Zurmo CRM Gets In-App Email
Zurmo's developers keep on piling on the features.
After adding gamification to the open source customer relationship management (CRM) platform earlier this year, the Zurmo team has been adding new components like data cleaning tools, saved search and social feeds options. For version 0.8.0, Zurmo gains in-app email capabilities, Sentry support to streamline bug fixes and new themes that add some polish to the user interface (UI).
While the ultimate aim is to do away with email, at least as far as CRM is concerned, Zurmo co-founder Ray Stoeckicht says that incorporating email functionality will also help drive efficiency. “In 2013 people should not constantly need to go from one application to another in order to communicate and do their jobs effectively,” he says in a company statement.
Email as CRM ‘Center of Gravity'
Owning up to the reality that email is an ingrained part of doing business, the open source CRM project is embracing it instead.
“In a utopian world, there would be no email. But we have to acknowledge the reality that email still serves a major purpose for all organizations. In order to encourage users to stay inside the application, we've included a powerful email engine that links messages to records,” Stoeckicht says.
Built-in email supports the company's overarching vision of CRM, which is that it should serve as a “center of gravity” for salespeople, marketing professionals and others. While Zurmo's email composition engine won't compete with full-fledged email clients, it offers popular formatting options and file attachment support.
Squashing Bugs Faster
Zurmo contributors also can now get to the bottom of bugs faster before they become major problems, thanks to Sentry, an open source event monitoring and management application.
“Integration with Sentry is something that our technical contributors will appreciate because they no longer need to go through the tedious process of submitting a bug report. This seamless process saves time and reduces the resistance to report issues because the effort required to do so is now significantly lower,” says Zurmo co-founder and lead developer Jason Green.
On the UI front, users can now add a dash of personalization by selecting from a variety of new textures and color themes.
Zurmo 0.8.0 is available now.
Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.
Pedro Hernandez contributes to Enterprise Apps Today, and 11Press, the technology network. He was previously the managing editor of Internet.com, an IT-related website network. He has expertise in Smart Tech, CRM, and Mobile Tech, Helping Banks and Fintechs, Telcos and Automotive OEMs, and Healthcare and Identity Service Providers to Protect Mobile Apps.
