SugarBPM (Formerly Advanced Workflow) Updates

SugarBPM™ features are only available in Enterprise and Ultimate Edition

• SugarBPM™
  • Enabling our customers to map out and enforce their business processes is a difference maker. Over the years, we’ve built an incredibly powerful BPM engine, and we’re taking it to a new level in Sugar 9. Our workflow engine is jam-packed with so many new BPM features that we’ve rebranded it as SugarBPM, allowing us to recognize the truly awesome breadth and depth of these new capabilities.

• Start Event Support for “All” or “Any” Related Records
  • When more than one related record may be affected by a process definition’s Start event, the administrator can specify if the criteria must be true for all related records or just one or more of the related records, allowing actions to be triggered based on what happens across multiple records.

• Multi-layer Module Relationships
  • Add Related Record
    • Create a new Sugar record and relate it to the target Sugar record or to a record related to the target record.
  • Change Fields
    • Change the value of one or more fields on the target record, on records related to the target record, or on records related to that related record.

• Activity Elements in Event Based Processes
  • Human activity elements can now be incorporated into SLA based processes allowing event-based gateways to detect whether a form activity has been completed before a condition has been met or within a set period of time. If it is not completed, the form activity can be re-routed to another approver.

• Enhanced Operators for “Listen” Events
  • Global process termination settings can now listen for changes to a field, including changes to or from a specified value. This allows administrators to, for example, restart timed events by terminating a running process and starting it over when a certain field changes.

• Recipient Lists
  • The recipient list for process email templates may include email addresses from any module related to the target record as well as recipients related to the related modules, enabling you to reach a wider and more selective set of recipients.

• Process Email Template To/From Variables
  • The Fields Selector tool now lets users insert the current (i.e. “changes to”) and the old (i.e. “changes from”) values of a changed field into process email templates.

• Tagging Support
  • The tags feature, already commonly used in other parts of Sugar, is now available on record views and list views for SugarBPM modules (i.e. Process Definitions, Process Business Rules, and Process Email Templates) allowing for better organization and quick navigation for administration and maintenance of business processes.

• Import and Export Process Definitions, Business Rules, Email Templates, and Tags
  • Making it easier to design, execute, iterate, and perfect Workflows in development and staging environments before implementing in production, email templates and process business rules will automatically export as part of their related process definition’s .bpm file. Gateway path criteria for process definitions will remain defined when exported from Sugar 9.x or higher and then imported to another environment running the same or higher version. Any tags that are applied to SugarBPM module records will also export and import as part of the .bpm package.

• Admin Configuration
  • Process auto-save and auto-validate options have been added to Sugar’s System Settings page in a new panel labeled “SugarBPM”. This is also where users will find the Error Number of Cycles setting, which has been relocated in this version.

• Process Validation
  • The enhanced Process Validator lets users validate process definition designs on import and on an as needed basis. The validation job detects configuration errors as well as sequencing mistakes.

Group Outgoing Email Support

• Shared Outgoing Email Accounts
  • Whether for Sales or Customer Service, CRM is a team game. Teams that want to communicate with their customers through a single channel can now create and send email from shared email accounts..
  • Outgoing accounts created via the Emails module now include a Teams field, allowing users to share the outbound account with the right team or teams. Members of included teams will be able to send email from the new outgoing email account. By default, these accounts are assigned to the user’s private team. Shared outgoing email accounts can be quickly and easily set up by one person, and then instantly accessible to teams.

• “Reply-To” Name and Email Address
  • Users can now configure the “Reply-to” name and address in each outgoing email account.

Report Improvements

You can see the updates to Reports in action in this video: Winter ’19 Reporting 

• Reports Distribution
  • The new Report Schedules module (for Enterprise and Ultimate editions) allows users to conveniently schedule emailed reports for themselves and entire teams of users. This ensures everyone can operate from the same set of data.
  • Scheduled reports functionality (for Professional edition) has been migrated to the new Report Schedules module which makes it easier for a user to manage their emailed reports.

• Out-of-the-Box Reports
  • Sugar now includes 110 out-of-the-box reports, helping new users get up and running with Sugar faster by giving an excellent starting point and can be used as-is or as the basis for custom reports. They demonstrate best practices for CRM reporting and allow customers to be more data driven while managing their sales and support operations..
  • 60 of these new reports come with charts that you can bring into your dashboards to give everyone on your team an at-a-glance view of the most important business metrics.

• Data Visualization in Reports
  • In addition to the familiar stacked-style horizontal and vertical bar charts in Sugar, users may now select Grouped Vertical Bar and Grouped Horizontal Bar charts as new options for visualizing reports providing easier data analysis and helping you make informed decisions.

• Reporting on Product Catalog 
  • The Product Catalog module now is available to use in reports to give users a better picture of products within Sugar.

• Exporting Reports
  • Want to view, refine, or gain additional insights in other tools? All report types can now be exported to CSV.

Product Catalog Updates

• Product Catalog Quick Picks Dashlet 
  • The Product Catalog Quick Picks dashlet allows users to access products that are recently used or marked as favorites and add them as line items on opportunities and quotes, giving users quick access to the products they use the most.
  • See the Quick Picks dashlet in action here: Winter ’19 Product Catalog Quick Picks
• Favoriting Product Catalog Records
  • Product catalog records can now be marked as favorites via the Product Catalog list view/record view, Product Catalog dashlet, or Product Catalog Quick Picks dashlet.

Quotes Updates

• Quotes Module User Interface Configuration
  • Administrators can configure the available fields and their order for quotes worksheets, generating clear, comprehensive, and accurate quotes for prospects and customers. Prior to Sugar 9, these types of changes required costly code-based customizations. Now they can be done inside of Sugar with our all-new and upgrade-safe capabilities. 
  • Administrators can configure the available fields and their order for quotes worksheets, generating clear, comprehensive, and accurate quotes for prospects and customers.

• Quoted Line Item Currency
  • Users now have the ability to change the line item’s currency when creating or editing quotes.

Comment Log

• Comment Log Field
  • The Comment Log field, a shared log of messages, comments, or other text, has been added to the Bugs and Cases modules and is available to be added by administrators to other modules.
  • Sugar is about collaborating, and conversations about accounts, cases, contacts or leads belong directly in the CRM. Important customer information shouldn’t get lost in email or side conversation, but be accessible right in the context of the Sugar record.
  • This new feature enables users to foster collaboration and provide a time-stamped record within Sugar so that everyone is on the same page.
  • Comment Log entries are expandable and collapsible. Admins can configure how many characters to display by default.
  • See the Comment Log in action here: Winter ’19 Comments Log

Data Privacy Updates

For more detail on SugarCRM’s data privacy initiatives, please visit Data Privacy & Sugar space in the community

• Opt-In Link
  • Users can now generate a unique link to send to customers which, when clicked, will mark opted-out email addresses as opted-in, ensuring your customers are giving clear and explicit consent to future communications. This feature can be used to enable double opt-in capabilities.

• Activity Streams Field Erasure
  • Erasing personal information via the Data Privacy module now removes erased values from activity stream posts and is now replaced with ‘Value Erased’.

Additional Improvements

• Revenue Line Items in Preferred Currencies
  • Users now have the ability to add revenue line items from the product catalog using their preferred currency instead of the product catalog item’s currency by enabling the Create Revenue Line Items in Preferred Currency option in their user profile.

• Emoji Support
  • The Emails module can now display emojis used in outgoing or inbound message content when the messages are logged in Sugar from an external mail application.
  • Users can now use emojis in Sugar text fields.

• New Login Page
  • The Sugar login screen has been updated to give users a more collaborative experience. Sugar users can now keep an eye out for important information like product and company updates, useful resources, and more from SugarCRM whenever they log into Sugar.
  • Instances with customized login screens will have this option disabled automatically on upgrade and this option can be managed by Sugar admins.

Platform Improvements

• Significant Application Performance Improvements
  • One of the most important aspects of Sugar is overall performance. No matter how proficient users become at working in Sugar, they can only operate as quickly as the system allows them. We’ve made huge improvements this year in tuning Sugar so you can access the information you need in the moment you need it.
  • API performance has been optimized with measurements showing improvements in List View performance of up to 600% with large datasets.
  • Application throughput also has improved. We expect that customers can process up to 70% more transactions on the same hardware.