CRM Tutorial

Hipergate CRM

Introduction

Hipergate is an open source web based application suite. It's mission is to cover a full range of technical requirements in any organization. All applications are addressed from a browser, without needing any other additional software in the client computer. This suite is multi-company capable, and can be used in a single company, a corporate group or working as an ASP solution capable of serving an unlimited cuantity of single customers.

Description:

The most complete Open Source Java CRM + GroupWare suite including: sales automation, customer service, intranet, email marketing, content management, bug tracker, project manager, groupware, webmail, calendar, forums, file sharing and directory

What makes hipergate unique?

1. It is completely free.
2. It is the only Open Source application with such a wide functional coverage.
3. Runs on multiple databases and operating systems
4. Has a unitary conceptual design and implementation.
5. Is adequate for being used by Application Service Providers.
6. Supports multiple languages.
7. Has a professional services support network.
8. Is well documented.

Features:

Functional Modules included in the base distribution:

Collaborative tools and Groupware Module

1. Private and/or shared calendar and diary.
2. Discussion forums, open or moderated.
3. Frequently Asked Questions manager.
4. Employees directory.
5. Reservation of shared resources (rooms, equipement).

Contact Management Module

1. Clients, Suppliers, Competitors and Partners.
2. Personal and group contacts.
3. Multiple addresses per contact.
4. Local offices management and separate storage for each one.
5. Sales Pipeline Management (Bussiness oportunities)
6. Different kinds of distributions lists.
7. Import from Windows Address Book (Outlook Express)
8. Import from data files (text, Excel).

Project Management and Support Issues Tracking Module

1. Hierarchic projects tree.
2. Pending tasks tracking.
3. Issues control.
4. SLA and maintenance contracts.

eShop Module

1. Multiple product catalogs.
2. Unlimited hierarchy of products.
3. Custom attributes per product.
4. Stock management, with multiple warehouses.
5. Order and Invoice management.
6. Modular and extensible Payment Processing.

Content Management Module

1. e-mail templates.
2. website templates.
3. Electronic forms.
4. Web based outgoing fax.
5. Can include rich media (video, flash).
6. Categorized contents management.
7. portlets library for content dynamic presentation.

Massive Email Module

1. Multiple e-mail management addressed to distribution lists.
2. Message reception statistics.

Coporate Library

1. 100% web based virtual disk.
2. Role based security for all files.
3. Can read and index OLE documents properties.
4. Shared bookmarks.
5. Bookmarks Import/Export.

Common features to all modules:

Roles based security

1. Multiple isolated security domains.
2. Unlimited users and groups.
3. Predefined groups for rapid application rollout.
4. Security can be implemented in a company and/or departament basis.
5. Can be integrated with a LDAP directory.

Hierarchic data management

1. Geographic thesaurus.
2. Lexical thesaurus.
3. Object categorization.

Queries and Reports

1. Rapid query wizard (forms based).
2. Excel export.
3. Online reports in HTML format.
4. All reports can be sent via e-mail.

Job Scheduler

1. Process queue management.
2. Background multi-thread executor.

Requirement for Installation

Basically, you need to:

1. Have pre-installed
2. Java 1.6 (or later)
3. Tomcat 6.0.16 (or later)
4. PostgreSQL 8.x, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 or Oracle 11g/XE or MySQL 5.x.
5. Download and unzip hipergate-6.0.x-xx.zip anywhere.
6. Copy all files from the /webapp directory to a subdirectory of your web server /webapps.
7. Copy the /storage directory anywhere outside the web server document root.
8. Open page http://server:port/admin/setup.htm for starting-up the Setup Assistant.
9. Configure /WEB-INF/web.xml (may be done later but Virtual Disk and servlets for file download will not work until done)

 Modules

Campaigns Manager

There is a new module for managing marketing campaigns with sales targets for product and region between two dates.

Contact Manager

1. Security groups for companies and contact-For each company or contact it is now possible to restrict access only to a given set of user groups.
2. Manage suppliers-Suppliers can now be stored and managed independently of ordinary contacts.
3. Send commercial proposals and quotations-From the opportunity edition form there is now a new feature for sending a commercial proposal by e-mail and keep a copy of it attached to the contact.
4. Create a meeting for an opportunity-A direct link for creating a meeting related to a sales opportunity
5. Create a phone call for an opportunity-A direct link for creating a phone call related to a sales opportunity
6. Link opportunities to campaigns-Opportunities can be linked to campaigns for tracking its effectivity.
7. Assign salesman to a company or contact-A salesman can be now directly assigned as owner of a customer company. A new filter allows to display which customer accounts are assigned to each salesman.
8. Assign geographic zone to a company or contact-Both companies and contacts can now be assigned to geographic zones.

Calendar

1. Week Calendar-There is a new week view of the calendar.
2. Timetables-The new timetables submodule allows defining working/non working time for employees taking it into account when looking for available resources.
3. Display out of order resources-When a resource is out of order, show its condition at the activity edition form when trying to choose it.
4. Create employee when creating a user-When creating a new user, add an employee during the same process.
5. Fellow/Employee Loader-A batch loader of employees from a flat text file.

Project Manager

1. Project Status Snapshot-At the project edition form there is now a new summary of duties and incidents.
2. Working time reports-A new interface allows quick entry of a weekly work report of performed duties.
3. Classify duties by types-A new type column has been added to the duties table allowing a better classification of them whilst preparing reports.
4. Different types of resources-Resources can now be of different types and directly associated to other application entities. New resource types are: company, individual, employee,application user and supplier.
5. Team Manager - Duties by resource-A new view of duties being performed by each resource has been added as a tool for team management.

Forum

1. Display days with posts-At message listing highlight the days which have posts.
2. Manage forum subscriptions-Subscribe to a forum for receiving new messages by e-mail.

Virtual Library

1. Document check-out / check-in-A check-out / check-in protocol has been added for providing a way of keeping documents locked to other users whilst editing them.

Shop

1. Manage Sale Points-Different Sale Points can now be defined and associated to orders and other application objects.
2. Product Fares-Different fares can now be specified for each product, and it is possible to assign specific fares to customers.
3. Define Product Bundles-Define product bundles for selling a set of products like a single one.
4. Bulk change of orders and invoices status-At the orders listing page, change status of several orders at a time.

WebMail

1. New e-mails portlet-At the home page, add a new portlet notifying new e-mails. 
2. Spam filter-A spam filter has been added to the WebMail module.
3. Create mail account when creating a user-When creating a new user, add a WebMail account during the same process.
4. Speed improvements-The whole WebMail module has been re-engineered for faster download of new e-mails.

Security enhancements

1. Verify WorkArea rights for user-For each page request verify user permissions on current WorkArea.
2. Password Expiration-From the administration interface, set a password expiration date or must change upon next logon.
3. Password retrieval-A procedure for having the password re-send to the main e-mail.