Google+ Connector - February 2013 - SugarCRM AotM

Google+ Connector by www.1crm.info is the February 2013 SugarCRM App of the Month. Google+ Connector developed by Danmar Computers , SugarCRM Partner www.1crm.info helps users to monitor accounts, contacts, leads activity on Google+ with just a few clicks. Visit the SugarForge project

Name, title and brief bio?

Dan Marius Bogdan is CEO of Danmar Computers, SugarCRM Partner. Dan has started developing ERP and accounting applications in VB and VFP 13 years ago and started working with SugarCRM about 8 years ago in 2005. Since 2005 Danmar finished over 300 projects SugarCRM related, working for companies all over the world and other SugarCRM partners as well.

When you designed and built this app, what problems were you looking to solve for SugarCRM users?

SugarCRM users have the ability to connect to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, but were missing the link to Google+. Using Google+ Connector users now have the ability to improve the sales process by using a 360 degree overview of leads' and contacts' online activity.

What inspired you to build this app?

SugarCRM social component was missing a very important link, the one with Google +.

Although Google+ is not currently as popular as Facebook or Linkedin; being powered by one of the biggest companies such as Google assures a future growth that we can not ignore in the sales process.

What attracted you to being a part of the Sugar ecosystem?

Since 2005 when Danmar Computers had their first important implementation based on SugarCRM 4.5; we have noticed CRM market growth potential. Even at that point it was extremely hard to develop on the SugarCRM platform because of the lack of documentation. Our experienced developers, instructed by Dan Bogdan, were able to provide full satisfaction to all our clients no matter how hard their demands were. This way Danmar provided full satisfaction both to direct clients located all over the world as EU, USA, AU, NZ and also to clients of SugarCRM partners who have been paying for Danmar services.

Our main goal is to provide full client satisfaction we accept both SugarCRM partners' requests and also final clients' requests.

What other apps have you been involved with in the Sugar ecosystem?

As I alluded to earlier, we have over 300 completed projects today, and this is our main advantage over competitors. We have integrated all Google apps (calendar, contacts, documents) distributed by another sugar partner now; developed telephony integration for for Freepbx/Elastix/Trixbox, predictive dialer working with Elastix, desktop applications to integrate with, Skype and Tapi; developed Editable List Views for users that want to change data from ListView directly

A connector to E-conomic.com accounting package has just been released.

For users that need advanced route planning and driving instructions we have a Google Maps integration.

Lead distribution and assignment can be easily solved with our tool that allows distribution by different criteria and access only to logged SugarCRM users. This way leads can be followed up within minutes from lead assignment by a sales agent and the list goes on ...

What has been the most rewarding part of being a part of the Sugar ecosystem?

Having a positive client feedback has been the most fulfilling. Kind words and appreciations we've received from all our clients has helped us overcome any inconveniences or obstacles.

What do you want to build next for Sugar?

There are a few projects that we have been developing and testing, one of them is Predictive Dialer for SugarCRM that works with Elastix PBX, on which we have received only positive feedback from user experience.

Also Advanced Global Search is ready to go and it is intended to substitute actual global search for instances with very big databases in order to improve speed.

Last but not least, we are developing an important telephony system integration, working with our current SugarCRM FreePBX Elastix Trixbox core PRO integration that helps users improve planned calls activity with just a few clicks.