1. INTRODUCTION In the services companies, all the main organization processes are related to the customers activities. The real production process is the service made for the customers. In fact if we have a look to service definition it s: Intangible products such as accounting, banking, cleaning, consultancy, education, insurance, expertise, medical treatment, or transportation No transfer of possession or ownership takes place when services are sold, and they (1) cannot be stored or transported, (2) are instantly perishable, and (3) come into existence at the time they are bought and consumed (source: http://www.businessdictionary.com). VTECRM gives to the services companies the opportunity to manage services and customers at the same time. In fact, the application is designed to follow the customer from the beginning (as a lead) to the potential management (as quotes, orders), and when the customer decides to buy, it s possible to manage the provision of services (as projects, operations, services contract). Moreover, because the main part of the services are made in real time by the organization employees, the application provides powerful Calendar and Mail modules. In this way, without any difficulty, your team can manage service processes and gather information about customers and their potential. All in a unique environment, avoiding to do the same things two times. 2. WHAT IS VTECRM? VTECRM manages all the CRM processes, and also the unstructured processes which are mainly related to email and calendar activities. VTECRM allows you to manage all the flows related to customer and supplier management. All the activities on customer, carried out by different business teams, are archived and always accessible. Processes managed by VTECRM: - data management, accounts, leads, potential and acquired customers - new customer acquiring cycle, offer cycle, customer service cycle, order cycle, billing cycle - shared calendar - webmail - PDF and RTF documents - newsletter management and statistics - project management and work planning - report visit management, expenses allowance, shared resources, unsolved VTECRM incorporates a powerful calendar (that can be easily integrated with the best known solutions such as Exchange, Zimbra, Lotus Notes, Google Calendar) and a client mail (web) that allows you to use calendar activities and email as a "trigger" in order to create directly CRM data. VTECRM is the leader open source software in the Italian CRM market, with 9000 activations (VTE Free + Business). VTECRM is used by leader companies in different business areas, such as Eurospin, Bosch, Carel, IFOA, but also by customers with a lower number of users. They both have a simple desire: to innovate their production processes.
Technical Requirements* *only for VTE On-Site; see part 4. 1. Minimum Hardware requirements Ram: 2 GB Hard Disk: 20 GB Processor: 1.5 GHz or higher, recommended 2 or more Core 2. Recommended operating system The recommended system for VTECRM installation is Ubuntu 12.4. On this systems VTECRM is installed out-of-the-box, without special requirements except the parameter predisposition of php.ini as indicated by the wizard setup of VTE. 3. Requirements for other Linux operating systems It's possible to install VTECRM on other Linux systems. They must have: - php5.2 or 5.3 (recommended) - mysql 5.x - apache2 Be sure that the following packages are installed and properly configured: - libapache2-mod-php5 - php5-cli - php5-common - php5-curl - php5-dev - php5-gd - php5-imap - php5-ldap - php5-mysql - libdbd-mysql-perl - libmysqlclient15off - mysql-client-5.x - mysql-common - mysql-server - mysql-server-5.x - mysql-server-core-5.x - php5-mysql - apache2 - apache2-mpm-prefork - apache2-utils - apache2.2-common - libapache2-mod-php5 To connect to different databases such as Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle, you have to predispose the necessary libraries (for Ubuntu: php5-sybase and oci8 libraries).
Screenshots Home Page Messages (Email)
Calendar Contacts
Contact record Visit Report
3.1 PRE-SALES CYCLE Leads What is a lead? It s the first contact with a potential customer: imagine the business cards you pick up from a marketing activity. You have to keep track of them. The Leads module allows you to: - gather and manage potential customers - assign a lead or a list of leads to a specific user - manage and relate agenda, activities, emails - create and relate campaigns, telemarketing, documents, etc. When you start a negotiation, the leads become a contact, an account and/or a potential. With VTECRM you can convert directly the record into the following steps in the sales cycle [see part 3.2].
Accounts/Contacts/Potentials When you refer to a Contact you mean the physical person, such as a company representative. When you refer to an Account you mean the company, for which you might have many contacts. A Potential begins when you start a negotiation that should turn into a sales order. Newsletter/Campaigns Campaigns, Target and Newsletter are 3 interconnected modules designed for marketing management. The Campaigns module allows you to: - associate a specific list of leads (Target) to a specific marketing activity, for example an email newsletter - get everything archived and available within leads records - use Campaigns both for promotional activities and to coordinate special customer lists The Newsletter form is the ideal solution for: - sending massive newsletters to unlimited number of recipients - create templates and customize emails - read campaign statistics, keeping track of the openings, the rejected emails, etc. Telemarketing The Telemarketing module as well is strictly interconnected with Campaigns and Target modules. It allows you to: - manage multiple marketing campaigns (telephonic or not) related to specific targets - manage the history of calls - relate a call with agenda - make appointments directly - manage the following sales cycle through the conversion to others VTECRM modules (Potentials, Quotes, Orders )
3.2 SALES CYCLE Accounts/Contacts A typical customer is represented through 2 modules: Account (the company) and Contact (the person you refer to). They are created from the Lead conversion. The Accounts module contains all the information about the company, and in addition it allows you to: - assign the account to a specific user - manage companies hierarchy - create and relate calendar activities - manage negotiations, creating potentials directly related to the account - create campaigns directly related to the account Through the tools you find in each record, you can also directly send emails, manage services, tickets, assets, and so on. Potentials The sales cycle starts from Potentials module. It allows you to: - have the potential directly related with (and archived in) its account/contact, keeping track of the whole flow - create directly a quote and a sales order, which are the next steps in the cycle - enter information such as success probability, expected closing date, etc.
Quotes Quotes is strictly related to Potentials and Accounts. Quotes module allows you to: - create a customized quote - enter notes, payment terms, discounts, taxes - insert products and services picking them from Product and Services modules - export quote PDF - send the quote as PDF attachment via email PDF Maker VTECRM includes a powerful PDF Maker. You can find the tool within many modules, but it s a module itself. PDF Maker is an easy way to create PDF templates which can be used in the whole VTECRM (Quotes, Orders, Invoices, Documents, Product details, Webmail, Newsletter ). From PDF Maker module you can create a template just choosing the module you want it for, and setting design, structure, variables, etc. Sales Order Sales order is the final step in the sales cycle. This module allows you to: - keep track of the changes between the quote and the actual sales order - create a new sales order directly from the Quotes module - create and relate documents, invoices, calendar activities - manage the order history - of course, enter information such as status, commissions, due date, etc.
3.3 POST-SALES CYCLE Products/Assets Post-sale cycle is really important: showing that you know your customer means gain customer loyalty. The Assets module makes easy to: - trace all the serial numbers that you sold/rented to your customers - keep track of any assistance service provided on a specific product - relate the record with a product, an identification serial number, a customer (Account), an identification name, an assistance ticket, etc. The Products module allows you to: - list all your products entering prices, codes, status, stock quantities, etc. - manage bundle of products, creating hierarchy - have each product ready to be linked within Quotes, Sales Order, etc. Contract Services In the same way, the Contract Services module is designed to manage training, technical, support services that are measured in hours. You can: - manage the lasting/spent/left time of each service, as well as starting/ending date - as always, relate each service with Accounts, Documents, Tickets and other modules
Assistance: Trouble Tickets Assistance service is an essential part of the post-sale cycle. VTECRM manages the assistance service basically through the Trouble Ticket module and the Customer Portal. Trouble Ticket module allows you to: - manage customer requests and problems - provide the customers with a quick tool (Ticket) through which they ask for the assistance - therefore, to have each request represented by a Ticket - provide the sales department with an overview of the requests - have each Ticket automatically related with Accounts, Contacts, Projects, Timecards records, and editable with other information (estimated time, status, priority, etc.) The Timecards module contains the details of the ticket solving processes. Tickets can be created through: - Trouble Ticket module (manually adding) - Customer Portal (a restricted area dedicated to customers) - emails (the info@ address can be integrated within the Ticket module) - phone
SLA The Service Level Agreement defines the level of efficiency in supplying a service, such as the assistance. VTECRM includes a SLA counter that keeps track of passing time from the opening until the solving of a Ticket. It can be set through Workflows. Customer Portal It s a restricted area that you provide to your customers in order to keep track of their order history, their assistance tickets, and so on. Each customer has its access privileges that you define through the Settings. It s the easiest way for customers to send assistance tickets, and for you to manage them.
3.4 TEAM WORKING Calendar VTECRM includes an intuitive calendar, the ideal solution to manage personal and team work. The Calendar allows you to: - create events and tasks, move them with drag & drop - view the activities assigned to yourself and to your colleagues - share your calendar among a group of users - relate events to specific records within the other modules (Quotes, Accounts, Contacts, Tickets, etc.) - invite users and contacts to events - manage activity history - manage guests VTECRM Calendar can be integrated with the main email servers: Exchange, Zimbra and Google Calendar. Through the Active Sync module [see part 4.2] you can also integrate and synchronize it with mobile devices: iphone, ipad, Blackerry (through Exchange/Zimbra plugins), Android. Webmail The Webmail module manages an IMAP email account. Email is an essential part of the unstructured processes managed by VTECRM. Webmail allows you to: - manage more than one email account - convert an inbound email to Tickets, Potentials, Projects, Calendar activities - link an inbound email to Leads, Contacts, Accounts, Potentials, Documents, Calendar, etc. - have all the emails archived and available from within records (Leads, Contacts, etc.) - share email with your work team - send emails directly from the Webmail, or from within records (Contacts, Newsletter, etc.) - send mass-emails to specific lists of records and targets - create email templates for newsletters, campaigns, etc. - integrate the Webmail with Outlook, Thunderbird, Lotus - synchronize the Webmail with Zimbra, Exchange and Google Calendar
Talks VTECRM offers an innovative solution for internal communication, in order to minimize the use of emails among colleagues. The Talks module is a sort of chat that allows you to: - send messages to all the users or specific ones - have real-time conversations - link a message to a specific record contained in VTECRM (a contact, a potential, an event, etc.) - find within the record all the messages related to it
3.5 MOBILE DEVICES App VTECRM has a powerful App for both Apple and Android devices. This means having a portable VTECRM version to work with when you are out of office, without wasting of time. The App connects directly with your VTECRM: the new leads you add, or the changes you make on archived records, have a direct effect on the CRM. App s function are the same of the whole VTECRM: - add and edit data in all the modules: Leads, Contacts, Accounts, Potentials, Quotes, Sales Orders, etc. - create lists, targets, campaigns, etc. - send emails, which are archived and available within the related records - manage calendar activities And much more. Active Sync Active Sync is an additional module which synchronizes your iphone, ipad, Android or Blackberry device with VTECRM. Features: - it's a real-time synchronization, native and bi-directional: mobile device to VTECRM server, and vice versa. - it synchronizes Calendar, Contacts and phonebook - the synchronization maintains the links between the records (ex: an appointment related to a contact)
3.6 INTEGRATION Mail Server Synchronization of agenda/address book between VTECRM and: - Google Mail - Exchange - Lotus - Zimbra Mail Client With plugins. Synchronization between VTECRM and: - Outlook: agenda, address book, email synchronization - Thunderbird: email connection to Leads, Contacts, etc.; VTECRM browsing through a Tab - Lotus: agenda and address book synchronization; connection to Leads, Contacts, etc. E-Commerce Website Integration with: - Magento - Joomla Virtuemart - oscommerce The integration heads to the automatic conversion of the E-Commerce process into VTECRM records: - new users registration converted to new leads - users order converted to new contacts and sales orders. - management of products conformity between VTECRM and website - synchronization of sales order details between VTECRM and website - creation of tickets which notify orders, payments, problems
ERP Main ERP integrated with VTE CRM: - Ad Hoc Revolution/Enterprise (Zucchetti) - Gestionale1-2 (Zucchetti) - AS400 - GammaEnterprise GE (TeamSystem) - Mago - SAP R/3 Features: - integration between your own ERP and VTECRM - possibility to share information without duplicates - flexible configuration for any type of ERP Integration channels: - by temporary tables: it's possible to choose the update frequency (ex: once a day) - by web service through libraries: real-time update Mobile Device Please see part 3.5 Database VTE CRM is multi-database: - MySQL (the ideal solution) - Oracle - SQL Server Only VTE On-Site requires the installation service, which includes: - operating location, if necessary - backup configuration - security configuration - LDAP configuration - optimized configuration for the best performance Phone Exchange Features: - click to call - caller pop up - tracking of call opening/closing - possibility to assign a code to the customer, in order to access a service Business Intelligence Integration with: - Pentaho (open source) - Qlikview You can: - read VTECRM records and data - create reports and charts (ex: customer priority chart) - update VTECRM data with new Qlikview data (only for Qlikview)
4.1 VTECRM MODALITIES VTE Cloud VTE Cloud is the innovative formula that allows you to get VTECRM completely online without installation. Several thousand users are already using it. Why to choose VTE Cloud: - you pay for a service, not for an application - you pay only the number of users and months you want VTECRM for - version updates and bug-fix included - assistance service included - possibility to integrate additional VTECRM modules [please see part 4.2] - no internal server required - no technical skills required to set VTECRM Technical features: - 500 MB of disk space available per user - 70 MB/s band - Snapshots and backup to ensure business continuity - High Availability guaranteed by the platform VMware vsphere 5 - Server Blade DELL - Storage Platform EMC2 - CISCO Network devices - UPS Systems and substation autonomous for emergency VTE On-Site VTE On-Site is the ideal solution for companies which prefer to have their VTECRM machine installed on their own server. Why to choose VTE On-Site: - installation on customer s server [see part 3.6 for more details] - fees based on groups of users - 2 license modalities: one shot or fixed fees - no instrumental constraints - updates and bug fix included - assistance service included - possibility to integrate additional VTECRM modules [please see part 4.2] Technical requirements: please see part 2 VTECRM is multi-database [see part 3.6 for more details]: - MySQL (the perfect solution) - Oracle - SQL Server
VTE Free VTE Free is designed for whoever wants to try VTECRM for the first time. VTE Free is just a taste: - limited number of roles - limited number of PDF/email templates - no assistance service - no warranty - no automatic updates - AGPL3 license Downloadable from our website (Windows/Linux/VMWare Appliance).
4.2 MODULES VTECRM is completed with additional modules that allows you to manage specific activities. Active Sync Synchronizes mobile devices with VTECRM, updating calendar activities and contacts. Please see part 3.5 Telemarketing Manage calls and feedbacks. Please see part 3.1 Surveys Surveys module allows you to: - create a survey with unlimited number of questions - choose between a different types of questions (free text, selection, ratio, percentage...) - apply conditions from a question to a following one - set the layout - import questions from CSV file - send the link to the survey via email (lists of leads, contacts, etc.) - phone surveys: fill out the record manually Courses This module allows you to: - manage and relate courses to Leads, Contacts, Accounts - add a contact as teacher or speaker - send mass-emails with the subscription request - provide the contacts with a simple link through which register - set the status of each contact (ex: registered)
Geolocation This module provides a simple button within the main modules. It shows a map in which you see where customers are located. Multi-Company This module is designed for companies that are part of the same group and share the same VTECRM. The Multi-Company module allows you to: - manage each company with details: name, VAT, address, etc. - manage the group hierarchy and the users of each company - define access privileges among companies and roles - define filtered views of the content - relate different modules to different companies MailConnector This modules provides a complete automation in relating emails to records contained in VTECRM: - it links each in/out email to the related record (Contact, Account, etc.) through the address identification - it tracks the email history of each customer (no operator required) - you can answer from within VTECRM modules - with filters you can define exceptions for specific customers or contents
5. NETWORK Reseller Do you want to be led step by step towards the VTECRM Network, with a low investment but a great potential? VTECRM Reseller Program is designed for you. It offers: - 4 online training courses to begin to understand how VTECRM works and how to propose it - online remote support system for 1 year to answer your questions about the whole VTECRM world - VTECRM Manual for you and your customers - discount on VTECRM price list (15% on products and 5% on services) - listing on VTECRM Business Reseller list - VTE CLOUD for 3 users / 1 year, including Active Sync, Telemarketing, Geolocation, Courses modules - opportunity to become Partner The Reseller Program is the best way to acquire the skills and the know-how related to VTECRM, satisfying customers' expectations. Partner To become VTECRM Partner you have already to be VTE Reseller. After a training course, the Partner must be able to manage CRM projects, prove a wide know-how and be able to propose further developments. The course from Reseller to Partner is planned together with CRM Tutors as soon as you get listed as Reseller. Requirements: - devotion to CRM solutions and development possibilities - a good volume of sales, customers who are using VTE CRM - interest in education and training - dedicated resources - team working attitude, availability to cooperate with the whole network Among our Partners: Beta 80 Group, At Work, Errepi Distribuzione, IT&T, Kiratech, Readytec, Insomnia 365, Modus III Limited (Honk Kong) and many more.
Academy VTECRM Academy offers specific training courses, both online and in classroom, training days, development courses, customized online tutoring, etc. All these service are designed to satisfy your needs, answer your questions, give you a complete knowledge of the whole VTECRM world. Monthly courses (online): - Basic: for newbies and whoever wants to approach VTECRM (introduction to all the modules, work examples ) - Privileges and Safety: admin user, shared access, access privileges, advanced privileges, hierarchy - Marketing: leads and calls, lists and filters, customized fields, utilities - Sales: sellers and representatives, Potentials, Quotes, Sales Orders - Communication: calendar, events, webmail, talks, newsletter - Support: technical assistance, trouble tickets, customer portal, email conversions - Utility: documents, PDF maker, quotes, invoices, reports - Installer/Configurator: for users with basic knowledge of Linux system and PHP language (VTE configuration, components, log, backup, recovery ) - SDK Development 1 & 2: follows the Installer course (module configuration, API vtlib, API SDK ) You can buy one or more courses directly from our website. 6. SDK DEVELOPMENT The VTECRM code can be modified and customized through libraries. One of the aims of the Partner Network is to propose new developments and improve VTECRM continually. The SDK development is explained in one of our Academy courses [see part 5]. Features: - Adding of customized php/js/css files - Standard php replacement - Adding of other files - Customized uitypes - Customized templates (Smarty) - Popup management - Presave - Advanced query - Advanced Permissions - Class extension - Translations - Editing of field view - Module exportation - Uitypes social links - Images - Picklist - Business unit - Views