_us'; as
$default_language = 'pt_br';
6. In Login page, select the Brazilian Portuguese from the Languages drop-down list to display the Brazilian Portuguese language.
2. Danish (V 4.0) - dk
Ans: Extract the language files into vtiger CRM home directory. Afterwards, modify the config.php file present under vtiger CRM Home and
add the following for $languages array.
Open the vtiger CRM Login page, select the required language from the Languages drop-down list. Now the user interface is displayed in your
favorite language.
Ans: To configure the notification schedulers, follow the procedure given below:
These schedulers automatically created when you use the installation setup of vtiger CRM, but you need to configure manually while installing
the vtiger CRM Source.
1. To configure the vtiger CRM Notification Scheduler, Go to the Control Panel --> Scheduled Tasks --> Add Scheduled Task , select
intimateTaskStatus.bat from the <vtiger Home>/htdocs/cron/ directory. Specify the convenient time to run this job.
Note: when you use the vtiger CRM installation, the time has been set as one minute.
2. To configure vtiger CRM Email Reminder, Go to Control Panel --> Scheduled Tasks --> Add Scheduled Task, select the
SendReminder.bat file from the <vtiger Home>/htdocs/modules/Activities/ directory and specify the convenient time to run this job.
If you are using the vtiger CRM installation, the scheduler will run every day at 11.00 AM every day.
Now, you have scheduled the tasks, but to execute these tasks you have to specify the path of your PHP and Apache installation paths.
For this, edit the intimateTaskStatus.bat file located under <vtiger Home>/htdocs/cron/ directory.
1 @echo off
2 cd ..
3 ......phpphp.exe intimateTaskStatus.php
Remove the second line and modify the third line to specify your PHP & Apache path. For e.g. if you installed PHP & Apache under
C://Program Files directory, your third line should be modified as:
3 "C:Program Files/php/php.exe"
"C:Program Files/Apache/htdocs/vtigercrm/cron/intimateTaskStatus.php"
1 @echo off
2 cd ....
3 ......phpphp.exe SendReminder.php
Please remove the second line and modify the third line to specify your PHP & Apache path. For e.g. if you have installed PHP & Apache
under the C://Program Files directory, your third line should be modified as:
3 "C:Program Files/php/php.exe"
"C://Program Files/Apache/htdocs/vtigercrm/modules/Activities/SendReminder.php"
Please don't use the line numbers, which are mentioned only for easy understanding.
Ans: Your network companions must use your IP address instead of localhost. You can type the command "ipconfig" in a dos window to see
your ip address (or) "ip address list" in a linux shell). If your address is 192.168.0.5, they can reach your vtiger instance via
http://192.168.0.5:88/ or http://192.168.0.5:81/
Description: I need to install 2 (maybe more) instances of vtiger on one server. Can anyone maybe help me with the best way to do this.
Should I use the windows installer to create another instance of vtiger or should I do a manual install on the same instance. What would be the
best in ease of maintenance and speed.
Ans: Best way is to first install EXE installer and then make a copy of the vtiger CRM source in another folder in your document root. Then
follow the Source installation procedure for the second instance.
Ans: TBS
Is it possible to upgrade v5 RC1 to the GA release using the built in Migration tool?
The attached file contains the database changes which were made after 5RC ie., these are all the database changes between 5RC to 5GA.
please unzip this file in vtigerCRM root directory. Then [b:74d5926681]rc_to_ga_dbchanges.php[/b:74d5926681] file will be saved under
[b:74d5926681]modules/Migration/[/b:74d5926681] Now go to Settings -> Migration Wizard then the URL will be like
Or you can copy and execute the queries (from modules/Migration/rc_to_ga_dbchanges.php file) directly in RC database.
This migration is only for those who did not run the migration from 4.2.3 to 5RC using the migration script provided in the 5RC release ie., if
you have installed 5RC and you have data in it, and you want to use that data in GA release then you can use that database in GA release with
this mentioned database changes. Before apply this database changes please take backup of your database.
Ans: After login the new session is not getting created. Kindly enable cookies in your browser and try logging in.
As of now, we are providing vtiger CRM source distribution, which can be installed in Mac OS, provided you have compatible Apache,
MySQL, and PHP configured properly. You can find the MAMP distribution from:
http://www.mamp.info/
Once you have MAMP configured properly you can install vtiger CRM in your Server root directory.
Download: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/vtigercrm/vtigercrm-5.0.2.tar.gz?download
Documentation: http://www.vtiger.com/products/crm/help/vtigerCRM-Installation-Manual-Linux.pdf
Ans: vtiger crm requires GD Graphics libraries for Dashboards. Installing vtiger crm using the installer will install apache, mysql, php and gd
version 2.0.28.
1. If GD is not installed 2. GD is installed, but is not associated with the vtigercrm PHP.
Install gd graphics library online hold'em version 2.0.28 and associate it with the vtigercrm PHP.
How to run VTiger with zero setup using the VTiger JumpBox
1. Make sure you are running one of the three major virtualization engines (Xen, Parallels or VMware)
2. Download the VTiger virtual appliance here-> vTiger JumpBox Virtual Appliance
3. deploy it on your particular virtualization infrastructure per the readme file. On the initial use follow the onscreen wizard to set the hostname
and admin password.
4. That's it- access it using the hostname you set. Updates are handled by the JumpBox platform.
The easiest and fastest way to get a VTiger installation running is to create a free account on http://www.eazybusiness.com
Backup of vtiger Mysql: Start your command line by going to the Start Menu > Run and type cmd change your directory in cmd to wherever
you installed vtigercrm mysql
Example : In (C:drive)
Now use the following below command to take backup of mysql database dump
Backup of vtiger Folder: Zip the folder of vtiger5.1.0 the default path of this folder is C:\Program Files\vtigercrm-5.1.0
start --> All Programs --> vtigerCRM 5.1.0 --> Start CRM server
Example: http://localhost:81/
To stop vtigercrm5.1.0
start --> All Programs --> vtigerCRM 5.1.0 --> Stop CRM server
$cfg['blowfish_secret'] = 'secretkey!';
4. Add the highlighted lines in config.inc.php which you copied in phpmyadmin directory
$cfg['UploadDir'] = 'uploads';
$cfg['SaveDir'] = '';
$cfg['Username']='root'; Example : Mysql username
$cfg['Password']='root_password'; Example : Mysql Password
?>
NOTE: You can check your vtigercrm mysql root_password credentials from the vtigercrm config.inc.php file in the below mentioned
default directory path.
5. Open http://localhost:81/phpmyadmin url from the browser. Note : Use the Apache Spacified port
How to remove the Gmail Bookmarklet and vtiger news and other links?
'LBL_GMAIL'=>'Gmail',
'LBL_BOOKMARKLET'=>'Bookmarklet',
'LBL_VTIGER_NEWS'=>'vtiger News',
'LBL_FEEDBACK'=>'Feedback',
Note: If you are using different laguage pack then please go to that language file present in include/language folder to make the changes.
To change the Vtiger Logo in the Header replace the below images