I am a developer who has no experience working with CRM systems. I want to build a simple system using SuiteCRM. But I can't find a single tutorial for SuiteCRM in the internet. Believe me I spent several days searching for tutorials but I couldn't find. The official Userguides documentation is absolutely useless for development purposes. I found this book SuiteCRM For Developers but it is not suitable for a beginner. And it doesn't cover most of the basic stuff. Please suggest me a good tutorial(document/video) which covers topics such as creating custom entities(operations with custom entities), workflows and REST api.
If you're new to CRM world, as I was a couple of years ago, Id suggest doing the following:
Get a copy of SugarCRM for Dummies. It gives you an overview of the built in modules and functions of SugarCRM.
Watch how-to videos on SugarCRM for more in-depth details on particular modules.
Get a copy of SuiteCRM for Developers by Jim Mackin. This was a game changer for me. it's straight forward but breaks down the essentials of SuiteCRM.
From there, it's all about googling and practice. The more you play with the code, the more it starts making sense.
Welcome to world of CRM !!
First learn the flow of modules which are available in CRM and then go ahead with the development part. So I will suggest you to learn SugarCRM first. As coding standards and execution flow of SuiteCRM and SugarCRM is same.
Download SugarCRM CE
Install the CRM in your machine as described here
Once installed play with modules. Getting_Started SugarCRM
Take an overview on admin features of SugarCRM as described in detail here
Try to create new modules as per described here
I've been digging into some SUiteCRM work also lately, and the SugarCRM info is very helpful. The SuiteCRM forums have been getting some more traction lately.
https://suitecrm.com/forum/developer-help/10338-how-to-create-a-custom-module-from-scratch
I am also going to buy this book, looks like a great resource! https://leanpub.com/suitecrmfordevelopers
This book you mention (https://leanpub.com/suitecrmfordevelopers) is worth investing in. It's the right stuff in one place.
SugarCRM resources and references are ok, however, SuiteCRM and SugarCRM are gradually going in different directions. If you rely on forums and generic blogs, even SOF, the 'Sugar' solution not always maps to a suite-solution. It can be close, but that last 5% of difference can be a headache to work through.
Anyhow, that's my plug/recommendation for that book.
Related
A friend of mine asked me to take a look at using Flex Licensing to protect the distribution of her software. I've spent a bit of time going through the flexera website to see what information I could glean, but I find nothing that tells me how one actually connects their software to the licensing system. Is it an API that allows me to build the functionality into an application? Is it something else? I decided to not put too much time into getting frustrated before asking here if anyone had any experience with this or similar licensing systems.
Regards and thanks!
To answer your question, yes, there is an API.
You can request a trial of their FlexNet Publisher Software to see if it is something you would like to work with. However, I would recommend you contact them to see if their pricing model would fit into your friend's development budget.
I am a Web Developer student still in uni, hoping to start my own business in the future. I have built and deployed several static websites, and have recently built and deployed a couple of WordPress sites. My DB experience so far is largely conceptual.
I have been approached by a 'friend of a friend' to build an e-commerce website for an international company (they sell incontinence products). I'm not specifically sure of the sales volume but estimate it to be around a maximum 500 transactions per day. Being an international site, it would obviously need to facilitate, shipping and payments from a number of countries. This company knows that I am a novice, and are not expecting a site launch for a year.
Starting a career as a Web Developer, I'm assuming jobs similar to this may arise time and time again so I am hoping to pick a framework that is accessible to my current skill level, but can also 'grow' with me as I develop.
I do not want to use 'template solutions', so obviously with some WordPress under my belt, that was the first place I turned, but reading the word 'glitchy' repeatedly in several forum threads has diminished my confidence.
Magento is the word I'm hearing everywhere, but it is mostly described as 'complex', while Shopify seems to be the 'quick fix'.
Can anyone recommend a framework that won't take me a decade to master, but is powerful, and reliable enough to stand the test of time? Do I just bite the bullet and surrender this year to learning Magento? Are these WordPress/Magento Hybrids any good?
Any advice would be much appreciated :)
Since you handle quite ok WP I would recommend this http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-e-commerce/ . However you need to test it quite heavy to make sure nothing escapes.
Magento is one of the best (some say the best) and I suggest you might start reading some documentation about it since you want to make a career in this.
Good luck!
There are a number of open source e-commerce platforms out there. The most popular use PHP which is definitely a transferable skill (so you wouldn't be wasting your time).
This gives you a decent list of the best apps out there:
http://www.opensourcecms.com/scripts/show.php?catid=3&category=eCommerce
My personal preference is http://www.oscmax.com which is about to release v2.5 of its platform. Built on osCommerce (the original open source e-commerce platform) code but with all the common modules installed for you but that is because I like the freedom to code the store how I like it not how the software company likes it!
However, if you are looking to get a job deploying e-commerce then Magento is probably the way forward since it is the most "commercial" of the open source platforms.
Judging from the described features, the Alfresco Team and Alfresco Share products look very similar.
What are the technical differences?
Here are a few differences I have heard about, but a better list would be welcome:
Video preview
Preview for more Adobe products (Illustrator etc?)
Some kind of link with Google Apps maybe?
There is need for clarification to #Heiko Robert. His answer is not valid anymore. Team has been discontinued, and it didn't replace Alfresco Enterprise.
Team was not the latest Enterprise Edition, but a cheaper license with the restrictions that #Heiko has mentioned (and some more. For example, the number of users is also limited).
Team is being replaced by the Alfresco Cloud, as you can see if you click on the "Team Customizations" link posted by #Tahir Malik.
Alfresco Enterprise is well and very alive, and a new version 4 is available.
Regarding Share: Alfresco has two web user interfaces: one is the original, known as Alfresco Explorer, and the newest one is Alfresco Share. Alfresco Explorer is a faster UI, based on JSF, but it is more difficult to customize, and it is not being developed anymore. On the other hand, Share is the "second generation" UI, which is based on Surf, which is much easier to customize. At this point, Share is actively being developed, but, as far as I know, it is close to provide 100% of the functionality provided by Alfresco Explorer.
Alfresco Explorer will probably be around for several years to come, because a lot of people already developed applications on it, so that should give them time to migrate to share.
It's more or less a question of licensing. Team seems to be the latest Enterprise Edition but with major limitations in
Number of Documents
Customization: No Customizations in any way (no custom doc models, workflows, automation, actions)
Usage: restricted to the Share-Interface only (no Explorer, no webscripts, not integration with other systems)
I found this Blog helpful: Alfresco Team: First Thoughts and Limitations to Consider
Anyway - if you're looking for a out of the box tool to share documents in workgroups/teams this may the tool you should look into.
I don't think there are much technical differences, because both are build on the Surf Platform and are quite equal in functionality.
I think you should see this page of the Team Site: Team Customizations
The main difference is that you can't do whatever you like with Team and you can with Share (Enterprise/Community).
There are a few features in Alfresco Team that are new, and which aren't in Alfresco 3.4 (Enterprise or Community). Video Preview and a few more transformers are in that list. Those new features are available on HEAD though, so if you take a nightly build you'll get them. They'll all be in Swift (likely 4.0), which is due out later this year. See Jeff Pott's blog for some more info on Swift.
The Alfresco Team website has a lot of info on Team on it, which should help you decide if it's a good fit for you, or if you need the full Community/Enterprise version.
I work in a shop that is mostly .NET based, and we're trying to pick out a content management system to use. This means we mostly likely won't be able to use any of the common open source CMS projects (Plone, phpNuke, anthing not based on .NET, etc.).
Since I'm a huge usability nerd (just finished reading The Design of Everyday Things by Norman), I've been looking at them from that point of view. Frankly, I haven't been too impressed. This quote sums it up:
Most open source content management software is useless. The only thing worse is every commercial CMS I’ve used. - Jeffrey Veen
Here's a short list of our requirements:
Has to be .NET based
Prefer open source or on the inexpensive side
Limited feature set (we don't need too many features and they make things harder to use)
Does need Active Directory integration and robust permissions
Should be focused on web standards and usability
I know it's probably an impossible feature list, but are there any content management systems that kinda sorta look like they might not suck more than a Dyson?
Edit:
Here's the current situation:
I'm going to push for N2. I've got Active Directory integration working well (I even wrote a custom role provider). The only thing missing is workflow functionality. Hopefully I can get something going with that since it's the last sticking point. The N2Contrib project might provide a starting point if I can figure it out.
I would still love to check out Stencil CMS if/when it gets off the ground.
One of my co-workers was trying to get Umbraco going but wasn't having much luck.
Thanks for the help!
Self-plug is lame, but what you're describing is pretty much exactly what I am getting ready to release for $79 a pop. If you're still looking in a few weeks, take a peek. If you'd like, shoot me an email (rex#stencilcms.com).
I've heard both positive and negative feedback about Umbraco. A lot of people like Graffiti, but it's more blog-oriented than a full-blown CMS.
Check out N2 (http://n2cms.com/). I think that it covers most, if not all, of your requirements (I don't think it has Active Directory capability at this time). We are using N2 and I have really enjoyed how flexible it has been.
My company just completed a review of several commercial .NET-based CMS/portal platforms and, while I can't reveal who was in them (thanks, NDAs!), I can tell you that IMO they all sucked very, very badly.
Good luck on your search. I'll keep an eye on this thread in the hopes that there's something we missed.
We had a similar set of requirements and chose Telerik Sitefinity. It's got it's faults but overall I've been happy with it so far.
Unfortunately Jeffery speaks the truth. Which is probably why I build a new custom cms from the ground up every few years. Basically, the motivation for "boxed" CMS packages is to have every feature on earth and be everything to everyone and therefore do nothing particularly well for anyone. With the feature bloat comes the usability nightmares. Unless you start customizing and then you usually end up forking the project and losing the advantage of community updates.
Kentico CMS according your list:
Has to be .NET based
It's .net based, .NET Framework 2.0 or later
Prefer open source or on the inexpensive side
Free edition which can be used for commercial purposes is available, paid license starts at $750, source code is an option
Limited feature set (we don't need too many features and they make things harder to use)
Many built-in modules/features, anyway they can be easily disabled to keep the UI simple to use
Does need Active Directory integration and robust permissions
AD, Forms and Live Id! Integration
Should be focused on web standards and usability
UTF-8 Support including RTL languages, WAI Compliant, XHTML Compliant, XML, XHTML, HTML, XSLT, CSS.
Instant on-line demo or download available at:
http://www.kentico.com/Download.aspx
I'm in the process of researching testing options for .Net development particularly ASP.Net.
What testing tools do you swear by? NUnit, Selenium, RhinoMocks are my current apps in my toolbox but what do others have to offer for a more complete testing coverage?
No budget
I swear by NUnit, Selenium and then a number of other little tools like YSlow, Firebug
I did a talk at Google Test Automation Conference http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQgDDAan4rM where I show how you can mix Selenium, NUnit and Yslow to get an idea of how the user is experiencing the system.
I have started using JsTestDriver as well and think that is really good for unit testing JavaScript The video from the same conference is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDKGGZv-T4M
All of those are free and most are open source
Kzu and friends have a new pet project called Moq, which may be the coolest derivative open source project name ever. -Scott Hanselman
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MoqLinqLambdasAndPredicatesAppliedToMockObjects.aspx
Haven't gotten around to trying Moq out yet but I've seen Hanselman talk about it in a couple of his blog posts, probably worth checking it out.
See the answers to ASP.NET Free testing tools