SugarCRM Customization: Custom Workflow E-mails

E-mail has become a popular tool for communication and for a number of purposes.

Within the scope of SugarCRM, the topic usually comes up in relation to the automation of some aspect of a business process, such as alerting a user when a record within the database has been assigned to them.  SugarCRM includes such a feature out of the box, but what if one wanted a bit more flexibility?

Suppose we encounter the following scenario:

Our deployment uses the Leads module to track and qualify potential customers.  Leads enter the system via two different ways: manual entry and web-to-lead.

Entries are required to have an e-mail address or they are not considered valid as our internal process use it for communications and other purposes.  Whenever a new lead is entered, it is automatically assigned to a specific user, who in turn receives an e-mail alerting them of the new record.  However, we want to expand this functionality to also automatically send a generic "Welcome/Thank You For Your Interest" message to the  Lead itself.

How do we go about accomplishing the above?

SugarCRM + IMAP + SSL Problems?

Been away from the blog for a few days.  Busy building some cool tools and others to come.. ;)

Anyway, here is an interesting tidbit which may help save you some headaches when using the SugarCRM e-mail client.

IMAP based e-mail accounts that require the use of SSL have a tendency to cause problems within SugarCRM's e-mail client.  In fairness, the majority of these problems are usually the result of one of the following:

1. Connectivity issues (e.g. firewalls)
2. PHP Configuration

Where SugarCRM could benefit is within the area where the e-mail settings are validated and tested.  SugarCRM does not check for potential problems with either of those potential traps and it tends to complicate the troubleshooting process.  Let's take a more in-depth look at one of these situations and hopefully save ourselves some future hair pulling.

SugarCRM In-Depth: E-mail Folders

The e-mail functionality in SugarCRM is one of the more intricate areas of the application.  It utilizes multiple tables for a variety of tasks, including storing and organizing messages.

Lets take a closer look at how the latter part works in this in-depth analysis of the e-mail folders system of SugarCRM's e-mail client.

To begin, lets take a look at what the default e-mail folder configuration looks like:

Notice that the following three folders automatically appear:

• My Email
• My Drafts
• My Sent Email

These are system folders and are used to house downloaded incoming e-mail, drafts and already sent messages respectively.  They should never be deleted as doing so may result in a loss of data.


Ironically, there are occasions on which the folders will disappear through no action of the user, thus making it difficult to access the e-mail messages they contain.


Troubleshooting this problem helps one obtain a good understanding of the underlying architecture of the e-mail folders system, so lets dive in and take a look.