vTiger Tweaks
VTiger 6 Customization: Custom Order Module + Item Depletion
September 19, 2017
Article
VTiger has a built-in Sales Order module which supports products, services and has a lot of features such as taxes, discounts and so on. It works fine for a standard order processing, however when it comes to custom orders with requires item qty depletion, bundles and 3rd party integration – it does not do that out of the box. One of our customers is running a clinic and requested for a simple, easy to use custom order module to track their services (individual or bundles) as well as the qty and the depletion. We designed one that allows them to quickly add new orders by just filling out few mandatory fields such as selecting the bundle, payment method and adding few notes. Each bundle/item has a qty preset and allows the user to ‘use up’ or deplete certain items, for example, the client purchases a bundle of 5 SPA
VTiger 6 Customization: Convert/Generate Licenses from Sales Order/Invoice/Quote
September 18, 2017
Article
Every business has it’s own unique workflow and it is very likely that after the transaction has been made, there are steps to be taken to process the order. One of our customers is selling software with different types of licenses e.g locked, floating, annual, lifetime and requested to build an extension to VTiger Sales Orders which would allow to generate licenses for purchased products. To accommodate that, we added a button “Create License(s)”, which triggers a popup where the user can see the products on the sales order, specify expiration date and see additional information the the product. Once the user clicks to create licenses, it creates new license records (custom vtiger module) and connects to their licensing server via API to generate unique license key. This VTiger customization significantly improves the efficiency. Similar customizations can be added to invoices, quotes or any other module as each business
VTiger 7 Customization: Add/Create Opportunities from Mail Manager (Actions)
September 14, 2017
Article
Mail Manager for VTiger 7 has improved significantly compared to the previous versions. It’s more responsible, modern and a lot easier to navigate and manage emails. As in previous versions, Mail Manager has a feature (action) that allows users to create new records from the email e.g contact, organization, lead, tickets and activities. The only thing it is missing is an action to add new opportunities. To accommodate that, we added an action to “Add Opportunity” right from the Mail Manager. It opens a quick create modal popup and creates the opportunity + links the email message. That’s just one of the VTiger customizations we’ve done, if you are looking for a similar customization e.g adding other modules to Mail Manager or customizing it in any different way – please shoot us an email at help@vtexperts.com
VTiger 7 Customization: Convert Opportunities to Organizations, Invoices, Tickets & More
September 13, 2017
Article
VTiger 7 has new neat feature, which allows the Opportunity to be converted into a Project. In addition, it has an area where you can map the fields from Opportunity to Project (similar to Lead to Opportunity/Contact/Organization mapping). Opportunities are widely used in almost every business and each has it’s own way of handling them. One of our customers had a request to add an option to convert Opportunity to an Organization and Invoice. To accommodate that, we added a button “Convert to Organization” on the opportunity view. Once the button is clicked – it opens up a popup to fill out/verify mandatory fields before create new organization and invoice. We also added mapping area where the user can configure how the fields will map from one module to another, so no data has to be reentered. That’s just one of the VTiger customizations we’ve done – please give
VTiger 6 Customization: Add new Picklist Values while Creating a record (Without Going to Settings)
September 12, 2017
Article
Support for VTigers multiple fields types such as text, currency, picklist, multi-select, date and many more. These fields have to be created in administration panel, which we would expect to, however picklist/dropdown and multi-select fields also require administrator privileges to add selections. We came up with a solution, where you no longer need to go into “Picklist Editor” (which requires admin access) to create picklist/dropdown options, but instead – it can be done as you are editing or creating record in VTiger. We added a “Add New” as one of the picklist values and once selected, it will prompt the user to enter new value, which will be saved as a picklist option and will be available for everyone to be used going forward. That’s just one of the VTiger customizations we’ve done – please give us a call if you need such solution or anything else related to VTiger.
VTiger 7 Customization: Reconcile Invoices, Charges, Deposits & More
September 11, 2017
Article
VTiger has a great accounting suite built-in, however it’s lacking a reconciliation piece. One of our customers receives donations and deposits which have to be reconciled at the end of the month. To accommodate that, we built Deposit and Reconciliation VTiger modules, which allows them to record all the donations/deposits, by doing so – they input the amount for each. Next, reconciliation process starts – the user knows exactly how much they should have received for both deposits and donations and they start reconciling by inputting total amount and lookup all the donations/deposits that have not yet been reconciled. At the end of the day, the user will have reconciliation record with all the deposits linked as well as amounts matched. In case where totals don’t add up – we builtin an alert system, which will not allow to close reconciliation record unless the amounts match up to the
VTiger 6 Customization: “Click To Call” Functionality Compatible by Most Softphones
September 8, 2017
Article
VTiger and Asterisk/PBX integration can be challenging and requires a lot of resources (direct asterisk integration, extensions, server changes, etc..)  to get it right. We  have come up with a more simpler solution that converts phone number field into softphone compatible hyperlink also known as “Click to Call”. The phone call is triggered by “tel: xxxx” hyperlink and each phone field in all the VTiger views (list, detail and edit) has an icon can can be clicked to trigger the call on your softphone. It’s a very elegant and cost efficient solution to quickly place calls from VTiger using your own softphone or skype. That’s just one of the VTiger customizations we’ve done – please give us a call if you need such solution or anything else related to VTiger.
VTiger 7 Customization: Do not allow out of stock products to be added to Invoice/Sales Order
September 7, 2017
Article
Inventory management is a crucial part of every business. VTiger already has it built in and allows you to “in” and “out” inventory as the invoices, orders and purchase orders get created. Standard VTiger functionality warns you when the product you are adding is Out of Stock, however it does not prevent the user from adding it to the invoice or sales order – you can see where that might become a problem. We customized Invoice and Sales Order section to prevent out of stock products to be saved on the record. The way it works is – the user can still select the product and see that it’s out of stock, however once record is being saved – it will show a notification and will not allow the record to be saved until the product has been removed or quantity adjusted. In addition, the user can override
VTiger Customization for Public & Private Ticket Comments
September 6, 2017
Article
In the latest VTiger 7.0 release a feature was introduced which allows the comments to be set to Internal (private), meaning that only the users (vtiger) will be able to see the comment, while the portal users (contacts) will not. This feature is really helpful to restrict the visibility for the portal user and keep sensitive or technical details from the customer. One of our customers requested to enhance this feature where they would be able to slip the switch and set the comment to be internal (private) or external (public). In the standard VTiger, if the comment is set to internal or external – it can no longer be changed, however – we added the switch which allows that – see #1. Next, we added a “Post to Resolution” field, which basically creates a comment as well as updates “Solution” and “Status” fields on the ticket. This eliminates the
Multi Contact/Organization Relationship Field (stores multiple records)
September 5, 2017
Article
Standard Support for VTigers custom relationship fields for contacts, organizations and all the other modules. The standard functionality only allows to include ONE record in the field, meaning if you have a “Contacts” lookup field – you can only select one contact. We designed new custom UITYPES (field types) to address this issue. Using our new field types – you can now select multiple contacts or organizations into one relationship field. It is very convenient to add additional people (contacts or organization) that are potentially related to the record e.g project, opportunity, ticket and so on. That’s just one of the VTiger customizations we’ve done – please give us a call if you need such solution or anything else related to VTiger.
VTiger 7.0 GA (Stable) has been released
May 23, 2017
Article
VTiger 7.0 GA (Stable) Release We are thrilled to announce the release of VTiger 7.0 GA (Stable). New version of VTiger  was completely redesigned and has new user interface(theme), which a lot more responsible and user friendly. In addition, it has many new features along with the security updates. To find out more – please see offical vtiger announcement. VTiger 7.0 GA can be downloaded from vtiger.com. Official VTiger 7.0 GA (Stable) Download Link VTiger 7.0 GA interactive demo is available as well, please follow the link below VTiger 7.0 Open Source Live Demo The upgrade patch for VTiger 6.5 to 7.0, has already been released and the instructions can be found below. Step by Step Guide to Upgrade VTiger 6.5 to VTiger 7.0 Our VTiger Extension Pack has been already converted and will work with VTiger 7.0 right away. Note, that not all of the extensions have been
VTiger 7.0 GA Release & Extension Pack (Schedule, Updates & Compatibility)
May 21, 2017
Article
VTiger 7.0 GA Release VTiger 7.0 GA (Stable) has been released May 23rd, 2017. You can download it from vtiger.com or obtain latest code on git. You can find full feature list here. Here’s a VTiger 7.0 introductory/demo video which covers most of the features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jlhqKQSpP4 Extension Pack Compatibility with VTiger 7.0 Open Source Our team has been working really hard in the past few months to convert most of our extensions to be compatible with VTiger 7.0. We are excited to say, that 95% of our extensions have already been converted and are fully compatible with VTiger 7.0 open source. You can check the status of each as well as see which extensions have been discontinued for one reason or another. VTiger 7.0 Extension Pack Compatibility Chart In addition, our extension pages(on the website) have already been updated and include screenshots/videos/live demos & user guides
Step by Step Guide to Upgrade to VTiger 7.0
May 21, 2017
Article
VTiger 7 upgrade path is very similar to earlier versions. You will need to download the patch, extract it, backup your files/db and run the VTiger 7 migration wizard. This article provides step by step instructions to upgrade to VTiger 7.0. VTiger 7 has a completely redesigned user interface and a lot of new features. If you haven’t had a chance to test drive vtiger 7 – you can play around with our demo. VTiger 7 Open Source Demo Link If you are a ‘do it yourself’ type of person  and have enough knowledge about VTiger and its’ upgrade process – you should be able to do it yourself. On the other hand, if you consider your data too valuable to not risk, we at VTiger Experts can execute it for you. Our developers are skilled and highly experienced in upgrading VTiger to the latest version. #1: Creating Backup of
VTiger on Steroids
January 24, 2017
Article
If you are reading this article, chances are – you are a heavy VTiger user. As you probably know, there is no perfect CRM solution that can do everything your business needs, however VTiger can likely do 80% of the things that your business needs and to fulfill the rest – the best way is to add extensions or plugins. We’ve put together a list of most commonly used VTiger Extensions. It includes some of our favorites such as smart search, real time duplicate check, enhanced views and many more that really make VTiger more intuitive and user friendly CRM. 1. Chat With Your Team Emails are great, but they tend to get lost or buried in the inbox, so we came up with a chat plugin for VTiger. It allows you to create channels, private & group chats. It’s very easy to use – slides out/in without closing your
Filter VTiger Records by Last Date Contacted
November 2, 2016
Article
VTiger has a very sophisticated record activity/history log. On the contact, lead or organization you can see associated comments, activities(calls, meetings, todos), tasks, emails and updates. Each history log is associated with the date, however that date can not be filtered by. Say, if you need to find all the leads which had no email or comment activity within the last 30 days – currently, VTiger does not allow you to filter by activity history dates. We created a workflow that updates record “Last Date Contacted” with the date the last email was/activity or comment added. To take it step further, we also created fields to track individual activity type: Last Email Sent Date Last Email Opened Date (part of email tracking extension) Last Activity Date Last Comment Date Those fields are automatically and are available in filters and reports. That’s just one of the VTiger customizations we’ve done –
VTiger Mail Converter Customization
October 27, 2016
Article
Mail Converter can be a very powerful tool if configured properly. It is capable of creating records such as leads, contacts, organizations and tickets. In addition, it can be configured to automatically link all the correspondence(emails) between the VTiger user and lead/contact/organization. It is also widely used by support department.  Mail Converter can update existing and create new tickets, add comments and trigger notifications. In addition to all the standard VTiger Mail Converter functionality described above – we customized it to make it even more powerful. Here are a few custom rules/actions added to Mail Converter to accommodate custom business processes: Create Quote: The customer wanted to automatically create a quote as the email comes in. There were few special conditions, such as – who the sender/subject was and based on that – we automated quote creation from the email. Don’t Create Document: We added a trigger to allow the system
VTiger Custom Filter Permissions (Assign Filter to Group/Role/User)
October 26, 2016
Article
Filters in VTiger is most likely one most of most commonly used features. It allows you to create lists with different columns, sort and filter records. Current VTiger functionality allows filters to be set as default, listed in metrics and set as public. If you “Set Filler as Public” as public – it will be available for everyone to use it. In some cases not all filters would apply to all users and to accommodate that we customized VTiger filters to be assigned to certain group, role or an user. This allows system/department administrator to create filters and assign them to people who need to access it, without cluttering other users filter list. For any VTiger customization requests – please contact us via email or phone.
Public & Private Comments in VTiger
October 25, 2016
Article
Comments is one of the most commonly used modules in VTiger. It allows to create a  note/comment on any record, search and report by it. One of the common requests we get is to allow comments to be shared with just certain people or make them private all together. We customized VTiger Comments section and added ability to set comments as “Public” or “Private”. As part of the customization, we created a separate roles/group of people who can only see the “Private” comments, while all the other users can only see “Public” comments. In addition, we added ability to only show “Public” comments to customer portal users. This helps to keep the internal notes in the comments section and prevent your customers from seeing sensitive/irrelevant information. Each business uses comments slightly differently and this is a great example. Please contact us if you have any VTiger customization requests.
2 VTiger Extensions For Documents & Files Management
August 31, 2016
Article
There is no doubt about the importance of VTiger’s Document module. You can perform a lot of tasks with the module, but a couple of features are missing that may become very handy. Have a look at those features, covered very professionally by VTExperts with these extensions. VTiger Document Manager Just imagine creating one or multiple document records by simply dragging and dropping file or files anywhere on the screen. That is the potential of VTiger Document Manager. Being the top VTiger extension for Documents & Files/Folders management on the marketplace, it helps to keep all of the files organized. Plus, now you can see the user to whom the file belongs. You won’t have to go anywhere; the document and list themselves state the ownership. The extension is very accommodating in saving you precious minutes. It just takes about 30 seconds to open a document record, browse,
VTiger Integration with UPS
August 24, 2016
Article
Out of the box VTiger has a great system to handle sales orders which allows the user to convert the sales order into invoice, purchase order, as well as to create recurring invoices. If your business requires shipping and handling products – you might be able to take advantage of the VTiger customization we did, which allows users to generate tracking numbers and print labels using UPS API. The customization allows the user to generate tracking number from within the sales order screen, by simply clicking the button. It is integrated with UPS API, which sends the package weight, dimensions, location and retrieves valid tracking number stored in VTiger. The user can then click on the tracking number and it will open the UPS tracking website. In addition, we added the ability to process 100s of orders at a time. The customer who we built this for – is shipping 300-500
VTiger View with Multiple Tabs
August 23, 2016
Article
VTiger Detail view  can get busy very quick. Most businesses need to capture and store a lot of information (fields & blocks) on the record. Creating multiple blocks and 100’s of fields is one solution, however it becomes difficult for the user to scroll through all of those fields/blocks and find what’s needed. We came up with the solution that allows to create tabs and store the fields and blocks inside the tab. If you look at the screenshots below – you will see that the tabs make it a lot easier to find and update the record. We even added a ‘multi line’ tab which allows to create unlimited number of rows within the tab. Large description/text field is usually comes in handy as well. Need similar/same functionality implemented? Please contact us!
3 VTiger Extensions To Track Time & Stay On Top Of Support Tickets
August 2, 2016
Article
As the competition grows, companies deploy more and more advanced tools and techniques to avoid time consuming tasks or get them done rather quickly. As VTExperts always brings on some outstanding customizations for your VTiger CRM, we also thought it would make it more convenient for you if we categorize some really valuable extensions. So we collected a series of 3 VTiger extensions that you can employ to save time and make things easier for support team. VTiger Time Tracker – User Time Management VTiger Time Tracker Extension sounds like mere a time tracking customization. Yes, it allows users to keep track of time while working on important or otherwise assignments – but it does a lot more. It can run more than one timer, with the option to toggle between different running timers. Plus, it supports custom fields, comments, and manual time tracking. And it doesn’t have to stay on top;
VTiger 6 Customization: Custom Statement + Invoice Summary