I am currently developing a large soulution that cover most aspects of our business.This solution will also integrate with Quickbooks and several other SQL tables.
Our sales department wants to build a simple CRM model using Sharpoint Services. This solution would be more of a contact management: appointments, leads, promotions, etc..
Servoy is great beacuse I can allow users to read write to sql, via the client, without alot of programming. The ability to run SQL / HTML reports is half the reason I needed to migrate from FMP, the reports are painfully slow, unless you invoke a bunch of imports and create a million tables. Try running a end of year report that calculates and summarizes data 6 tables deep, for thousands of records.
My current scenario is this:
A)
I am developing a servoy solution that will be accessed by local and remote users(SQL backend). This will include modules for , service, sales, inventory, po creation, tracking, expense reports, commisions, etc..
So with this solution external direct sales reps will have access to read and write data.
B)
I will also be creating a webiste in asp, that will access SQL. This is for customer access and indirect reps. This site allows read access to view status, run reports, etc. This keeps me from having to purchase hundreds of additional client licenses.
C)
At somepoint I want to be able to intergate the sharepoint CRM with servoy so that sales Reps can view sales data and contact data via sharepoint.
ex: A rep culd pull up a Hospital group, and could see who his current accounts are, as well as his potential accounts. Then he could drill down on an account and view which departments are active / potential, called on, etc..
I know I can accomplish by accessing the sql tables from SharePoint and Servoy(but I have only a general knowledge of Sharepoint, and thats all I wan’t to know about it “overload!!”).
I was hoping for something like this. The sales reps frontend could be sharepoint. I also wanted to be able to have a link or something in sharepoint that would allow reps to open Servoy Client, in order to write data, print reports, and view info other then contact info. With my new build Reps will be using servoy to create bids, quotes, expense reports, etc.. as well as viewing order status, inventory, commissions and repots
I would like to be able to pass a password parameter from sharepoint to servoy, to create a more seemless transition. Creating a single enviorment (or appear to be).
I have a large FMP5 solution in place now, as well as an ASP site that is run from a sql backend, that I import into from Filemaker once a day (temp fix for web based reporting).
I am the only programmer / Buisness anaylist / System Architect for the organization. We have a full time graphic artist / web master (non-data base driven) and full time Network admin guy, that is our IT dept (lol).
This is why I have been taking this multilple module / application approach, basically so that I can deploy bits and pieces of my main project as they are finished.
Our company is growing extremly fast and the demands on information and automation are growing faster. Along with this, we have restructured our sales dept, and the new natl sales manager wants a crm in place asap. That is why the network admin guy is going to use Sharepoint (he is using it for document manangement for our ISO project). I do not have the time to work on a crm and he does not have and programming expierence.
I guess my biggest concern is that direct sales reps will be able to access sharepoint and Servoy Client without having to login to different sites.
At somepoint the ceo wants to use PDA devices (because the competitor does), but I can not see any value in it other then the ‘bells and whistles’. If we do need to at somepoint, looks like the SHC will be perfect.
I guess what I am asking here, is does this seem like the correct approach to build the complete system with limited resources, so that seperate modules can be deployed using different applications (front ends), then integrated later? am I on the right track here?