Interaction Design : Setup your Online / On-Demand CRM
Before a CRM can be used, it has to be configured to meet the organization's work-flow. Here are the typical steps involved in configuring an Online / On-Demand CRM.
1. Company Setup
This is where you enter all the details about the organization. The name, URL, logo, address etc. Other vital information such as Currency, Tax system, Locale, Time zone should be configured here.
2. Modules Setup
This is where you should manage the CRM modules. If your organization treats leads and contacts as same, then probably you can eliminate Leads and enable Contacts alone. Such operations should be done in this level.
3. Select Offerings
Any organization has to sell or promote something. Broadly the offerings can be classified into Products (Physical objects) or Services (non-physical such as Web Services, Trainings etc). Some organizations may offer both. Some organizations prefer to call "Products" instead of Services.
After choosing the classification, enter full or partial list of Products's details. Info could be Name, Price, Description, Quantity, Service Tag no, et cetera. Mark what fields are mandatory and if the software allows Dependancy Mapping, specify the dependancy between fields.
Some organizations follow Price Book method for each product/service's pricing. If so, you should setup Price Books. And in some cases, some products may carry different Tax structure (like First Sales, Second Sales etc), which would require to be specified here.
4. Billing / Invoicing
This is another key stage where you should define the Invoice model (layout) and certain terms pertaining to the organization's billing model. Some organizations use Net-30, Net-45 model while, some don't. Setup all those parameters in this stage.
Next depending on the operating country's tax guidelines, setup the tax model. Mostly it falls into two categories. Individual product tax (or) Tax for the whole Invoice amount.
5. Leads/ Potentials/Accounts-Contacts Fields
This is where you should setup the fields for Leads, Potentials, Accounts-Contacts. Using a Layout editor, you can arrange/move the fields and prepare a relevant web-form that closely matches the organizations papers. Configure which fields are mandatory, if necessary define Dependency-mapping too.
6.Hierachy, Access rights and User creation
This is the crucial step, which allows to create the Hierarchy (CEO, CFO, Sales Manager, Customer Executives etc) and assign Access rights to the hierarchy. For example, the executives can be assigned read-only rights to certain critical information, but can read-write generic information.
Additionally you can create usernames/logins.
6. Test Run
Import some demo data and check if the work-flow is correctly captured. Fine tune untill the data is processed as per the work-flow.
7. Reports and Dashboards
This is an optional stage, where the Reports and Dashboards are configured.
Thus it will take nearly 3 to 6 hours minimum to setup the workflow. And it will take nearly a week or even a month to fine tune the setup to match the work flow. I have covered only the basic/general steps involved. These may vary depending upon the target domain.
- Rajesh Sundaram
1. Company Setup
This is where you enter all the details about the organization. The name, URL, logo, address etc. Other vital information such as Currency, Tax system, Locale, Time zone should be configured here.
2. Modules Setup
This is where you should manage the CRM modules. If your organization treats leads and contacts as same, then probably you can eliminate Leads and enable Contacts alone. Such operations should be done in this level.
3. Select Offerings
Any organization has to sell or promote something. Broadly the offerings can be classified into Products (Physical objects) or Services (non-physical such as Web Services, Trainings etc). Some organizations may offer both. Some organizations prefer to call "Products" instead of Services.
After choosing the classification, enter full or partial list of Products's details. Info could be Name, Price, Description, Quantity, Service Tag no, et cetera. Mark what fields are mandatory and if the software allows Dependancy Mapping, specify the dependancy between fields.
Some organizations follow Price Book method for each product/service's pricing. If so, you should setup Price Books. And in some cases, some products may carry different Tax structure (like First Sales, Second Sales etc), which would require to be specified here.
4. Billing / Invoicing
This is another key stage where you should define the Invoice model (layout) and certain terms pertaining to the organization's billing model. Some organizations use Net-30, Net-45 model while, some don't. Setup all those parameters in this stage.
Next depending on the operating country's tax guidelines, setup the tax model. Mostly it falls into two categories. Individual product tax (or) Tax for the whole Invoice amount.
5. Leads/ Potentials/Accounts-Contacts Fields
This is where you should setup the fields for Leads, Potentials, Accounts-Contacts. Using a Layout editor, you can arrange/move the fields and prepare a relevant web-form that closely matches the organizations papers. Configure which fields are mandatory, if necessary define Dependency-mapping too.
6.Hierachy, Access rights and User creation
This is the crucial step, which allows to create the Hierarchy (CEO, CFO, Sales Manager, Customer Executives etc) and assign Access rights to the hierarchy. For example, the executives can be assigned read-only rights to certain critical information, but can read-write generic information.
Additionally you can create usernames/logins.
6. Test Run
Import some demo data and check if the work-flow is correctly captured. Fine tune untill the data is processed as per the work-flow.
7. Reports and Dashboards
This is an optional stage, where the Reports and Dashboards are configured.
Thus it will take nearly 3 to 6 hours minimum to setup the workflow. And it will take nearly a week or even a month to fine tune the setup to match the work flow. I have covered only the basic/general steps involved. These may vary depending upon the target domain.
- Rajesh Sundaram
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