vTiger QuickBooks 1.2.1 Now Available

Our latest version of vTiger-QuickBooks includes the following improvements:

• Mass add vTiger records to QuickBooks from the List View
• Customizable product and services mapping
• Easier record deletion
• Improved support for updating records on the QuickBooks side without negatively affecting the link

Coming soon:

• Support for vtiger custom fields.

Contact us or visit our website for more information.

vTiger-QuickBooks 1.2 Now Available

The new version of vTiger-QuickBooks Integration is ready. This version is available for vTiger 5.1 and vTiger 5.2. We're very happy to announce that this version is user installable. There is some configuration, but our installation script will handle all of the code and database modifications.

Changes:

• Installer package. This automatically installs the vTiger code and updates your database (Linux only for now).
  
• Updated UI
• Decreased footprint in the vTiger code, so now there are fewer conflicts if you've modified your code
• Fixed bug where Products were sent to QB as Services

Updated buttons in the UI. "Q" adds a Contact to QuickBooks. "T" Imports QuickBooks transactions into the Contact's history.

For more information visit our website or contact us via our web form.

vTiger QuickBooks for vTiger 5.2

We've updated our vTiger-QuickBooks Integration to work with vTiger 5.2.

A Quick Demo of Google Contacts Sync

Let's take a look at how easy it is to send a contact from vTiger to Google using Boru Google-vTiger Contact Sync, the first of many Google Apps Integrations.

If it's your first time using the sync, you'll have to authorize vTiger to access your Google Contact data. You only have to do this once. Just go to 'My Preferences':

Go to My Preferences and authorize vTiger to access Google Contacts data

Click the link to begin the authorization process.

If you don't have and authorization token, you'll be asked to get one from Google.

Click 'Grant Access' and you're all set.

The default settings only send Contacts that are assigned to you. You can change this to match any of your Contact filters on the Settings Page. For now, we'll just create a new Contact assigned to our demo user.

Create a Contact in vTiger.

As soon as you save the contact, it is sent to your Google account.

You'll immediately find the Contact in your Google Contact list.

The sync will be available early next week. Contact Boru for more information.

vTiger+ and vTiger QuickBooks

Boru strives to remain at the forefront of vTiger and CRM development.

Our vTiger+ brings together the sum of our experience in customization and bug fixes in one affordable package. With over 100 bug fixes and counting, starting your vTiger experience with vTiger+ eliminates the frustration and guesswork that goes into configuring a new system.

vTiger+ Home Page

Our vTiger QuickBooks Integration simplifies small business accounting. With our integration you can send Invoices, Sales Orders, Quotes and more straight to QuickBooks without entering any information twice. This not only saves time, but prevents the inevitable errors that accompany double data entry.

For the best in low cost small business solutions, combine the two. When you choose vTiger+ ask us about vTiger QuickBooks Integration.

For more information or to schedule a demo, contact us today.

Google Contact Sync Update

We have been making steady progress on our Google Contact Sync. It is almost ready for public consumption as a beta.

One of the main slowdowns was changing the authorization method to AuthSub. We think it is well worth the wait. By using AuthSub, users can grant vTiger access to their Google Contact information without disclosing their password to the vTiger host. This means that your vTiger provider can only access the data you specifically allow, and you can revoke access at any time without having to reset your password.

How it works in brief: The first time you sync your contacts with vTiger, you will be taken to a Google web page where you enter your password and grant vTiger access to your Contacts. Google then sends a token to vTiger that vTiger will use in lieu of a password. The metaphor Google uses is a valet key, which gives the valet limited access to your car. He can drive it for instance, but can not open the trunk.

Expect an announcement here and on our website in the next couple of weeks.

Automatically Send Transactions to QuickBooks

In vTiger-QuickBooks 1.1 you can set conditions for automatically transferring vTiger Invoices, Quotes, and Sales Orders based on status.

Just set check the statuses in the vTiger Settings page and when a transaction changes to that status, it will automatically transfer to QuickBooks.


This is just one more way that we have made vTiger and QuickBooks more convenient.

For more information about our vTiger QuickBooks integration, visit our website, or contact us directly using our web form.

Goldmine to vTiger Conversions

Boru offers both Goldmine and vTiger services, but what we've found over the years is that more and more people are choosing vTiger. Furthermore, people who were using Goldmine (ourselves included) are switching to vTiger.

Boru can ease the switch by migrating your data from Goldmine to vTiger and providing training.

For more information about switching from Goldmine to vTiger, contact us today.

vTiger QuickBooks Integration 1.1: Transaction Line Items in vTiger

With our new release of vTiger QuickBooks Integration, you can now see line-items from QuickBooks in the vTiger transaction history. With the server level license, after an Invoice, Sales Order, or Quote is created in QuickBooks the details are automatically sent to the associated vTiger Contact's Activity History.

vTiger-QuickBooks 1.1 Field Mapping

When we install vTiger QuickBooks Integration on your server, we give you the most common field mapping by default. If you need to change which vTiger field corresponds to which QuickBooks field, you can easily modify this with our improved mapping form.

Our field mapping form makes it easy to decide how vTiger Invoices, Sales Orders, and Quotes are sent to QuickBooks.

First, select the type of transaction to create in QuickBooks. Any vTiger transaction can be sent as an Invoice, Sales Order, or Sales Receipt.

Then, choose how each vTiger field will map to QuickBooks.

This is just one of the improvements we've made in our latest release. Call (800) 917-9616 or use our web form to learn more.

vTiger-QuickBooks 1.1 Released

vTiger-QuickBooks 1.1 is now available. We'll be writing more in depth about the new features in the next few days.

Major Changes

• New field mapping interface for Invoices, Sales Orders, and Quotes
• View line-items for QuickBooks transactions from the Contact View in vTiger
• Simplified interface for conditional transfer of vTiger transactions.

With all of the improvements being made to vTiger-QuickBooks Integration, the website is a little behind. Please use our web form or call (800) 917-9616 for more information.

Upcoming Google Apps Integrations

We are rapidly expanding our vTiger business into Google Apps Integrations that allow you to access your vTiger data from Google services such as Gmail. There are a lot of applications we're working on. Here's a taste of just one:

View upcoming vTiger Events from Gmail
We're creating a Google Gadget that will display the user's upcoming events in the sidebar. From Gmail you'll be able to see when your next meeting is and start an email to the Contact with just one click.

More details shortly. In the mean time, check out our other vTiger Customizations and modules.

vTiger+ Feature: Custom User Templates

Custom user templates are great for anybody who has to create many users. If a lot of your users have the same information like 'Reports to', 'Role', 'Address', etc, just create a template to store that information and it will be auto-filled when you create a new user.

Select 'User Templates' from the Settings menu. You can create a new template or edit an existing one.

Fill in any information that is shared by multiple users.

To use the template, select it from 'Select User Template' and the form will fill in any info stored in the template.

More vTiger+ information is available at our website or you can contact us directly using our web form.

vTiger+ Feature: Contact Details in Event Details

We've spent a lot of time making the calendar more useful in vTiger+. First, we added a mouseover to calendar events that will show information about the associated Contact or Account.

The feature I'm describing today displays the associated Contact or Account Info in the Event Details page.

Add a Contact or Account to the event's 'Related to'

Find the event on your Calendar and click.

Contact Details appear at the top, giving you a quick glance at the info you need for your call or meeting.

The next post will explain how we've enabled users to view the events of any user or display all events at once. Users can also filter by 'Completed' or 'Pending'.

To learn more about vTiger+ visit our website, or go directly to our web form to get in touch with our team today.

Google Contacts Sync

We've been working on a variety of Google Apps/vTiger Integrations for a while now. The first product we will release is a Contacts sync. We're working through some of the remaining issues at this point, but here's a preview of what is currently working.

The beauty of a Contact Sync with Google is that Contacts in Google can easily be linked to smart phones like the Blackberry and iPhone.

Our program is a fully automated 2-way sync between Google Contacts and vTiger Contacts. Sync settings are set on the user level, and the synchronization routine runs nightly. Let's take a look.

vTiger->Google Settings. Select a filter to determine which contacts are sent to Google. Choose a Group to receive Contacts.

The user can limit the Contacts that are sent to their Contact list by selecting an available Contact Search Filter. By default, this will only sync Contacts that are assigned to the current user. The user can also select which Google Contact Group will receive incoming Contacts.

Google -> vTiger Settings allow you to choose which Google Groups will send Contacts to vTiger. You don't have to share your Family Contacts with your colleagues :)

The Google to vTiger Settings allow you to select which Google Contact Groups will send Contacts to vTiger. This allows you to keep a list of Contacts in Google that you don't share with other vTiger Users.

Once these settings are configured, your Google Contacts will start syncing each night. Additions, modifications, and deletions made in Google or vTiger will be reflected in the other Contact list by the next day.

If you can't wait, you can run the sync immediately with the click of a button.

See more Boru customizations at our vtiger website.

vTiger+ Feature: Account Roll-up

A lot of vTiger Items can be linked to both Accounts and Contacts: Quotes, Sales Orders, Invoices, ToDos, Activities.

In vTiger+ we extended this to everything. Any item associated with a Contact, such as a Product or Document, also appears in Account Information as well. Now, even if you have Documents stored under multiple Contacts with the same Account, you can easily track them all from the Account View.

This features makes it easier to view all Account info at-a-glance, without worrying that there's a Document hiding under a Contact.

I wanted to include a screencast to demonstrate this feature, but I'm having trouble finding a program that I like, so it'll have to wait until later this week. In the meantime, visit our vTiger website to see all of our vTiger offerings.

vTiger+ Feature: Calendar Information

We're familiar with the complaint that the vTiger calendar doesn't show enough information in monthly view.

We addressed this in vTiger+. Hover your mouse over any event in the calendar's monthly view and you will see information about the Contact or Account related to the event.

Hover over an event in vTiger+ and get more details

Learn more about vTiger+ or inquire about how Boru and vTiger+ can improve your CRM experience.

vTiger+ Feature: Contact Search

Easy access to Contact information is one of the cornerstones of CRM, which means that easy access to search is incredibly important as well.

In standard vTiger, a user has to make too many clicks just to get to the advanced search, and once the advanced search is open he still has to set up the specific fields and conditions.

Any organization with a sizable list of Contacts needs to access advanced search on a regular basis in order to narrow their search results.
In a large company, where many users are doing many searches each day, the time wasted setting up searches really adds up. The hassle is felt companies of all sizes.

Our goal with vTiger+ is to make the most important a frequently used features faster and more intuitive.

In vTiger+ we bring the search menu into view as soon as you enter the Contacts section. On top of that, it defaults to an advanced search with a number of fields predefined. Take a look:

Contact Search in vTiger+ displays useful fields by default

Learn more about how vTiger+ can make your CRM experience faster, happier, and more productive.

vTiger+ Feature: Backup Outgoing Email

In addition to the fields we've added to the outgoing email server settings, vTiger+ allows you to set a backup outgoing email server.

If your primary server fails, all emails will be sent from the backup server until the primary is fixed.

vTiger+ Feature: Additional Email Settings

We added 3 fields to the outgoing server settings in vTiger+, our special vTiger build with over 75 bug fixes and added features:

1. Set the outgoing email port
2. auto-CC on all outgoing emails
3. auto-BCC on all outgoing emails

Visit borugroup.com/vtiger for more information.

Before

After

PDF Invoice

Boru is pleased to announce an improved PDF tool. Based on the PDF Configurator by Frank Piepiorra at crm-now.

We cleaned up the header section and made some modifications to the settings page, allowing you to easily create PDF Invoices, Quotes, Sales Orders , and Purchase Orders.

Visit borugroup.com/vtiger to learn more about our vtiger capabilities and services.

Original Header

New Header. Changed address formatting and fixed capitalization.

The Settings page. Most options can be turned off or on with a checkbox.

vTiger QuickBooks Integration

Boru has been working on a vTiger - QuickBooks Integration for some time and it's just about ready for release.


Key features

• Send vTiger Contacts to QuickBooks as Customer
  
• Send vTiger Accounts to QuickBooks as Customer
  
  
• View transactions history of QuickBooks Customers in their respective vTiger Contact Details
  
• Send vTiger Invoices to QuickBooks
  
• Send vTiger Sales Orders to QuickBooks
  
• Send vTiger Quotes to QuickBooks
  

We've gone to great pains to make sure our integration will work for anybody, no matter how they use QuickBooks or vTiger. To make this work, we've made the field mappings fully customizable.

Any vTiger Contact or Account field can be mapped to any QuickBooks Customer field. Transactions are just as flexible. Any vTiger Invoice, Sales Order, or Quote field can be mapped to any QuickBooks transaction field.

We've set up the link with the most logical defaults, but if your system is different, the field mappings are easy to change from our simple settings page.

Contacts Field Mapping Settings Page. Select the vTiger Field from the dropdown, then select the corresponding QuickBooks field. Add and remove fields as desired.

For more information, visit borugroup.com/vtiger_quickbooks

vtiger+

We've decided on a name for the previously announced vtiger skin, vTiger+. Check it out at borugroup.com/vtiger. Go to Setup > vTiger+ for more details.

vTiger Skin

Boru is currently developing a vTiger Skin. The Skin will incorporate a number of the fixes, modifications and customizations we've put into customer builds over the years.

Some of the changes are small; we changed the default Calendar view to Monthly Calendar View from Weekly List View.

Other changes are major feature additions; all Skin builds will have Google Maps Integration built in which allows you to see the location of a Contact and any nearby Contacts in a Google Map View from within vTiger.

The majority of changes fall somewhere in between. For instance, our Skin build will finally allow you to send a mass email to all people matching a search filter. The standard build only limited mass emails to the people listed on the current page.

And of course there's the bug fixes we've accumulated over the years.

View our current list of Skin features at on our website. Go to Setup > vTiger+

Quick Search Only Searches One Field

You can't search for a full name using the Quick Search bar because it only searches one field at a time. First Name and Last Name are separate fields, so the search for both fails.

To search multiple fields, go to the section you want to search (i.e. Contacts) and click on the magnifying glass to open the search form. Then click Advanced Search in order to search multiple fields.

Click More/Fewer to add fields to be searched.

For more convenient and powerful search, consider Customized Search. Follow the link to Capabilities > Customize.

Migrating Trouble Tickets to another Service Contract

Though the language used in vTiger suggests trouble tickets are deleted when they are removed from a Service Contract, this is not the case. Trouble Tickets can be added and removed from Service Contracts freely. They can even be associated with multiple Service Contracts at a single time.Follow these instructions to detach a Trouble Ticket from one Service Contract and attach it to another.

1. Open Service Contracts.
   
   
   
   
2. Select the Service Contract with the Trouble Ticket you want to detach.
   
   
   
   
3. Open the 'More Information' tab.
   
   
   
   
4. Click 'del' on the Trouble Ticket you want to detach. This will not delete the Trouble Ticket, it just disassociates it from the current Service Contract.
   
   
   
   
5. Open the Service Contract you want to associate with the Trouble Ticket.
   
   
   
   
6. Open the 'More Information' tab.
7. Click 'Select Trouble Tickets'.
   
   
   
   
8. Check the Trouble Tickets you want to add and click 'Select Trouble Tickets'.
   
   
   

The Trouble Ticket is now associated with another Service Contract.

Sort based on Start and End date

To sort your search results based on Start and End date you need to create a filter. On the right hand side of the screen, near the top is the filters drop-down box. Next to it is "New". Click "New" to create a filter.


Create a name for your filter. Choose the options you want: set it as default, add to list in Metrics, or make it public.


Choose the columns that you want to be visible in your search results. One of the columns you choose should be a date (i.e. Created Time).


Below the column selection is a "Standard Filters" tab, and within it is "Simple Time Filter". Choose the column you want to get a date range from, then choose the start data and end date. Duration should be set to custom by default. If it's not, change it.


Once you have the results, you can sort by date within that range by clicking on the "Created Time" column (or whichever column you chose).

For more advanced searches you can use the "Advanced Filters" tab. Choose less than the latest date and greater than the earliest date.

For even more advanced search, learn about our customized search at borugroup.com/vtiger

Looking to use the Outlook Plug-in for 5.10?

We recently had a client looking to use the Outlook plug-in for 5.10. The Outlook plug-in on the vTiger downloads page had quite a few errors, and we ended up making many code changes to the vTiger installation to get it working.

After trying to mass-deploy the plug-in to all computers used by the client, we found that the installation process is quite tedious and requires a per-install review to ensure all the correct dll/ocx files are installed and registered.

After some additional research, we found a better plug-in to use. It requires a small license fee, however its support and functionality was more than worth the fee.

More vTiger information can be found at borugroup.com/vtiger