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standalone contaccts
Posted: 16 Aug 08 8:10 AM
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I've asked this before on the partner site..... but I am still looking for a way to solve this problem.
Anyone figure out a way to have standalone contacts in the database?
I've thought about creating an additional table... however you lose so much by doing so. Like scheduling activities and workflow processes.
Another idea was to create one account record and link them all to that. However, when you have over 90K contacts linked to an account record with about 1.5M history records.... it tends to freeze if the user clicks on that account record. I even put in code to hide the account link on the contact record, but it still shows up when schedule an activity.
Also when you insert a record.... I haven't completely figured out how to bypass the 3 options and have just standalone contact as a 4th.... Would a completely separate screen be in order?
thanks in advance. |
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Re: standalone contaccts
Posted: 17 Aug 08 12:13 AM
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What's the benefit in doing this? Why not just let them have an account record? Everything in SLX is account based. Sync relies 100% on accounts as the top of the hierarchy.
I guess I just don't see the benefit in having contacts that don't have an associated account since so much of SLX relied on the existence of an account. Seems that would out-weigh any possible confusion that users might have by the extra account?
Is there some reason for doing this that I am missing?
-Ryan |
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Re: standalone contaccts
Posted: 17 Aug 08 6:00 AM
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Well, there are some really good database design reasons why you should be able to create contact records without an Account, but these are not relevant if you have to support SalesLogix Sync.
In that case, you need to have a new Contact form that will generate a "dummy" Account record in the Background. When we did have this as an option OOB in previous versions, it created the Account with a name of "Lastname, Firstname". It then depends on your users how much you need to take it from there. You might make a change to the Contact form to hide the Account name if they are of type "Individual".
From an Account group point of view, you need to train users not to use these Accounts (if it is a problem) but I am guessing that your situation will have users that mostly work with Contacts and that will not therefore be an issue.
Cheers,
Stephen
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Re: standalone contaccts
Posted: 17 Aug 08 8:38 AM
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I/m guessing that you might be trying to use SaLesLogix in a "B to C" (rather than "B to B") situation. In a B to C case.. I can see why you want a contact w/out an account.
However, as has been pointed out by Stephen.. if you do this, sync will not work for any of these records. Sync is hard-coded to operate at the Account level and has been that way since day 0 (over 11 years).
If the is a hard requirement I'd suggest you go the SageCRM or ACT route.
OR.. you will just have to have a hidden Account for your contact(s) |
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Re: standalone contaccts
Posted: 17 Aug 08 5:22 PM
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For a particular client, I have a single generic account to which all contacts are linked.
You can hide the account when scheduling an activity - assuming you are using an up-to-date version of SLX - by editing the Activity Details View form.
I have created a new managed function to bypass the screen displayed when you insert a new contact/account. When the user clicks INS now, a new screen is displayed allowing the input of contact details only. At the point of saving, the contact is automatically associated with the 'master' account - the user does not see any of this.
If you have remotes, controlling sync may become an issue for you using this method, but in other areas I believe it is the simplest solution.
You may find this related thread interesting:
http://www.slxdeveloper.com/forum.aspx?forumid=5000&postid=17480
Phil |
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Re: standalone contaccts
Posted: 17 Aug 08 7:05 PM
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Originally posted by Ryan Farley
What's the benefit in doing this? Why not just let them have an account record? Everything in SLX is account based. Sync relies 100% on accounts as the top of the hierarchy.
I guess I just don't see the benefit in having contacts that don't have an associated account since so much of SLX relied on the existence of an account. Seems that would out-weigh any possible confusion that users might have by the extra account?
Is there some reason for doing this that I am missing?
-Ryan |
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I know there is technical reason now as to standalone contacts are a bit harder to pull off. However, the benefit is simple ... To me Account = Company. If there is no company in play then why duplicate the information on both levels like it does now. Its extremely confusion to users. From my Goldmine people going to SLX.... they all give me this crazy look on their face.
I like how SugarCRM does accounts and contacts. A contact can be linked to many companies. So you can have a person that perhaps works/owners of multiple companies. However, i can admit it makes writing reports a bit of a hassle because of cross joins. and duplicates to watch out for if you don't do pay attention to how you are linking tables. But thats just my "Wish" for SLX. I doubt it will happen.
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Re: standalone contaccts
Posted: 17 Aug 08 7:06 PM
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Originally posted by Bob (RJ)Ledger
I/m guessing that you might be trying to use SaLesLogix in a "B to C" (rather than "B to B") situation. In a B to C case.. I can see why you want a contact w/out an account.
However, as has been pointed out by Stephen.. if you do this, sync will not work for any of these records. Sync is hard-coded to operate at the Account level and has been that way since day 0 (over 11 years).
If the is a hard requirement I'd suggest you go the SageCRM or ACT route.
OR.. you will just have to have a hidden Account for your contact(s) |
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A SageCRM route... hrm... Sounds interesting. Too bad I don't know the first thing about customizing for SageCRM |
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Re: standalone contaccts
Posted: 18 Aug 08 8:11 AM
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Originally posted by LeVar Berry
A SageCRM route... hrm... Sounds interesting. Too bad I don't know the first thing about customizing for SageCRM |
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You don't need to.. contract it out. A friend of mine in CT that is basically an ACT partner (she's been one for SO long.. way before SalesLogix time) and also does SalesLogix had a problem where one of her long time ACT clients has just outgrown his implementation.. they finally settled on SageCRM. She did the project mgmt.. and the Import (using InaPort from InaPlex).. contracted a SageCRM person to assist.. The rest is history.
Call you RAM/SAM and see if they can hook you up with someone.... or just put a request in The Partner NG.. there IS a SageCRM section there! |
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Re: standalone contaccts
Posted: 18 Aug 08 7:42 PM
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Here is my 2 cents... We have many people who are private investors (where the account and contact name are the same). When they first developed our system, they used 'Private Investor' as the account name and it was really a bad idea. I had 5K accounts named 'Private Investor' this was not prudent when looking up records. Then they started creating new contacts under 1 big account - this is very slow with the history but worse, someone updated the address of the account and it pushed through to the contacts. Glad we have history slices of the database - only a little data was lost - it took a week to discover this when got back close to 900 post cards addressed to the same place.
If you need to do this, I would have the account named, Lastname, Firstname - XX (the xx is your call). We use - PRIV. The reason for this is when we mail merge, I strip out the rows of data with -- PRIV in them or letter would look like
Marry Hartman
Hartmen, Marry
123 Mocking Bird Lane.
xxx
In today's day and age not everyone works for a company...  |
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Re: standalone contaccts
Posted: 19 Aug 08 12:26 AM
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... Then they started creating new contacts under 1 big account - this is very slow with the history but worse, someone updated the address of the account and it pushed through to the contacts. Glad we have history slices of the database - only a little data was lost - it took a week to discover this when got back close to 900 post cards addressed to the same place. ..
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This cascading update of contact addresses needs to be disabled! But that's not hard, just comment out the 'UpdateAccountContacts' call in the CheckForPrimaryAndShipping function.
Phil |
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