So the day has come upon us. Last week, we reached the 10,000 ticket mark (which actually means 9,000 tickets because CommitCRM starts with 1,000 but just the same, another digit had been added to our ticket numbers)!
This also almost exactly marks out 6-year anniversary (6 years that we have been using CommitCRM). We initially started with the trial (v3.7.5.3) back in February of 2007 and moved into production July 1st of the same year. I have to say that for the most part, we have been very happy with CommitCRM, the people behind it and the community at large. In this time, we have grown and so has CommitCRM.
Through the years, I have made many comments, requests and suggestions as well as answered a few questions along the way. I think I can fairly say that we have been active with the community and understand the product pretty well. It is with this understanding, experience and history that I am tossing out a (short?) list of top-7 things that we feel are critical to getting CommitCRM (and by extension, us!) to the next level. And so, our top-7 list:
1) Projects:
At the very top of our list is having the ability to see and track everything that is happening at the project level. This is critical to our existence and we MUST find a way to do this moving forward. What we are talking about is the creation of a “master ticket” and a “sub-ticket” hierarchy (obviously the “master ticket” would be called a Project). Because we have so many projects with different employees working on different (but associated and linked) tickets, having the ability to see all the activity of the project, under one all-connected group is required. Basically, we need to be able to have a Project ticket that allows us to see (and filter accordingly) everything under the sub-tickets including; which employees are working on each ticket, due dates, status, status extensions, charges, etc. Please do NOT suggest that Tasks can do this function (I won’t elaborate here but the tasks feature, while a terrific idea, is very poorly implemented). We understand that this is not a trivial add-on and will require careful thought and attention to implement but having a “master” and “sub-ticket” hierarchy will, without a doubt, take the CommitCRM product to a new level.
2) Linking multiple assets to a ticket:
We initially had difficulty in deciding if this should be our #1 request but after a short while, projects became our clear choice. That is not to say this is not a critically missing function, to the contrary! One of the main problems with being able to properly document what is happening with an asset is the inability to link multiple assets to tickets. The problem here is that when a ticket is created for actions to more than one asset, it is impossible to bridge the ticket to each asset, which completely breaks the information linking chain. Until this gets fixed, CommitCRM will always be lacking in the ability to properly track work done to assets (this really is not an optional feature). This is a MUST HAVE feature.
3) More fields and multi-select boxes for contacts:
This one is a big deal for me personally. The fact that CommitCRM is called a CRM (Client Relationship Management) system means we should be able to track client information. This is impossible when we only have eighteen (18!) fields plus a notes field. To put this into perspective, Outlook literally has hundreds of fields. Eighteen fields is simply inadequate to properly track information on contacts. One example is that we are limited to two email addresses and two phone numbers. In addition, having the ability to add custom selection boxes (check box lists under special custom fields) similar to Outlook categories would be amazing! This would allow CommitCRM users to create lists for things like flagging contacts with specific rights (e.g. are they allowed to call into the helpdesk, can they ask to have user accounts added/deleted, are they authorized to access domain servers, etc.) or special contact procedures (are they a primary technical contact and should be called for major outages, do we send them monthly marketing materials, are the on our company holiday card list, etc.). Bottom line is that 18 fields and the lack of check box lists is killing us in the client relations area.
4) Fix the accounting module:
I have elaborated on this numerous times and find it somewhat amazing that this simple but obvious accounting module bug has still not been fixed. In short, markup and discounts MUST calculate on quantity (per piece) instead of totals because calculating off of the total introduces rounding errors (seriously!). Also, all CommitCRM users need the ability to enter negative quantities and have the system properly reverse things out (including markup/discounts, etc.) so that product can be returned to “inventory” -- this is not possible with the current accounting engine. Here are a couple of the referenced discussions on the topics: here, here, here, here, here,
here
5) Better Exchange integration:
There needs to be a server module that connects directly to the exchange server and keeps information in sync. This needs to run as a service so that we can remove the role from the client level.
6) Adding another level of Management (users):
We are now at the level where we have techs, lead techs and account managers. It would be a huge benefit if we could assign not only an Account Manager but a Lead Tech to an Account and then Tickets respectively. This would allow CommitCRM users to have Account Managers monitor and maintain client relationships better while allowing the Lead Techs to process tickets.
7) Custom Contracts:
It’s been asked by many but nothing has changed here. For example, being able to have all contracts (including the system default) mark new charges not-billable is needed.
OK, this posting has a lot of information and feedback that really needs to be digested to be understood. Nothing here is new though and a quick search in the forum will find many different discussions with many different people talking about each issue. We understand that there are hundreds (thousands?) of requests and please realize that we are not here to bashCommitCRM. To the contrary, as said earlier, CommitCRM has done a terrific job so far and does seem to listen to the community however, there are some foundation features and functions that MUST get addressed.
As always, I am open for discussion on any of these (and other) topics. Just let us know how we can assist. Thanks!!!
//ray
This also almost exactly marks out 6-year anniversary (6 years that we have been using CommitCRM). We initially started with the trial (v3.7.5.3) back in February of 2007 and moved into production July 1st of the same year. I have to say that for the most part, we have been very happy with CommitCRM, the people behind it and the community at large. In this time, we have grown and so has CommitCRM.
Through the years, I have made many comments, requests and suggestions as well as answered a few questions along the way. I think I can fairly say that we have been active with the community and understand the product pretty well. It is with this understanding, experience and history that I am tossing out a (short?) list of top-7 things that we feel are critical to getting CommitCRM (and by extension, us!) to the next level. And so, our top-7 list:
1) Projects:
At the very top of our list is having the ability to see and track everything that is happening at the project level. This is critical to our existence and we MUST find a way to do this moving forward. What we are talking about is the creation of a “master ticket” and a “sub-ticket” hierarchy (obviously the “master ticket” would be called a Project). Because we have so many projects with different employees working on different (but associated and linked) tickets, having the ability to see all the activity of the project, under one all-connected group is required. Basically, we need to be able to have a Project ticket that allows us to see (and filter accordingly) everything under the sub-tickets including; which employees are working on each ticket, due dates, status, status extensions, charges, etc. Please do NOT suggest that Tasks can do this function (I won’t elaborate here but the tasks feature, while a terrific idea, is very poorly implemented). We understand that this is not a trivial add-on and will require careful thought and attention to implement but having a “master” and “sub-ticket” hierarchy will, without a doubt, take the CommitCRM product to a new level.
2) Linking multiple assets to a ticket:
We initially had difficulty in deciding if this should be our #1 request but after a short while, projects became our clear choice. That is not to say this is not a critically missing function, to the contrary! One of the main problems with being able to properly document what is happening with an asset is the inability to link multiple assets to tickets. The problem here is that when a ticket is created for actions to more than one asset, it is impossible to bridge the ticket to each asset, which completely breaks the information linking chain. Until this gets fixed, CommitCRM will always be lacking in the ability to properly track work done to assets (this really is not an optional feature). This is a MUST HAVE feature.
3) More fields and multi-select boxes for contacts:
This one is a big deal for me personally. The fact that CommitCRM is called a CRM (Client Relationship Management) system means we should be able to track client information. This is impossible when we only have eighteen (18!) fields plus a notes field. To put this into perspective, Outlook literally has hundreds of fields. Eighteen fields is simply inadequate to properly track information on contacts. One example is that we are limited to two email addresses and two phone numbers. In addition, having the ability to add custom selection boxes (check box lists under special custom fields) similar to Outlook categories would be amazing! This would allow CommitCRM users to create lists for things like flagging contacts with specific rights (e.g. are they allowed to call into the helpdesk, can they ask to have user accounts added/deleted, are they authorized to access domain servers, etc.) or special contact procedures (are they a primary technical contact and should be called for major outages, do we send them monthly marketing materials, are the on our company holiday card list, etc.). Bottom line is that 18 fields and the lack of check box lists is killing us in the client relations area.
4) Fix the accounting module:
I have elaborated on this numerous times and find it somewhat amazing that this simple but obvious accounting module bug has still not been fixed. In short, markup and discounts MUST calculate on quantity (per piece) instead of totals because calculating off of the total introduces rounding errors (seriously!). Also, all CommitCRM users need the ability to enter negative quantities and have the system properly reverse things out (including markup/discounts, etc.) so that product can be returned to “inventory” -- this is not possible with the current accounting engine. Here are a couple of the referenced discussions on the topics: here, here, here, here, here,
here
5) Better Exchange integration:
There needs to be a server module that connects directly to the exchange server and keeps information in sync. This needs to run as a service so that we can remove the role from the client level.
6) Adding another level of Management (users):
We are now at the level where we have techs, lead techs and account managers. It would be a huge benefit if we could assign not only an Account Manager but a Lead Tech to an Account and then Tickets respectively. This would allow CommitCRM users to have Account Managers monitor and maintain client relationships better while allowing the Lead Techs to process tickets.
7) Custom Contracts:
It’s been asked by many but nothing has changed here. For example, being able to have all contracts (including the system default) mark new charges not-billable is needed.
OK, this posting has a lot of information and feedback that really needs to be digested to be understood. Nothing here is new though and a quick search in the forum will find many different discussions with many different people talking about each issue. We understand that there are hundreds (thousands?) of requests and please realize that we are not here to bashCommitCRM. To the contrary, as said earlier, CommitCRM has done a terrific job so far and does seem to listen to the community however, there are some foundation features and functions that MUST get addressed.
As always, I am open for discussion on any of these (and other) topics. Just let us know how we can assist. Thanks!!!
//ray
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