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How to Setup SugarCRM Part 3: Backups

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So far we’ve looked at installing SugarCRM and walking through the initial setup with the login wizard. Now, we’ll go through the process of creating a backup of the SugarCRM system. The process applied here translates to upgrading any SugarCRM version or edition. The time it takes to backup a SugarCRM system largely depends on the size of the system. If your SugarCRM instance is relatively new, the backup process should take less than an hour, start to finish. For systems that have been around for a few years, and get a lot of usage, the backup may take three or four hours, or maybe more. Be sure to schedule enough time to complete your upgrade, and make sure that all the users of the system are aware that a backup is going to happen, and when.

There are two components to any SugarCRM installation that we need to backup: the application and the database. Before you begin taking a backup, you should make sure that no one is using the system. This is for two reasons:

  1. The system performance may slow down
  2. To avoid mismatches between the application and the database.
Disconnect

Disconnect Yourself – Restore Energy and Learn More

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Today more than ever we are constantly tethered to technology and communication. When we think about how we communicate with each other, often the first thing that comes to mind isn’t the phone, it’s email. However, social media platforms such as facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and others are rapidly competing to become the communication channel of choice with advanced in online voice and video technology. As we sit at our desks, we usually have a number of these communication platforms open, either as an application or as a web page and they each have sneaky methods to get our attention when something happens – popups, sound alerts etc.

With so much information streaming right into our eyeballs it’s no wonder people are suffering from stress. Our brains are simply not equipped (or we have not yet evolved enough) to cope with information in such enormous volumes.

Checklist

Formulating Tasks To Get Things Done

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Before working through your task list, you need to have a good strategy behind actually creating and adding to that list. You can’t just put any old thing on a task list. Creating a task involves a number of subtle steps, which, with practice, will become so natural you won’t recognize that you’re actually doing them at all. In assessing a potential task your mind does a number of things. Some take time. Some are practically instant.

1. Identify the Objective

When you’re given a task or a project to do, it’s usually pretty vague. It’s up to you to understand what it means and how to get it done. Identifying the objective is understanding what the end result should be. How will you know when you’ve finished the project? This is more complex than it sounds. If the project you’ve been handed is, for example, “write a report on X”, it would seem like the object is to simply write the report. But, there may be other factors to consider before the project can be considered “completed”. Does the report need to be reviewed by someone? Do you have all the necessary information to write the report? Is the deadline reasonable? Only after these questions have been answered can you move on to the next step. Most of the time, our minds ask these questions internally in a split second. If we get stuck in identifying the objective, it’s time to ask the person that handed you the project, or if you created the project on your own, you’ll need to reconsider what the expected outcome looks like.

SugarCRM

How to Setup SugarCRM Part 1: Installation

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This guide will take you through the necessary steps to install and log in to SugarCRM Community Edition. Once installed, you can optionally upgrade to the latest version of SugarCRM Community Edition, or upgrade to SugarCRM Professional or Enterprise. SugarCRM Community Edition is a free application. The only costs involved in the below guide is the web hosting from HostMonster (which is the most cost-effect, feature-rich, and most flexible, hosting provide that I have found – that’s why I host all my websites, including www.cloudproductivity.net with them).

Email Clock

The Right Time for Email

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There are a lot of applications out there that are aimed at helping you be more productive, either individually, or as a team. However, there are just as many, or maybe more, that make you unproductive. In today’s day and age, the biggest killer of productivity is email.

In my time sitting a desk in a 9-5 job, I’ve learned a couple of very effective strategies for managing email and the time spent in the inbox.

Evernote. Remember Everything.

How To Use Evernote – My Story

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Evernote has changed my life. It’s such a simple thing, but it has had a massive impact on my day-to-day life. I have a really bad memory, so I use it to remember everything, so I don’t have to.

I remember first hearing about Evernote in mid 2010 and dismissed it pretty quickly, thinking “why would I need another note taking tool when I can use the Notes app on my iPhone or a text editor on my computer, or Google Docs?”. A few months later, I thought it might give it another go as a way to write down and keep notes from meetings and be able to easily reference them again later.

And that was just the beginning…

CRM Strategy

CRM is Business Strategy, Not Technology

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In my years working for the SugarCRM Partner, InsightfulCRM, I continually got the impression that customers and prospects were in the market for a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system because they’d heard the term CRM thrown around and believed a CRM system would help their business. Also, people believed that CRM was a piece of software that was managed by IT and was a burden to use. This is not the case.

What is CRM?

CRM is best understood by looking at the full expanded version of the term. Customer Relationship Management. As a business, we care about customers, prospects and partners, so let’s remove the term ‘Customer’. CRM now becomes simply Relationship Management. Nowhere do we mention “software”, “system” or even “technology”. Relationship Management is about effectively engaging, and tracking the relationships you have with you customers, prospects and partners. What does this mean? In it’s most basic form, you do not need technology to perform effective Relationship Management. Sure, there is technology around that helps make it a bit easier to keep track of and manage these people, but such technology is not essential.

Do ERM, not CRM

Effective Relationship Management (hmm… ERM…. that’s got a nice ring to it) is the way in which an individual tracks and manages their relationships. This can easily translate beyond the realm of business and into our personal lives. And it already has! Your email, address book, social media such as facebook and LinkedIn, are all different methods of ERM. While these systems are indeed technology, I want to stress three points:

  1. None of them are labelled as a “CRM system”
  2. They each serve a separate and unique purpose, but we all use more than one
  3. We would be able to perform ERM without them!

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