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Choosing the Right Open Source ERP/CRM Solutions

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

People used to be apprehensive with open source solutions as they felt they

were complex. However, this is not exactly true. Open source solutions are not

just confined to Linux platforms, there are solutions available for Windows

platform as well, which are very simple to install and get started with in a

wizard based format. And when you contemplate about implementing ERP or CRM

solutions for your organizations, you can very much consider open source

solutions rather than going for expensive proprietary solutions. If you are

clear about the organizational business processes and how you want to define or

chart out those with ERP solutions, then you can give an open source solution a

try. Today's open source ERP or CRM solutions offer almost all the

functionalities for every organizational function that any proprietary solution

would offer.

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Even though the total cost of implementing open source solutions is

comparatively lower than their commercial counterparts, this is not the primary

reason for the growing popularity of open source solutions. Open Source brings

in freely available code base as a starting point. And this is what enterprises

are keen on because it offers them the opportunity to customize the solution as

per their needs. A packaged solution, even if it follows the best practices,

cannot facilitate every organization's needs and requirements. So, selecting the

right ERP or CRM software for your organization will boost productivity, bring

down costs, improve operational excellence and ensure customer satisfaction.

But, always choose a solution that offers features which will address all your

requirements rather than one which is perceived to be the best amongst the lots.

The home page of CRM module displays the day's agenda

for the user and also lists pending activities for different projects and

leads.

Opentaps ERP+CRM solution



Opentaps is an integrated ERP and CRM suite that offers modules to cover the
majority of an organization's processes and functions. The Opentaps suite is

based on Apache's OFBiz project and is designed to tap the full power of OFBiz

framework for offering feature-rich, out of the box ERP and CRM solutions. The

modules that are offered can handle everything from leads, order management, and

customer service to purchasing, production planning, inventory management, and

manufacturing, to shipping and accounting. Opentaps also integrates e-commerce

and point of sale solutions. The solution has integrated support for logistics

partners like DHL, UPS and even PayPal. And as more and more organizations are

focusing to automate their field workforce, there is an integrated mobile

application to support that. Through the mobile application the organization's

field workforce can access and enter data while they are on their field rounds.

All these features make Opentaps and ideal solution for retail businesses.

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Opentaps is primarily developed in Java by a US based company called Open

Source Strategies. The company provides the closed source customization and

official support, which can be availed with the commercial license. The free

version of the solution can be used by organizations to customize it themselves

as per their needs. Unlike other Open Source solutions which offer documentation

only to paid customers, or are hardly documented in some cases, this Opentaps

Open Source solution is very well documented and has an active developer

community behind it. The solution can be accessed through a browser, but the

Opentaps server needs to be installed on a server, either Windows or Linux

based, so that it can be used in a distributed environment on Internet or

Intranet.

The analytics feature of Opentaps shows reports in

graphical format in dashboard view, while 'Reports' option lists different

reports that a user can choose from.

Features and installation



Opentaps has strong foundation based on Enterprise Java J2EE and is domain

driven architecture that embraces object oriented development model with

Hibernate persistence and Spring framework, which keeps all the modules within

Service Oriented Architecture. This architecture allows the system to be easily

integrated with other ERP or CRM solutions. Organizations can use any module of

Opentaps ERP+CRM solution and integrate it with their existing ERP's solution

and use it's GUI. This eliminates the employees to be retrained for newer

interfaces. This solution offers a rich AJAX based user interface and is

compatible with Open Source as well as commercial databases. It can be

integrated with various databases ranging from MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle and

Microsoft SQL Server. The solution incorporates Opentaps analytics, which is a

set of tools that provide you with reports and dashboards to understand about

your products, customers and employees and help taking in more informed business

decisions. It incorporates JasperReports reporting tools, so that you can design

and customize your reports with iReport report designer.

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Coming to installation, as Opentaps is completely Java based, you need to

have Sun Java SDK installed as a prerequisite. And also ensure that you have

specified the JAVA_HOME environment variable to the directory where Java SDK is

installed. Opentaps is available for download from sourceforge.net or from the

official

website -www.opentaps.org. It is an archived directory containing all the

modules, web server, databases and batch commands to initiate the server. In

case you are deploying on Windows platform, then you should keep in mind not to

use a directory name that has spaces in it, for instance “Documents and

Settings” or “Program Files”. So, extract the contents of the archived file into

a directory named something like c:\opentaps. For this demo we are using

Opentaps on Windows platform.

Now, open command prompt and go to the directory where you have extracted

Opentaps and the batch file “startofbiz.bat” to start the Opentaps ERP+CRM

server. As the Opentaps server starts in the terminal, it will access various

ports, therefore when prompted by Windows Firewall allow the server to access

the ports. Now to access the server, open a browser window and direct it to

address: http://localhost:8080/opentaps. You'll be greeted with Opentaps login

screen. The default administrator username is “admin” and password is “ofbiz”.

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Exploring Opentaps



On successful login, you get different buttons for different modules like

financial, CRM, purchasing, warehouse, HR and even for online commerce. If you

go into CRM module, you can see your day's agenda and then can create new leads,

accounts, contacts, sales details etc. into the system. There are tabs available

to see forecasts and reports as well. The interface allows you to export

contacts or opportunity details as an Excel file. But to import your existing

contacts into the system's database, you have to initiate a “dataimport” module

that can be found in hot-deploy directory of Opentaps installation folder. This

is an inconvenience since any organization would be having an existing customer

data with them to be imported into the new system.

Business Intelligence and Analytics, as discussed earlier, is a major feature

of Opentaps which provide detailed reports that can be customized, and also

dashboards that can be modified by each user. Since, there is a mobile interface

available for the system. Users can login to the mobile interface from the

browsers of their smartphones. The interface is optimized for small screen and

provides the functionality to add new contacts, opportunities and other sales

related information for the sales personnel.

As, this solution is suitable for retail industry, there is warehouse module

through which inventory, shipping and manufacturing activities can be

streamlined and monitored effectively. Since, there is online commerce module

also available, you can create catalogs of your products and services. The web

interface of the online commerce site is intuitive and products are displayed in

categorized manner and the shopping cart is also easy to navigate and

understand. But the interface is best viewed in IE and Firefox browsers, and not

in Chrome as the alignment tends to become disoriented.

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In all, the solution has good features for a retail company to implement,

though it can be implemented by any other industry vertical as well. The

solution is Java based, so a little sluggish at times if compared to other PHP

based solutions, but is more robust and secure which is Java's main strength.

vtiger CRM

This is an Open Source Web-based 'CRM' software. It is a

complete package for your business needs and is developed over Sugar CRM.

Targeting enterprises, this solution has a rich set of features and functions.

With its user-friendly setup process and an intuitive user interface, the tool

helps in enhancing productivity as everything can be simply done by just a few

clicks. The focus is not only limited to sales, it includes features such as

market automation, analysis and reporting, accounts & more. This Web-based CRM

helps enterprises in understanding their customers and internal processes

through a proper work flow. It helps in building rapport with customers by

organizing data. It supports employees in sales, marketing, customer support &

services, etc.

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The latest version of vtiger includes features like sales

force & marketing automation, inventory management & a lot more. The latest

build also includes plugin for MS Outlook & Office and the integration of

Thunderbird. Let's take a look at some of its features.

Sales force automation: SFA, being one of the key players

of the CRM field, supports sales team & their processes. Some of the activities

needed by the sales team include sales pipeline management, lead management,

opportunity management, sales analytics & forecasting, etc.

The main homepage of vtiger CRM. You can simply

edit/modify and do changes in settings just by clicking on tabs. You can

also initiate chat simply through the main screen.

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Lead & opportunity management: Lead management is a term

used in business circles to describe ways, methods, systems that help in

generating new leads. New leads define generating potential clientele that helps

in increasing business opportunities. It also helps in building rapport with the

business clientele. Talking about vtiger CRM lead management, this feature helps

in managing leads, and creating and converting them. vtiger also allows you to

capture leads from websites, based on the enterprise requirement customizing

online lead forms, lead conversion mapping & more.

Talking about opportunity management, which is another

function of sales, it includes features such as end-to-end tracking of sales

opportunities, generating invoices and sales order, and opportunity reports,

etc.

Integration of MS Outlook & Office with vtiger CRM:In some

enterprises, use of email services play a vital role in building relations with

the customers. But as the business continues to grow more, managing customer

relationships sometimes becomes difficult. Hence enterprises look for more

decent CRM solutions. In fact most of the CRM solutions that come with the

integration of Outlook are not free. The cost goes up with more features and

functions. The free and Open Source vtiger CRM allows synchronizing contacts,

filtering emails, synchronizing customer calls and meetings, and adding incoming

& outgoing email messages to vtiger CRM & more.

Not only this, the Thunderbird extension also allows you to

import-export contacts from vtiger CRM to Thunderbird & vice-versa. With the

addition of vtiger office plug-in for MS Word, You can create mail merge

documents while on the move based on the vtiger database fields. The documents

are based on customer data source and it allows creating documents such as

mailing labels, form letters & much more.

You can activate or deactivate different modules

according to your needs. It also allows you to add more users & you can

easily find information about a module by just clicking on the module.

Dolibarr



Dolibarr is an Open Source project which is very simple to install and consists
of different features for Enterprise Resource planning (ERP) & Customer

Relationship Management (CRM). This simple web-based ERP/CRM software is built

by the addition of some modules. Meant for SMBs, this tool has a lot of modules

that help in managing stock, contracts, shipping, contacts management and much

more. Some of the features of Dolibarr consist of stocks management, bank

account management, invoices, contracts, payment management and many more. The

advantage provided by this tool is that since it is a combination of both ERP/CRM

and has a simple installer, there is no need to install any other packages. The

installer also installs MySQL, PHP, Apache and other requirements and requires a

few clicks to install. It works on the principle of S3S which states that the

software must be simple to use, install and develop. For users, a lot of changes

have been accompanied in the latest version of Dolibarr. Some of them are

exporting commercial proposals, adding free text on bank cheque receipts, adding

log tabs on emailing modules, enhancements in project modules and a lot more.

Some other features include data export tools, donation management, bookmark

management, synchronizing contacts with LDAP, etc.

Dolibarr also contains command line tools that in a single

PDF show the concatenation of several bills. It also has support for SMTPS,

functions for 'cloning' to copy invoices, commercial proposals, etc.

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