iFreeTools Blogs

Quick filters now available in iFreeTools

2011-11-29T04:53:00.001-08:00

Your favorite web-based database app builder and your CRM for use with Google Apps, have long supported ways to filter records based on custom filtering criteria, using the Custom Views feature.

While creating Custom Views is convenient for oft-searched filtering criteria, there are times when you might prefer a quick way to get a sub-set of your database records, without having to create a view first.

Based on your requests from users, we have now added support for such quick filtering. In the list view, you will now find the quick filtering options under Filters.

iFreeTools will automatically provide the quick-filters for boolean (yes/no) fields, date fields, date-time fields and for fields which have choice-values (either drop-down or multi-select fields), as shown in the sample view below.

Date and Date-time fields will have both the year and month filtering options.

Access control rules for the fields, if any, will be confirmed-to, when showing the quick-filters. That is, users will see the automatic quick-filters for the supported field types, only if they have the viewing permission for those fields.

Apart from these quick filtering options, users can also use the alphabetical indexing, keyword-indexing and the client-side instant search to narrow down the records from the database.

Hope you like the new feature. Keep sending in your suggestions.

Export / Import iFreeTools Creator Applications as a single app-file

2011-10-28T06:50:00.000-07:00

Creating an online database application using iFreeTools Creator is as easy as defining your entities, attributes and to start using it adding the users. While this allows you to create a basic database app, you can further customize it as per your requirements including by creating custom views, custom actions, authorization profiles, etc.,. And at some point you might want to create a duplication application -- may be for testing new features (which we keep rolling in based on suggestions from users) before you start using them in your main production application instance or may be to move on to your own single-tenant deployment, over your Google App Engine account.

This is easy to an extent, with regard to exporting and importing Custom Entities and All Attributes as CSV files. But, when you would like to have your additional configurations like Custom Views, Custom Actions or fine-grained Auth Profiles which you have created for your users, then the only option until now was to re-create them manually after importing the basic data-model as entities and attributes, as these configurations did not support export / import option.

Not any more. We have now made it possible for admin users to export the application as a single application file which apart from containing the Entities and Attributes details will also have the configuration details of App Settings (including re-branded app-names, logo images, time-zones, etc.,.), Custom Views and Custom Actions (both shared and user-specific), Auth Profiles and Users data.

Technical note : In case you are more technically inclined, the app-file is in JSON format, which you can open with a normal text editor, like notepad and view the contents.

For admin users, the Export App link will be available in the footer.

Once you export this application, save this file to your computer and then proceed to your new application instance. You can create new ones from under My Apps (link in the top-right and in the footer).

In the new application's home page you will find the option to import the app-file under the Import Ready-made Apps tabs.

Clicking on the import the app file link will take you to a page where you can specify the app file to be imported.

Browse and select the application file which you had exported earlier and click proceed. iFreeTools Creator will now process the contents of the app-file, to automatically re-create you database application.

That is it ! Now you have a duplication application ready to use. Hope you find the new feature useful. Do keep sending in your suggestions on how we can make your online database application better and easier for you.

Accessing auto-generated IDs in formula-fields & Enabling keyword-indexing for search

2011-09-29T23:57:00.000-07:00

We are happy to announce the availability of two new features which have been requested by many users recently.

Access to auto-generated ID in formula-field expressions.
Support for keyword-indexing, enabling better search

Access to auto-generated ID in formula-field expressions.

iFreeTools Creator is built-for and hosted-over Google App Engine. Each record stored within the BigTable datastore of App Engine has its own unique key, which is automatically generated. (Note: This key-id value is not guaranteed to be increasing in sequential-order, but for uniqueness alone).

Until now it was not possible in iFreeTools to make use of this auto-generated key-id in formula fields, as this will not be available when the new record is yet to be saved into the database. But we have now made this possible by allocating the id values and making them available via a new function key_id, detailed below..

key_id
Usage : key_id(instance=None)

Description : Returns a key-id for the currently added / modified record, if instance parameter is not supplied.  If instance parameter is supplied, returns the key-id for the instance.

Example :
key_id() returns the currently added / updated records key-id
key_id (val("Customer")) returns the key_id for the Customer field, assuming Customer is a reference attribute.

You can make use of this key_id function in your formula fields to generate a visible unique-id for your data. May be, a issue-id / ticket-id / customer-id / etc.,. like Ticket ID having a formula expression as "TICKET-" + str(key_id()) will generate values of the form TICKET-42322212, assuming you enable keyword-indexing for this field (see below), you can quickly search for this ticket from the full database.

Support for keyword-indexing, enabling better search

Extending our earlier support for alphabetical-indexing, supported in Single-line text (String) and Lookup (Reference) data-type attributes, we have now added support for indexing the keywords.

This has been added for attributes of Single-line text (String), Multi-line text (Text), List (with String values) and Lookup (Reference) data-types.

When a field is marked for keyword-indexing, iFreeTools will split out the words from the field and store them in a keyword-index, when the record is saved to the database. Later, when searching for records in the list views, apart from the instant-search within the loaded batch, you will be provided with an option to search for the keywords from all records in the database.

While new records will be automatically indexed for the keywords, for older records, you can use the Re-Index All option available under More Actions in the list views.

Hope you like new features. Keep sending in your suggestions on how you believe we can improve your favorite online database app.

Now available : Data aggregation in list/chart views, Data-access & Caching functions and more..

2011-08-30T01:42:00.000-07:00

Over the month we have rolled-in the following features in your free online database app builder and free online crm, built over Google App Engine for use with Google Apps.

Data aggregation in list views & chart views
Data access and Caching functions
Search for files to attach from Google Docs

Data aggregation in list views & chart views

Numeric attributes (integer and float types) can now have a Default Aggregation configured to display the sum of the fields' values in the list views and in the chart views.

In our iFreeTools CRM, our free CRM app for use with Google Apps, we have enabled this for fields in Expected Revenue, Budgeted Cost and Actual Cost fields in Campaigns and for Amount and Expected Revenue in Opportunities.

The summation of the values from such fields will be listed below the list view as shown in the image below..

Along with this we have also enabled the result of aggregation from multiple attributes to be rendered in the same graph, so that you can compare related aggregation values visually.

The following image shows the chart views for Campaigns enabled to display values from 3 attributes, Expected Revenue, Budgeted Cost and Actual Cost, grouped by Campaign Status..

For your custom online database apps, built over iFreeTools creator you can specify this configuration in the Attribute form, when you add/edit the attribute details.

Note : All aggregation / charting features are currently restricted to work with smaller batch of data. When our Scheduled Reports feature is available, you can create summary / charts for full set of data.

Data-access and Caching functions

New data-access and caching functions listed below have been now added for use with expressions.

user

Usage : user()

Description : Returns the currently logged in user



fetch_one

Usage : fetch_one(entity_name, criteria)

Description : Returns a record for the given entity_name and filtering criteria

Example : fetch_one("Car", {"Company":"Honda", "Name":"City"}) will fetch a record from the entity having Display Name as Car and for the filtering condition to get the record for Honda City.



val_from

Usage : val_from(instance, prop_name)

Description : Returns a value of a property from the given instance.

Example : val_from(user(), "emailId") will return the current user's email-id, where emailId is the alias for the "Email Id" attribute in User system-entity.



cache

Usage : cache(name, expr)

Description : To cache the result of evaluation of expression expr with the given name.



cached_val

Usage : cached_val(name)

Description : Returns the value which was added to cache previously with the given name.

For more details, refer to Data Access and Cache Functions section the user guide.

Search for files to attach from Google Docs

When attaching files from Google Docs to your records, you now have the option to search for the required file based on text, to narrow down the files and attach the required file to your record.

Hope you like the new features.

Do keep sending in your suggestions on how we can make things better in your free online database app builder.

Date-Time and Error Functions now available for use within Expressions

2011-07-29T01:09:00.000-07:00

Your favorite online database app builder tool over Google App Engine - iFreeTools Creator, now supports date-time functions within formula field expressions and in validation expressions.

The new date-time functions made available are listed below :


now
Usage : now () 
Description : Returns a datetime object having the current time. 

date
Usage : date(year, month, day)
Description : Returns a date object for the given year, month and day values. 

datetime
Usage : datetime (year, month, day, hours=0, minutes=0, seconds=0)
Description : Returns a datetime object for the given parameters. If hours, minutes and seconds are not provided, they will be taken to be 0 (zero).

timedelta
Usage : timedelta (days=0, seconds=0, microseconds=0)
Description : Returns a timedelta object representing a difference in time, for the given days, seconds and microseconds. Can be used to add or subtract date/datetime values.
Example: now() + timedelta(1) will give tomorrow's date and time.

We have also added support for raising error messages when validating values using expressions. Apart from detailing on how to enter the value for the field in the description, this function will enable you to specify the reason for the validation failing.


error
Usage : error(error_msg)
Description : Raises an error with the given error_msg. This will be shown in the form for the corresponding attribute which failed the validation expression.

We have also rolled in a new home page for iFreeTools Creator, now highlighting the important features available in the platform.

Keep sending in your valuable suggestions on how you think we can make iFreeTools better for you.

Expressions for Computed Formula Fields & Field Validations, now available in iFreeTools

2011-06-29T02:51:00.001-07:00

The labs setup of the Google App Engine powered free online database apps creator, now has support for defining and using expressions for calculated formula fields and in validations.

Update : it is now available at http://creator.ifreetools.com too.

Formula Expressions

You can now define expressions based on values in other fields in the database record to compute the value of formula field.

For example, you might have First Name and Last Name as fields within your database record and may prefer to have them combined in another Name field. For this you can add the 3 attributes with data-type as Single line text (String) and for the Name attribute you can set the Formula Expression (under Advanced section of the attributes form) to be

val("First Name") + " " + val("Last Name")

The val function enables you to fetch the value of the field for a given display name.

The formula expressions can be set for any data-types, just make sure the return value of the expression is of the required type.

Aliases for fields

You can also set Aliases for the attributes and use them instead of the val functions, to have the formula to be something like

First_Name+" "+Last_Name

Validation Expressions

You can also define validations expressions which need to evaluate to True for the record to be stored into the database.

So, if you have a product code field and it should always be 5 characters in length, you can set the Validation Expression as

len(inputValue) == 5

For more details on the operators and functions available for use within expressions, kindly refer to Using Expressions for Formula-fields and Validations, in our user guide.

Hope you like the new feature. Do keep sending in your suggestions on how you believe we can make this app better for you.

Yes/No (Boolean) fields support in Custom Views and more

2011-05-30T05:28:00.000-07:00

We have been making improvements over the past few weeks to the Free Online Database App Creator for use with Google Apps and in our Free CRM built over Google App Engine, based on feedback/suggestions from our users.

Filter based on Yes / No checkbox (Boolean) fields

We are glad to have rolled in support for Custom Views which can filter records based on Yes / No checkbox (Boolean) fields.

Apart from Yes or a No, you may now also see a --not-set-- value for fields which do not have a value already set for that field. This can happen in iFreeTools Creator, when you add a new Yes / No checkbox (Boolean) attribute to an existing entity which already has records in database. While the new records will have values for this field, the older records will show a --not-set-- value.

The records with --not-set-- value *will not* turn up in the results if the filed is used in the filtering criteria for that Custom View. If you would like it to be available, you can use the bulk-edit to set the values for that field to either Yes or a No.

Customize the order in which the Custom Views are listed

We have also added support customizing the listing order of Custom Views based on View Listing Index value, which you can now provide in the Add/Edit Custom View form. The views will be listed under the module based on this value, in ascending order. That is, views with smaller View Listing Index value will be listed first.

And more..

Apart from these features mentioned above, we have also rolled in a few bug-fixes/improvements, including in the recently added Calendar Views feature.

Do keep sending in your valuable suggestions, on how you think we can make iFreeTools better.

What's Cooking : Calendar Views in your Online Database for Google Apps

2011-04-05T02:40:00.000-07:00

Yes, support for Calendar Views is what is cooking up at iFreeTools and it is already available in our labs deployment : iFreeTools Labs.

All records which have a date or a date-time field will now have an option to view the records in a Calendar View as shown below..

The calendar view will have options to view the records based on Month, Week or Day. The details view is also loaded via AJAX, as shown below, without you having to leave the calendar view.

The feature will be rolled into your affordable CRM for Google Apps and your favorite custom database app builder for Google Apps, in the coming days.

The current feature uses any one date/date-time field, at a time, for the Calendar View. We will be coming up with an option to specify start & end fields too, so that you can have the events span across hours and days too. And together with that you will have an option to export the data to Google Calendar in iCal format.

Hope you like the new feature. Do keep sending in your valuable suggestions.

Alphabetical indexing of database records for Quick filtering, now available in iFreeTools

2011-03-21T03:45:00.000-07:00

We have just made an upgrade to our online database app creator and our online CRM apps, which have been built over Google App Engine for use with Google Apps.

This upgrade adds support for alphabetical indexing of database records and index links for quick filtering from the list views.

This has been enabled for the relevant fields in our default CRM application. For custom database applications built over iFreeTools Creator, you can enable them for String and Reference attributes, by editing the Attribute and selecting the indexing option, as shown below..

Multiple attributes can be configured to be indexed and they will all be available for filtering from the list views. If there are more than one alphabetical index, you will find a more.. button which you can click to view all filtering indexes.

For records added/updated before this update, you will have to perform a re-indexing operation once, from under the list views More Actions > Re-Index.

Hope you find the new feature useful. Keep sending in your suggestions.

Attach Google Docs to Database Records in iFreeTools CRM & Creator

2011-03-18T05:42:00.000-07:00

Our CRM for Google Apps and Online Database App Creator for Google Apps now support attaching of Google Docs to the records within the database.

Below the record details in the details page, there is now an option to attach a file from Google Docs. When you click on the Attach a Google Document button, you will be required to authorize the Google Docs account to use, this can be a Google Docs account associated with either Google user account or with a Google Apps user account.

After authorization you can view the list of files in that Google Docs account, with details like the file name, file type and the person who last modified it as shown in the image below..

Just click on the attach button and the file will now be linked to your database record.

All such attachments will be listed below the record details, as shown below..

Attaching a file in Google Docs does not duplicate the contents, but directly links to the document in your Google Docs, making sure the latest doc can be accessed from the record.

The security settings set in the Google Docs are still applicable and you need not have to duplicate those setting again. When someone clicks on the attachment link, they are taken to Google Docs directly which handles the security settings.

Hope you find this new feature useful. Keep sending in your suggestions.

Google Contacts integration : Import-to / Export-from any database table, in iFreeTools

2011-02-15T04:55:00.000-08:00

Having come a long way in our support for importing data into iFreeTools, today, we are glad to announce support for importing contact details from Google Contacts into any database table which has an email-id field, along with support for exporting contact details from such tables back into Google Contacts.

Using Field Mappings we have enabled mapping a virtual Google Contact entity to entities within iFreeTools database and use these Field Mappings to integrate with Google Contacts, with the help of Google Contacts API.

iFreeTools CRM will have out-of-the-box native field mappings defined for Contacts, Leads and Vendors. You can also add Field Mappings for your custom entities in iFreeTools Creator, to enable importing / exporting the contact details in your custom database tables.

When Field Mapping is not found for an entity with an email-id field in iFreeTools Creator, you will find a button to Enable import from Google Contacts, below the list views. Clicking on the button will take you to the Field Mapping form. Such a form loaded for mapping Owner entity in our sample database app over iFreeTools Creator is shown below. If the field names match the fields will be mapped by default, like the Notes field as shown in the below image..

You can proceed to complete further mapping of the fields. You can store value from more than one field into the same field. For example, Phone/Mobile will be the destination for Phone1, Phone2, Mobile Phone, Home Phone and Skype Id. Similarly Alternate Email Ids, Fax, Other Address, Home Address and Notes from Google Contact have all been mapped to Notes field in Owner..

The reverse mapping view shows the details on the multiple source fields getting mapped to a single destination field..

Adding such a field mapping enables importing the Google Contacts directly into the Owners database.

Like wise, it is necessary to add the mapping for exporting Owner details back to Google Contacts.

Exporting of records will be possible once you have authorized iFreeTools to connect on your behalf with Google Contacts, using its data APIs. This will be done when you try to import from the Contacts, that is clicking on Import from Google Contacts and completing the authorization step.

Once authorization step has been completed, you will find a upload icon in the list views for each of records. You can then click on them to selectively export the required records to Google Contacts. Bulk export of contacts into Google Contacts will be supported subsequently. If a contact already exists in Google Contacts, it will be over-written with the full set of details from iFreeTools, based on the field mapping for export.

Hope you like the new feature.

----

A little bit of history, leading up to this feature.

iFreeTools initially had CSV import alone and that too without field mapping. That is, the fields in CSV file are supposed to have specific set of column names expected by our import system. So, to get contacts details from Google Contacts, one had to export the Google Contacts into CSV, map the header names manually in the CSV file and them import them into iFreeTools.

While our initial feature was good enough to help enable import process, we wanted to make things easier for our users. So we added CSV import field mapping feature, to enable mapping the fields in CSV file to those in the database records, enabling CSV files with proprietary column headers to be mapped and imported easily into the database. This mapping could also be saved for reuse in subsequent imports in the same format, typically from the same source.

As all our users have a Google user account or a Google Apps user account, we wanted to integrate well with Google services, particularly Google Contacts. So, we followed up with support for importing Google Contacts using Google’s APIs, directly into the Contacts database in iFreeTools CRM.

To import the contact details using Google APIs into some other database table - may be Leads, Vendors, or may be into a custom database table created in iFreeTools Creator - was still not possible. Uploading contact details back into Google Contacts was also not possible, until today's feature.

We strive to keep adding new features while also improving features to make them easier, for our users. Keep sending in your suggestions on how we can make things better for you. You may use the feedback form in the application or you may send a mail to raj@sahasvat.com

"List" data type, now supported in Online Database App Creator

2011-01-25T03:30:00.000-08:00

Our online database app creator, which is built over Google App Engine for use with Google Apps, now allows users to define and use List fields.

In this blog post, we will showcase this new feature by adding 2 list attributes to our sample Property Management app.

List attribute without choice values

We will add a new attribute to list down the facilities available in the managed properties in our database. When adding the attribute select the Data Type as List (with String values).

Defining a new attribute with the List data-type will result in a simple text-box for data-entry where one can enter comma separated values. These values will be parsed and stored as a list in that entity instance.

In our case the facilities can be something like Covered Car Park, 24x7 Security. This will get stored internally within Google App Engine's data-store as a list value with two items, [Covered Car Park, 24x7 Security].

We will be coming up with auto-complete to help fill in list fields in forms, at a later date.

List attribute with choice values

One can also specify the choice values for the List. When choice values are provided, the form will have a list of check-boxes - one each for each choice value. Making use of choice values also enables creating Custom Views based on this attribute, as well as including them in automatic chart view options.

We will define a List attribute to store the preferred mode of payment for the Owners, as shown below.

The form generated, for this List property with choice values, will have check-boxes for each of those choice items. The user can select one or more values, each of which will be added to the List field of that record instance.

The chart view will make use of the choice values to generate the Bar charts.

Notice that the total need not match the number of records because each record may have more than one value. For this reason, the pie-charts have also been disabled.

Hope you find the List data-type useful in your online database app over iFreeTools Creator. Do let us know your suggestions and feedback.

Access Control up to Field-Level, now possible in iFreeTools CRM & Creator

2010-12-08T03:44:00.000-08:00

Until now, iFreeTools CRM and iFreeTools Creator had role based access control alone.

In this mode, users can be associated to a role which can be admin / user / guest and access control can be specified (in Creator, for custom entities) to restrict read / write operations based on these roles. It was not possible to segment records based on departments (Sales / Marketing / Support / etc.,.) or based on territories (typically useful for geographically distributed offices). It was also not possible to have field-level permissions.

Not anymore.. we have now added support for adding authorization profiles to enable defining access control permissions and associating them with user accounts.

Using authorization profiles, you can..

allow / block access to specific modules (record types) as a whole,
allow / restrict access to specific operations alone, like controlling permission to View, Add, Edit, Delete, Export records or to Send Emails,
define scoping criteria to segment the records at operation-level. This scoping criteria can be based on any attribute which contains choice values (which include departments and territories, if you have enabled them) and based on user-reference attributes. One can define criteria to enforce access conditions like “Allow editing of records only if the user is the record owner”,
define permissions for access to fields at the operation-level, to enable conditions like “Allow viewing X, Y and Z fields, but restrict editing to X and Y fields alone”.

Sample Walk-through on using the Auth Profiles in iFreeTools

Let us take a sample application and walk-through the steps to enforce authorization rules for that application using this new feature. Our sample app will be a simple help desk application to hold the records for Customers, Solutions & Cases and will have the following authorization requirements..

Customer login :
- Allowed to view available solutions
- Raise new cases and edit them as required.
- Edit their own customer record to update contact details (address, phone, etc.,)
Support staff login :
- Allowed to view all solutions, add new solutions and edit the ones for which they are the owner.
- Allowed to view all cases and edit to update the records to associate relevant solutions.
- Full access to Customer records.

For our walk-through, we will define 3 record types : Customers, Solutions and Cases.

Note : While there is more to a full-fledged help-desk application than just maintaining the records - like say, notifying the Customer-owner (support staff) when the Customer adds a new Case, notifying the Customer when the support staff responds to cases and escalating to notify the manager when a case has not been closed for long - we will deal with the records part alone for now. We will come back to this walk-through to cover other use-cases when we add support for work-flows and triggers.

Concise representation of the data-model :

Customer (name*, company, $< phoneEmailEtc >, $< contactAddress >, owner, userAccount< User >*)
Solution (question*, answer*~~, owner*, status&)
Case (subject*, type&*, status&*, origin&, priority&, reason&, 
      reportedBy< Customer >*, reportedByUser< User >*, description~~*, owner, solution< Solution >)

* means the attribute is required
~~ refers to a Text attribute,
& means the attribute has choiceValues
$< phoneEmailEtc > and $ < contactAddress > add multiple attributes
attributeName< ReferenceClass > refers to a reference attribute, owner defaults to < User > reference

Pseudo-code representation of the data-model :

(useful if you want to add Entities and Attributes)


Customer  (plural : Customers ) :
 String name as Name required
 String company as Company
 String emailId as "Email Id" {isEmail:True}
 String phone as Phone
 String mobilePhone as "Mobile Phone"
 String homePhone as "Home Phone"
 String skypeId as "Skype Id"
 String website as Website
 String addressLine1 as "Address Line1"
 String addressLine2 as "Address Line2"
 String city as City
 String zipCode as "Zip Code"
 String state as State
 String country as Country
 GeoPoint addressOnMap as "Address on Map"
 Reference owner as Owner {refersTo:User}
 Reference userAccount as "User Account" required {refersTo:User}

Solution  (plural : Solutions ) :
 String question as Question required
 Text answer as Answer required
 Reference owner as Owner required {refersTo:User}
 String status as Status {choiceValues:[Draft, Reviewed, Duplicate]}

Case  (plural : Cases ) :
 String subject as Subject required
 String type as Type required {choiceValues: [Problem, Feature Request, Question] }
 String status as Status required {choiceValues:[New, On Hold, Escalated, Closed]}
 String origin as Origin {choiceValues:[Web, Email, Phone]}
 String priority as Priority {choiceValues:[High, Medium, Low]}
 String reason as Reason {choiceValues:[User did not attend any training, 
                               Complex functionality, Existing problem, 
                               Instructions not clear, New problem]}
 Reference reportedBy as "Reported by" required {refersTo:Customer}
 Reference reportedByUser as "Reported by User" required {refersTo:User}
 Text description as Description required
 Reference owner as Owner {refersTo:User}
 Reference solution as Solution {refersTo:Solution}

You need not have to create these entities and attributes manually. Just use the following CSV files to import this data-model directly into iFreeTools Creator..

Once you have imported the Entities and Attributes to iFreeTools Creator, we can now proceed to defining the authorization profiles for the use in this help-desk application.

Note on additional segmentation : When adding/editing entities, you can configure the entities to use additional segmentation based on department and/or territory. You can choose not to segment the records (default option for empty value), or make it optional / required. Making it optional/required will result in a new attribute getting added to the entity, with selection values to choose from for department/territory. You can customize the values for this selection from under Admin > Enum.

This walk-through does not use additional segmentation. But feel free to add/edit entities, to include them if required.

First we will create an authorization profile for customer login. Proceed to Admin > Auth Profiles > Add Auth Profile.

The initial screen for adding the authorization profile will be like given below..

Customers need not have access to the User records, so we will not enable access for those records.

When customers access the Customer records, they should be able to view their own record and can have the facility to update their contact details themselves. The following image shows the authorization configuration for Customer records..

For Solutions, customers can be allowed to view all Solutions which are in Reviewed status. The fields to be made visible can be restricted to Question, Answer and Created On.

With respect to Case records, customers can be allowed to view only the cases reported by them. They can add new Case records and can edit Cases they had reported earlier. They will not have permission to delete or to export them. The following image shows the required auth-profile configuration to achieve the same..

Proceeding to save the Auth Profile, we get to see the following details page..

Similarly we can add an Auth Profile for support-staff, as per the authorization requirements we listed earlier. The details page of the Auth Profile for support-staff is shown below..

That is it, we have completed the Auth Profile configurations. Now you can add or edit users, from under Admin > Users, and associate the Auth Profiles to the User records.

Note: Auth Profiles take effect only for non-admin users, that is users having role as user or guest.

When the user logs-in into the application, the authorization profile we configured and associated with their user-account will take effect automatically.

Hope you like the our new feature. Such fine-grained access control features are part of the “premium” plans in almost all other online CRM apps / online-database-app builders, if at-all available. We at iFreeTools are glad to offer it as part of our free version at iFreeTools CRM and iFreeTools Creator.

Building a Store Locator type Google Maps app over GAE, using iFreeTools

2010-11-03T08:38:00.000-07:00

Our free CRM app over Google App Engine and our online database application builder now support geo-location features and integrate well with Google Maps.

For iFreeTools CRM, we have added the geo-location features to all records which have address values. So, you could now store and search for Leads, Contacts, Accounts and Vendors based on geo-location criteria and view them in a map view based on Google Maps.

iFreeTools Creator, which is our online app builder, also supports the geo-location features.

In this blog post, we will walk-through the steps in creating a simple store locator type application using iFreeTools Creator, to showcase the geo-location and Google Maps integration features.

We will also upload a sample CSV file, reusing a CSV file from Google's tutorial on building a similar store locator type app (that tutorial, by the way, details about building such an app using PHP and MySQL).

The overall steps involved are as given below..

Login into iFreeTools Creator.
Edit App Settings to change the time-zone and branding. (optional)
Create Entity (or "table") to represent Stores.
Create Attributes (or "fields"/"columns") for the Entity.
Start using the app.
1. Uploading data from sample CSV file. (optional)
2. Create custom views to filter based on geo-location . (optional)

Step 1 : Login into iFreeTools Creator

This is simple. No sign-up forms. Just login using your Google user account or your Google Apps user account into iFreeTools Creator.

Step 2 : Edit App Settings to change the time-zone and branding. (optional)

You can re-brand & customize your app from under Admin > App Settings, providing your time-zone and also change the app names from their defaults. The below image shows the changes I have made : choosing PST8PDT as the time-zone and changing the app name to Store Locator.

Step 3 : Create Entity (or "table") to represent Stores

Proceed to Admin > Entities > Add Entity and provide details of the entity which will hold our data. Let us call the entity Restaurant..

Step 4 : Create Attributes (or "fields"/"columns") for the Entity

Once you add the entity, you can then add the attributes for that entity - either from the Entity details page, which you get after completing step 3 or from Admin > Attributes > More Actions > Add multiple Attributes to add them in one shot. For our demo we will use 3 attributes Name, Address and Address on Map, the first 2 being string (or text input fields) while the 3rd is a GeoPoint, which enables us to refer to a specific location on a map and store that value in the database..
The Property Index helps in specifying the order of the attributes. Name comes first, followed by Address and 3rd is Address on Map.

Step 5 : Start using the app

That is it !!
You could just start using the app, adding restaurant entries using the automatically generated form, as shown below..

Step 5.1 : Uploading data from sample CSV file. (optional)

We will now try to upload a sample CSV file. Save this sample CSV file to your disk and edit it to add the column headers, which for this CSV file are..

Name,Address,Latitude,Longitude

Now proceed to import this CSV file from Restaurants > More Actions > Import from CSV and provide the CSV file and proceed to mapping of fields. The initial mapping will be something like given below..

Now provide the mapping for the latitude and longitude, with both being mapped to Address on Map attribute..

The reverse mapping shows that both the latitude and longitude fields will be combined together for the geo-location value to be stored in Address on Map attribute..

Proceed to import all data into the database. The resulting list view after upload will be like given below..

And the map view (when you click on the View Map link below the table list) will be like given below..

Step 5.2 : Create custom views to filter based on geo-location . (optional)

You can also create multiple custom views to filter data based on nearness criteria.

For example, following are the entries to create a custom view to find stores near Miami Beach, Florida..
One can provide an approximate address and automatically have the marker placed in that location. Also notice that I have modified the columns that are to be displayed in the list view.

After saving the view, the resultant list view will be something like given below, with the records sorted based on the nearness to the location we specified when creating the custom view (that is, near Miami Beach, Florida)..

And the corresponding map view will be like the one given below..

You can also do a quick search without having to create a custom views, by following the links from the details page, to find other records near a particular location.

Hope you like the new geo-location and Google Maps integration features. Do let us know your feedback.

Custom Views now support Template Criteria for User References and Date/DateTime fields

2010-10-06T03:19:00.000-07:00

There are some pre-created views in iFreeTools CRM like My Open Leads, My Open Cases and My Pending Tasks which lists the records, based on the user who is currently logged-in and accessing the application, showing only the records owned by them in that view.

While one can created Custom Views providing specific user references, there was no way to create a view with such dynamic values referring to the currently logged-in user.

Similarly, while there are pre-created views like Due Today, Due Tomorrow (in Tasks module), which lists the records based on the when the view is getting accessed. Until now, it was not possible to create such views using the Custom Views in iFreeTools.

But now, we have now added support for using dynamic filtering criteria values in Custom Views, for User reference attributes and date, date-time attributes.

Dynamic User-reference values in Custom Views

While you still have options to choose specific user references, when adding Custom Views, you are now provided with an option to choose dynamic values, as shown in the image below..

Choosing the option adds the criteria as a template value - ${user}, referring to the currently logged in user..

This template criteria value will be replaced dynamically, when users access the Custom View.

Dynamic filtering for Date, DateTime fields using Custom Views

Until now we did not support date and date-time fields in Custom Views. This was due to certain limitations in the querying capabilities of Google App Engine. While the limitations remain, we have overcome them to enable you to create Custom Views providing dynamic criteria values for date, date-time fields.

You can now filter out records using on the following dynamic criteria values..

${today}, ${tomorrow},
${this_week}, ${last_week}, ${next_week},
${this_month}, ${last_month}, ${next_month},
${this_year}, ${last_year}, ${next_year}

as shown in the image below..

Here again, the template criteria value will be replaced dynamically, when users access the Custom View.

This date/date-time filtering feature in Custom Views internally uses indexes for querying the data. These indexes for database records are something like an index in books, helping you find the required records.

While new data will be automatically indexed, existing data has to be updated at least once, so that the records can be indexed automatically.

One can trigger indexing from the list views by selecting one or more records and then clicking on More Actions > Re-Index.

Hope you like the new template-criteria based Custom Views.

There are no upper limits on the number of Custom Views one can add to our GAE(Google App Engine)-hosted Free CRM for Google Apps and to our GAE-hosted Online Database App Builder. So, feel free to add as many views as you would like and do send in your suggestions on how you think the apps can be enhanced to make it even more useful.

Would you like to have iFreeTools deployed onto your Google App Engine account? Yes, we offer custom deployment options, starting at $99/year for upto 25 users, enabling you to use the free quota (1 GB of storage and 2000 emails/day) offered by Google and to buy more resources as per requirements, directly from Google. Contact raj@sahasvat.com for more details.

Easy bulk addition of database records in iFreeTools CRM & Creator

2010-09-28T05:24:00.000-07:00

Apart from the existing support for importing data in bulk using CSV files, we have now enabled support for bulk-addition of database records directly within our online apps.

From the list views (under More Actions) and from the details views (for adding Related Records), you will now find an option to add multiple entries of the records. Using this you can easily enter details for multiple database records in a single page and then save them all at once.

The form for adding multiple entries will be like the one given below..

In the above screen capture, multiple tasks are being added for a lead. By default the attributes which are marked as requiring a value along with a few other attributes are made visible in the form. One can change the attributes listed in the form by clicking on the Show/Hide Attributes link on the top-right.

When adding new rows, the values from the first row will be copied. So you can set the defaults in the first row and then have them copied to the new entries. You may also remove entries from the form, before you save them to database.

Once the details are added to the database, you can return back to the page from where you came to this form and see the records you had just added.

This feature is available in both the Free CRM for Google Apps and the Free Online Database Builder for Google Apps.

Hope you like our new feature. Feel free to send in your suggestions.

Private deployment of iFreeTools into your own Google App Engine account starts at $99/year for upto 25 users. For unlimited users it is just $299/year. Additional customizations are optional and are billed at Indian rates. If you are interested in such a private deployment, contact raj@sahasvat.com.

Image fields now supported in the Free Online Database builder for Google Apps

2010-09-01T02:12:00.001-07:00

We have now added support for defining and using Image fields in iFreeTools. This has been enabled for the Products database in iFreeTools CRM and can also be used for your custom online databases, using iFreeTools Creator.

A sample view of such a database listing is given below in a snapshot of a Travel Desk application built using iFreeTools Creator. The thumbnails of the images are listed in this table view..

When you proceed to the individual record's details page, you can see a bigger image..

When adding/editing records, you have options to either upload a new image or using an already uploaded image from the database of uploaded files. The options available for editing the image fields are show in this below image..

All uploaded files can be managed easily from Back-end Data > Uploaded Files, where CSV files used in importing data are also listed..

You could rename the files and change the descriptions or even, download the file from the details page..

When adding/editing the attribute you could specify the maximum file size for the image. For free versions the options available are 10, 25, 50 and 75 (all sizes in KB). If the uploaded image is of bigger size, the app will try to resize and reduce the file size to confirm to your settings..

You can go in for bigger image sizes when we open up our paid plans or if you go in for our custom deployment options, which enables you to use the 1 GB free quota from Google and to purchase additional resources directly from Google at $0.15/GB/month.

The rates for custom deployments start at $99/year (works out to $8.25/month) for upto 25 users (or $0.33/user/month). For unlimited users, it is just $299/year.

Hope you like our new feature. Do feel free to send in your suggestions using the feedback form in our apps or directly via mail to raj@sahasvat.com

Importing Google Contacts into CRM database is now supported

2010-08-18T03:33:00.000-07:00

We have now added support in the CRM for Google Apps - iFreeTools CRM, to directly importing Contact entries from your Google Contacts into your CRM database.

In all contacts list views, you will now have an option to "Import from Google Contacts". Clicking on this, Google will prompt you to ask if iFreeTools CRM can be allowed access to your Google Contacts. Once you provide access, you will be redirected to your list of contacts from Google Contacts, from which you could selectively mark and import into your CRM database.

You will have options to list contacts based on Contacts Groups you had assigned in Google Contacts, change the sort order (by default the latest updated entries are listed on top) and the page-size (default : 50).

If a contact is already found in the CRM database, it will be skipped during add. But you could change this behavior to either add a duplicate record or to over-write the existing record with values from Google Contacts.

The following snapshot shows the options available during import. Here "random" is one of my Google Contacts groups.

You can also preview the details of the contact, before you mark it for import. The following snapshot shows such a preview of one of the contacts..

After marking the entries you want to be added to the CRM database, you could then click on "Add Contacts". This will add the marked entries in batches, displaying you the status of the progress.

Once added, you could view these contacts in the CRM database. Apart from the standard details, additional details will be added to the Contact record's Notes attribute. Snapshot of a sample record imported from Google Contacts is given below..

By default, the user who imports the entries will be set as owner for those records. You could use the bulk-edit feature to change values as required.

Hope you find our new feature useful. Keep sending in your suggestions on how you think we can make things better & easier for you.

Import Field Mapping now available in iFreeTools CRM / Creator

2010-07-28T02:30:00.001-07:00

iFreeTools CRM - the free CRM built over Google App Engine, for use with Google Apps - now supports import field mapping.

Now you can map fields from CSV files imported from other sources by providing the field mapping in an easy to use interface, instead of having to manually mapping them in the CSV file. The source can be address book from Outlook or from Google Contacts exported as CSV, or even from your old CRM/database system.

Such field mapping can be saved and reused multiple times.

To enable this mapping, the import process will now contain 2 steps. First one will be similar to the one which we had earlier, where you could provide the CSV file to be imported..

The next step will be to provide the mapping. By default, the app will try to match the fields in the CSV with the property in iFreeTools record. The unmapped fields will be highlighted as shown below..

You may now provide the mapping for all fields which you want to import into iFreeTools. You could even map multiple fields from CSV to a single field in iFreeTools. The multiple values will be joined together and stored in the property.

You can view the reverse mapping to see if you have covered all important mapping.

In CRM, if the records require an "owner" property, it will be set to the user who performs the import operation. You could later use the Bulk Edit feature to reassign owners as required.

You could also provide a name for the import field mapping, so that you could just select it from the selection box the next time you need to import a similar CSV file.

This feature is also available for custom database apps created using iFreeTools Creator.

Support for Time Zone, Customizable Home Page and List View Settings, Printable Reports and more..

2010-06-26T00:52:00.000-07:00

At iFreeTools, we prioritize our features by listening to our users. Over the past couple of weeks, we have been adding the following features to iFreeTools, based on suggestions from our users..

Support for Time Zones
Customizable Home Page
Support for viewing additional attributes from referenced parent records, in child record's list views.
Customizable View Settings (Columns to View, Page Size, etc.,)
Printable Reports (List & Chart Views)
Pop-up selection for reference values.
Option to hide Created On, Updated On and Notes in custom Entities.

Details of the new features are given below :

Support for Time Zones

Until now, we had been displaying date-time values in UTC. Now, users can choose to display the date-time values in their time-zone. Just select the required time-zone value in Admin > App Settings and have it reflected in all views.

Customizable Home Page

You can now configure the home page contents (apart from just the About page, until now), from Admin > App Settings. This will be used as the content of your home page when accessing from your domain.

Within the home page contents, you may use BBCode for safe-rendering of HTML content. The supported BBCode tags you may use are : b, i, u, s, link, img, list with *, size, color and center.

Such a sample content provided in the App Settings is shown below.

The resulting page when accessed via the configured domain is shown below.

Live link of that sample home page : http://acme.sahasvat.com

Support for viewing additional attributes from referenced parent records, in child record's list views

It is typical requirement to view a parent record's attributes along with the child record's attributes in list views - for example, attributes from Account records (parent) shown along with Contact records (child).

Earlier we only had a link to the Account record details; but now, you can view values from the Account record right in the list of Contact records.

When creating or editing Custom Views, you can select the attributes you want to be displayed and it will get shown in the client.

[Screen-shot of this feature, shown along with next feature]

Customizable View Settings (Columns to View, Page Size, etc.,)

Apart from including the parent attributes in the list views of client (previous item), you can also specify the columns you want to make visible from the client's attributes. Other attributes will still be loaded in the client, but will not be visible. They can be toggled for visibility from Instant Details, as was possible earlier.

You can also specify the page-size and optionally disable the Instant Details and search-while-typing features. This can be configured at a Custom View level or at the app level from Admin > App Settings.

The following image shows the new features of selecting additional attributes from referenced parent records and customizable view settings..

Printable Reports (List & Chart Views)

Now all list views and chart views have an option to have a printable view. This view will be without the header, side-bars, footers and advertisements.

This feature is accessible from under Options in the list views and as a top-level button in chart views.

Pop-up selection for reference values.

Until now the reference value selection was possible only from select boxes. While this is fine if the number of values is less, this can be difficult to use in case there are more options from which to choose from.

From now on, if the options are more than 20, iFreeTools will automatically provide a pop-up option to choose the reference value. This option will enable selection from a list view, where you can sort and search the records and then select the required record instance for reference.

Option to hide Created On, Updated On and Notes in custom Entities.

This feature is applicable for iFreeTools Creator - which allows creating custom entities. You may now opt to *hide* the default attributes added to an custom entity, which are date-time stamps for Created On and Updated On and the text attribute Notes.

This only hides the attributes and can be re-enabled back again at any time.

--

By choosing to use our products, you show your commitment to us. Our way of thanking you for this, is to listen to your feedback and acting on it, so as to help you use our tools better.

Keep sending in your suggestions.

iFreeTools now opens up for all Google Apps User Accounts

2010-05-31T05:24:00.000-07:00

iFreeTools CRM - our free CRM built over Google App Engine and iFreeTools Creator - our free online database application builder, which were - until now - open only to users with Google Accounts, have now been opened up to allow all Google Apps users directly.

Thanks to adopting new features enabled recently by Google, for its Google App Engine platform, Google Apps users need not look for work-arounds and request separate deployments to use iFreeTools.

Users can also continue to login with Google Accounts, as before.

Once user has logged in using either Google Accounts or Google Apps User Accounts, our app will check for the email-id of the logged-in user to identify the user and to authorize operations. We also plan to enable full OpenID support, very soon.

What was until now just "CRM for Google App Engine" is now happy to call itself the "CRM for Google Apps, built over Google App Engine".

Hope you find our new feature useful. Feel free to check out our apps and send in your feedback.

Feature Preview : Email Templates and Bulk Emails

2010-05-27T01:44:00.000-07:00

We are now working on a new feature for iFreeTools, which is Email Templates and Bulk Emails.

Email Templates enable you to automate mailing work by allowing you to define templates, which can include fields from the records and then to send out mails with their values replaced (mail-merge).

This new feature will now be supported for records which have an Email attribute.

For iFreeTools CRM, this will include Lead, Contact, Vendor and Case records.

And, for iFreeTools Creator - where one can create their own custom database application online - String attributes can now be marked as email and will automatically get this feature enabled for those Entities.

The following screen-shot image shows Owner's Email ID property, from the sample app used in our walk-through for using iFreeTools Creator, being marked as an Email Property. The transform function is also used to trim the values to remove spaces and convert it to lower-case.

Similarly, we can also mark the Tenant's Email ID property.

Once this is marked, a new action button will become available in the list views. For the CRM app, as mentioned earlier, this has been pre-configured for Leads, Contacts, Vendors and Cases.

In the above view, the option is disabled, because no records have been selected.

Let us select a few records to proceed to check out how this feature would work. Shown below are 3 record selected before triggering Send Email

The default view will be as given below. Since this is a preview release of the feature, the message on the top informs you that Notification Tasks will alone be added in Preview status - which means actual emails will not be sent, for now.

You will have an option to just send an email once or to save the template providing the name, description, type of email and sharing options. Admin users can create templates for themselves or for all users, like it is possible with our Custom Views and Custom Actions.

We will now proceed to create a Welcome Email template, and make it available for all users. One can include fields from the records, which are listed on the left on the content box and can be clicked to be inserted into the contents. You can also use BBCode. The supported BBCode tags are : b, i, u, s (strike), url, quote, img, list with *, size, color, center, code and p.

Fields are supported within mail subject too, as shown in the screen-shot below..

Proceeding to send email, you will see a page as shown below. Notice the message on the top, that the email template has been added. The notification tasks will be added sequentially for each of the record instances.

Let us now check for the results.

Clicking on the Notification Templates, we find the template listed..

Proceeding to the Notification Tasks view, we find 3 records present with status as Preview. Also notice how the values have been replaced with actual values from Owner records.

And, this is one of the Notification Task's details view..

Notice that I had done a mistake in my template code by providing HTML instead of BBCode for the content "Personal Executive" - happens when switching between writing a blog post and the app, taking screen shots :-). Anyway, we can edit the template to correct this, which we will be doing now while explaining another important feature, which is Automatic Dupe Detection for Bulk-Emails.

To explain how Automatic Dupe Detection for Bulk-Emails works, we will again trigger the Send Email from the Owners list view with all the records selected and proceed to the email-template view as given below. Now, select the template from the selection box and click on Modify and Save options next to that box. Edit the content as required and then proceed.

In the subsequent page, we will see the results for the notification tasks being added, as shown below. The engine will detect dupe emails based on the notification identifier, which for now is taken to be the subject of the email. So, notification tasks will be added only for those records which have not already been mailed with the same subject.

This is a preview release of the Email Templates and Bulk Emails feature. When this is fully enabled, the tasks would have triggered emails and end up with status as Executed.

For each of the notified users, a record will be added in Notified Users, under Admin. This will be used to enable users to opt-out of notifications, if they prefer to do so - confirming to CAN-SPAM regulations for Promotional emails.

We plan to integrate with SMS gateways too, which will follow the similar flow, except that the Subject will be ignored and the Content will have to be short.

Play around with our iFreeTools and let us know your feedback on how we can make things better.

Support for Unique Field Constraints in iFreeTools

2010-04-02T03:10:00.001-07:00

Though Google App Engine does not yet support modifiable unique fields, we believe that this is an important requirement for many business apps. So, we have added this feature in our framework layer over Google App Engine to enable unique fields in our Free CRM for Google Apps Engine and in our online database app-builder for Google App Engine.

This feature has been turned on for the email-id fields in iFreeTools CRM - for Lead, Vendor, Contact and User records. The value entered for these fields will be trimmed to remove spaces and converted to lower case, before a unique constraint check is performed, when adding or modifying records.

We will see how this feature can be used in a custom application over iFreeTools Creator. Vehicle registration details in one case where unique values are to be stored for each of the vehicle records. You do not want a duplicate entry to be entered inadvertently into your database. So for the this field, we will enable the Unique constraint and also use the transformation functions trim and upper.

Now, we will proceed to add a record with a duplicate value for this unique field. Notice how the value is given in a lower case and with additional spaces prefixed and suffixed..

When trying to save this record, we will be shown the error message as given in the image below. You will also find that the value has been trimmed and turned to upper-case..

The unique constraints are also enforced during bulk import of data from CSV.

Hope you find the feature useful. Feel free to send in your feedback.

Export / Import Data as CSV & Bulk Delete in iFreeTools CRM and Creator

2010-03-22T05:04:00.000-07:00

A new upgrade to our Google App Engine powered CRM application and Online Database App-creator, has added support for Exporting and Importing data in CSV format, along with support for bulk-delete.

Exporting and Importing of data as CSV enables you to

store a backup of your data
import new data in bulk
restore back old-data at a later date, if required, from the back-up
take away your data at any time from our database - No vendor locks.

In this blog post, we will have an overview of this new feature, as used in iFreeTools Creator, the approach will be similar in iFreeTools CRM too.

In the default list views, there will now be an option under More Actions to Export as CSV and Import from CSV as shown below..

First export the data as a CSV file and store it locally. This file acts as a backup of the existing data and can also be used as a template to add new data.

You can use any spreadsheet application which supports editing of CSV files. We will use Google Docs for this feature preview. Use the upload option to upload the CSV file to Google Docs..

The spreadsheet will be loaded and will show the entries as present in the iFreeTools database..

We can now add / modify entries in the spreadsheet. We will add 2 new records - of which 1 record will have values in unicode (Tamil language) and update the existing records by adding some notes. The changes made to the spreadsheet are highlighted in the image below..

Now download the modified file from Google Docs, by choosing from the menu File > Download as > CSV (current sheet). Now you can upload the file to iFreeTools. Choose the Import from CSV option and specify the file downloaded from Google Docs and click on Import..

This will import the data into iFreeTools' database, as shown below..

Notice that 2 new entries have been added, with proper handling for unicode characters and that 3 existing records have been updated with notes. The status message on top also provides the details of the import.

Further changes to the imported data can be performed using the Bulk Edit feature, which was added recently.

This update also includes the Bulk Delete option, available under More Actions.

Hope you like our new features. If you face any issues or have suggestions, feel free to use the feedback form in our application.

Custom Actions now supported in Google App Engine powered iFreeTools CRM and Creator

2010-03-05T09:23:00.000-08:00

When we added the Bulk Edit feature recently to our Google App Engine powered CRM and our Online Application Builder for App Engine, we had mentioned that we were to make "Custom Actions" available next.

And with today's upgrade, it is now available.

When performing bulk operations, you will now have an option to provide a name for the bulk-edit operation. For admin users one can additionally specify if the Custom Action needs to be available for all users or just for you. In the sample screen-shot below, we are adding a Rented-out custom action, which sets Vacant property as False (unchecked in form)..

And after this proceed with the bulk-edit operation as usual. This will apply the bulk-edit changes and also create a custom action which will be available under More Actions, as shown below.. In the screen-shot the bulk-action buttons (Bulk Edit and Rented-out) will remain disabled, until one or more rows are selected.

You can get to know more details of the Custom Actions by clicking on Action Details. This will list the details of the accessibility of the Custom Action, along with details on the attributes that get changed by the action and if you have the privileges, an option to delete the action, as shown in the image below..

While one can also provide the same custom action name in the bulk-edit form to update an existing custom action, it is just as easy to just delete the action and add it again.

Hope you like the new feature. Feel free to send in your feedback.

Building a simple Issue-tracker application on Google App Engine.. Online.

2010-03-03T18:35:00.000-08:00

In this blog post we will walk through the steps in creating a simple issue-tracker application over Google App Engine, using iFreeTools Creator.

Login into iFreeTools Creator (no signup required, your Google Account is sufficient) to start building the application.

The overview of the steps involved..

Edit App Settings to rebrand
Add 'Bug' / 'Issue' Entity
Add Attributes for Bug
Start using the Bug/Issue Tracker

Edit App Settings under Admin and rebrand your application..

As you might notice, there are options to further rebrand the application providing your logo and also to map the application to your Google Apps sub-domain. But we will leave that for now.

Add an entity to store the Bug / Issue details..

We have allowed the viewing of bug database for guest role users. While to create/edit/delete bug entries, they need to have user or admin role.

Add required attributes..

Our Bug database requires to store the following attributes..

Tester
Title
Description
Steps to reproduce
Severity
Date logged
Date closed
Notes

Add Tester attribute as a reference to User system-entity..

Notice that the attribute data-type for Tester is Reference and the referenced entity is User - which is a system entity.

Similarly add Title as a String and, Description and Steps to reproduce as a Text attributes. Next will be define Severity..

Adding severity with options to choose from..

The options provided are Critical, Major, Minor and Cosmetic.

Proceed to add Date logged and Date closed attributes with data-type as Date.

That is it.

Now, we are ready to start using our Bug-Tracker App

The form for adding a bug will look like the one given below..

Once added, the bugs will get listed in a Bugs list view..

You may also add users, whom you want to provide access. Just provide their email-id associated with a Google Account. Sample user entries added to the application..

Users with guest role can only view the bug lists. While users with admin and user roles can add modify bug details.

Now we can proceed to add more more bug entries to our bug database..

iFreeTools Creator automatically detects attributes which can be used for charts and provides them readily accessible. The data can be visualized in 3 chart types - Horizontal and Vertical (column) Bar charts and Pie Charts.

Bar Chart visualization..

Pie Chart visualization..

Hope you like the features in iFreeTools Creator. If you have any further queries, feel free to write to raj@sahasvat.com or use our feedback form.

Related :

Also See :

Custom Actions now supported in Google App Engine powered iFreeTools CRM and Creator

Google Accounts & Google Apps user-accounts - authentication options in Google App Engine

2010-03-02T02:53:00.000-08:00

The issue discussed in this specific post has been solved. We have now added support to enable Google Apps users to login directly into iFreeTools CRM & Creator.

So, no more confusions.. no more work-arounds.
You may skip this post.

This is a short note on the default authentication modes possible with Google App Engine and how we have configured it for our free CRM and our online application builder apps.

There are 2 modes in which applications can be deployed over Google App Engine..

Open to all Google Accounts --or--
Restricted to a specific Google Apps domain.

Our default application instances (with application identifiers sahasvat-ifreetools for CRM and sahasvat-ifreetools-creator for Creator) are deployed in the first mode, so as to enable access to users with normal Google Accounts.

Since Google wants to treat Google Accounts and Google Apps accounts differently, it can create confusions for users. This means that users with just a Google Apps user-account cannot login to access our default apps.

There are 2 suggested approaches for this scenario..

Creating a new Google Account using your Google Apps email-id and proceeding to use the application for free.
Have a separate application instance deployed for you over App Engine, with authentication restricted to your Google Apps domain. For details on such a custom deployment, with optional customizations, kindly refer to http://crm.ifreetools.com/about.

You may also read the following blog post which details the confusions caused by the different account types and options to have things working..
Fixing the Google Account problem [www.equalsdrummond.name].

We also plan to offer a free deployment - equivalent to the $299/year plan, but with ads - to enable Google Apps authentication for such deployments. If you are interested, use the feedback form or send an email raj@sahasvat.com to request for details on using such a deployment.

With the OpenID & OAuth support in Google App Engine's road-map, these confusions can be avoided altogether.

If you have any further queries, feel free to write to raj@sahasvat.com or use our feedback form.

Bulk Edit feature now available in the Free CRM for Google App Engine

2010-03-01T04:06:00.000-08:00

Our recent upgrade now enables Bulk-Edit feature in our Google App Engine powered Free CRM and Free Online Database Application Builder apps.

While many could have used such features in other apps, just giving an overview of the feature for those who may be new to the feature.

From the list views, select one or more records and then click on the "Bulk Edit" button.

This will bring up the bulk-edit form. In this all the form input elements will be disabled by default. You may enable the form elements for attributes to be modified by selecting appropriate check-boxes and then proceed to enter the values for those attributes. Once you have updated the required fields with values, click on Save.

This will update the previously selected record instances with new values, changing values for those attributes enabled in the form. Other disabled attributes will remain unchanged. (The modified records, with the changed value for owner, are shown highlighted in the following view..)

Coming up next will be options to create "Custom Actions", using which frequent edit operations can be saved as a Custom Action and invoked with a single click, instead of filling in forms again and again.

Easy Visualization of Data with Auto-Charts in iFreeTools CRM & Creator

2010-02-08T03:03:00.000-08:00

Automatic Chart View options are now available for all views -- pre-defined views, as well as Custom Views -- in our free CRM and app-creator for Google App Engine.

iFreeTools will automatically detect attributes which can be used to group data together and enable auto-charting options for those attributes, as shown below..

This feature is added to our core engine layer and hence available to both iFreeTools CRM and iFreeTools Creator applications. The following screen shot shows charting options in the Property Management application, we had built in our walk-through for iFreeTools Creator..

Current aggregation operation used is count - count of records, grouped by another attribute. We will soon be supporting other options like sum, which will be more useful when we introduce currency data-types.

Go ahead and check out our auto-charting feature available in..

and let us know your feedback.

Build Apps Online, over Google App Engine, using iFreeTools Creator

2010-01-29T05:28:00.000-08:00

We are happy to announce the Preview Release of iFreeTools Creator, which was mentioned in our previous post (What's Cooking : iFreeTools "Brahma").

iFreeTools Creator is probably the first Google App Engine based online application builder. It provides users the access to iFreeTools Engine, which powers our Free CRM application.

Let us see how to create a simple Property Management application using iFreeTools Creator..

Configure App Settings

First configure the App Settings under Admin to provide your Organization's name and the applications name. For our example, we will call Acme Inc.'s Property Management.

(Other aspects of rebranding are as mentioned in iFreeTools CRM on your sub-domain, with rebranding !!)

Add Required Entities

Now proceed to Entities module under Admin and click on Add Entity. You will get a form to enter the details, as given below. Provide details of Entity and save the record.

Likewise we will create 3 entities Property, Owner and Tenant. The entities will get listed in the "Custom Entities" view as given below..

The Entity Index property defines the dependency and listing order.

Add Attributes for Entities

Now you can proceed to add the attributes for those entities. From Admin::Attributes, click on Add Attribute and fill in the form..

Likewise we can add relevant attributes for all entities. Given below are the attributes we added for the 3 entities...

Owner Attributes

Property Attributes

Tenant Attributes

The Property Index decides the order of the attribute items in list, form and details pages.

Start using the application

That is it. You can now start using the Property Management application. The below image shows the "Properties" view with sample data..

You can always customize it, as and when business needs change. Go ahead, play with the Online Application Creator for Google App Engine.

We do have plans to add more features, including support for more data types, chart views like those available in our CRM application and more. And, we would like to hear your feedback too. You can either use the feedback form in the application or send a mail directly to raj@sahasvat.com.

Related :
Building a simple Bug-tracker application on Google App Engine

Also See :
Custom Actions now supported in Google App Engine powered iFreeTools CRM and Creator

What's Cooking : iFreeTools "Brahma"

2010-01-22T00:25:00.000-08:00

Few days ago, I had tweeted about starting work on iFreeTools "Brahma".

For those who were not sure about what that meant, Brahma is believed to be the Hindu god of creation [wikipedia.org].

So it was iFreeTools Creator, the "Online BigTable Database Application Builder", for which work was started. iFreeTools Creator is probably the first Google App Engine based online application builder. It gives users the access to iFreeTools Engine, which powers our Free CRM application.

Below are some screenshots from iFreeTools Creator..

Currently in testing, the following screenshot shows a Custom Entity created for storing information on Real Estate Projects..

The application in the screenshot above uses the default CRM entities, but one might as well start from a clean slate. This feature (custom entities and attributes) will be rolled into the default CRM application as well, at a later date.

So, that is what is cooking at iFreeTools.

I am still working on alternate heading captions for the home page wordings and am also open to changing the image. Feel free to send in your suggestions to raj@sahasvat.com.

Follow @ifreetools in twitter or add this blog [feeds] to your reader, for updates on iFreeTools Creator.

Have a great weekend !!

iFreeTools in The 451 Group's report on SaaS M&A

2010-01-20T03:09:00.000-08:00

iFreeTools gets a mention in Sector IQ report titled "Buying in the cloud: Where SaaS players and others may look to make M&A moves for apps", by China Martens, dated 14 Jan 2010.

This report is filed under the sectors..

Application software / Customer relationship management
Application software / Enterprise resource planning

(click to view larger image)

Glad about being part of that report.

Not sure about the exact context or quote, but I think I can guess - based on the title. (Hint: iFreeTools will not acquire any of those companies, listed along with it.)

Support for Custom Views in iFreeTools CRM

2009-12-01T22:13:00.000-08:00

iFreeTools CRM just got an update with the new Custom Views feature.

Clicking on the Add Custom View link available under each module of CRM, will bring up a form wherein one can provide the view name, description and the criteria to be used for filtering.

For example, to view all leads who have not been contacted yet, one can create a "Not Contacted" view as shown below..

Once the view is created, it will be listed along with the predefined views in the module..

One can also provide multiple values for the criteria.

For example, to view all Open Leads by specific owners (say, for users "Gold" and "Diamond"), one can create a view as shown below (notice multiple values in OR for Lead Owner and Lead Status)..

The resulting view will use all values in the criteria to provide the results..

Such Custom Views will be available for use by all users within the application instance, while admin users alone can create/modify/delete Custom Views.

Currently properties with choices and reference properties alone can be used in providing the filter criteria. For other filtering one can use the search within the Advanced Views, for now. We will be coming up with more options for filtering at a later upgrade.

Check out the new feature and feel free to send us your feedback.

No, it is not just about the location of the server.

2009-11-26T03:24:00.000-08:00

Let us assume you are an enterprise software maker. You make some good software which customers have been deploying on their premises for years now.

But then you start seeing this new trend on cloud computing, wherein customers can just signup for the service and start using it at once.

No purchasing of servers, no installation issues, no configuration files to tweek, no opening up firewalls or configuring of private networks for external access, no need to upgrading to new version for bug-fixes or new features.

Just signup and may be, customize online and the application is ready for use - accessible with just a web browser from any device with internet access.

Cool - ain't it ?!

So, how do you compete with such players ?

Sugar CRM - the "open source" (??) CRM - thinks that it can extend the life time of its application by making it easier for users to install it online. So it ties up with Microsoft, which by the way needs to fight such new generation of applications too, and comes up with Sugar CRM for Azure.

While there are efficiencies achieved by out-sourcing servers to highly automated data-centers, the real efficiencies which enable much lower costs comes with multi-tenant platforms.

Multi-tenant systems do not require a new database instance created for each customer who signs up.

Even worse is having to install servers for "cloud computing". This is not much different than dedicated hosting. See such a technique being used by IBM for its Tivoli.

An instance of IBM Tivoli Monitoring is created and available for use in less than 7 days...
...
..the Tivoli Live service will support monitoring 25 to 500 nodes (or “services” as they call them), with monthly pricing

What ?
Just 500 nodes ?!
Come on you are IBM !
Can you not do better ?
..Well.. alright, you are IBM.

Such deployments pass on the costs to the customers and hence can never get as affordable as pure multi-tenant systems. They can at best be stop gap solutions, trying to make use of the terms "cloud computing" and "saas", while real players start eating away into their profits.

// I work on such a real multi-tenant cloud computing application, built over Google App Engine - iFreeTools CRM.

Instant Search now available in iFreeTools CRM

2009-11-23T23:08:00.000-08:00

We told you search was "Coming soon.." when we introduced Advanced Views late last week and now, it has arrived in iFreeTools CRM.

This comes a day after Instant Details and Customizable Columns were added to Advanced Views.

Advanced Views now have a "search as you type" feature, shown in action below..

The search string is matched against values from all the columns in table view. If you want to include a property for the search, just add it as a column of the table and proceed to search.

Advanced Views is Javascript powered and works best in modern browsers like Chrome and Firefox - which we use extensively for our testing. While it does work in IE (it can be a bit slow), we recommend better browsers.

There is also an option to disable "Search while typing", which makes search operations to begin only after clicking on the Search button. This can be useful when using browsers like IE.

Keep sending in your feedback on Google App Engine powered iFreeTools CRM. We listen, and more importantly we act and we deliver - fast.

Instant Details and Customizable Columns now available in Advanced Views

2009-11-23T02:35:00.000-08:00

Another upgrade and iFreeTools CRM now has support for Instant Details and Customizable Columns in the Advanced Views. This comes soon after the initial support for Sorting and Faster Paging (Next/Previous), added late last week.

With today's upgrade, Advanced View has been made the default list view. If required, one can always switch back to Simple View and the browser will remember your preference the next time list views are loaded.

Within the Advanced View, one can now view the details of the records instantly by clicking on the row in the table.

When the view loads, you will see something like..

Now click on any row in the table to load the details..

Notice how the visible columns are marked with a star image. You could click on the star (or the property name) to toggle the visibility of the property in the table view.

For example, when you want to remove the Salutation and First Name and instead add Lead Source and Lead Industry, click on the relevant property names in the details view and see the changes getting reflected in the table view..

Once the property becomes a column in the table, it can then be used for sorting. Options to save the view settings either for self or as default settings to all users will be available soon.

The usual details view is still available, where you can also view the lists of related records.

We would be glad to hear from you on what you would like to see in our Google App Engine powered iFreeTools CRM. Check out the features and feel free to send in your feedback.

Sorting and Faster Paging (Next/Previous) with Advanced Views

2009-11-19T04:50:00.000-08:00

Not being able to sort the data, was one of the pain points expressed by some of our users. So we got working on a quick feature to support sorting of data in the views, while also enabling faster paging.

These features are now available as "Advanced Views" in the Google App Engine powered iFreeTools CRM.

It is recommended to use Chrome or Firefox (with firebug disabled), to experience this feature.

Currently "Advanced Views" is not the default view, as it is still a work in progress. Other upcoming features in the Advanced Views include selectable columns and search.

So, what is your pain point ? What would you like to see soon in iFreeTools CRM ?

Let us know - you can use the feedback form in the application or send a mail to raj@sahasvat.com. We listen, and more importantly, we act and we deliver.

Sales Opportunities Pipeline (Funnel Chart) is now available in iFreeTools CRM

2009-11-16T06:51:00.000-08:00

Sales Opportunities Pipeline (Funnel Chart) which was in the works, is now available as part of iFreeTools CRM.

This comes after our initial support for charts added in the Leads module.

As an additional option, we have also included a horizontal-bar-chart in all chart views.

Apart from the Sales Opportunities Pipeline, two more chart views have also been introduced in the Opportunities module, which are Open Opportunities By Source and Open Opportunities By Owner. These charts show the opportunity amount (or potential) aggregated based on source/owner, displayable in Horizontal/Vertical Bar charts or in Pie charts.

We would love to hear your feedback on the application.

Support for charts was actually taken up earlier than planned, after users got in touch with us requesting for the same. Go ahead and check out the CRM built for Google App Engine / Google Apps and let us know what you would like to see soon in this application. You can use the feedback form in the application or send a mail to raj@sahasvat.com.

Google And Its Effects on CRM - You have seen nothing, yet !!

2009-11-13T18:04:00.000-08:00

We Blog CRM has post on Google And Its Effects on CRM (a couple of months old).

The blog post points out how applications like Google Docs and Calendar can be good CRM tools and goes on to describe how the current players like Salesforce and Zoho CRM are integrating with Google applications.

Another aspect of Google's effect on CRM has not been given specific mention and rightfully so, because, though there is a potential in that angle, there were no concrete examples to talk about - at least at the time of that post.

That angle is : The effect of Google enabling more low-cost CRM vendors to come into picture due via the App Engine platform. Google App Engine has evolved a lot since its debut in April 2008. Now the platform has a lot more features and JVM support (which enables Java and other JVM based languages)

One such app to take advantage of the platform is our very own http://crm.ifreetools.com, which came out with the Alpha version less than a month ago and seems to be the only application working to be a full-fledged CRM app, based on those listed in App Engine's Application Gallery.

We at iFreeTools believe this will not remain so. There will be a lot more players dropping into the CRM / business software scene, which is now becoming more of a commodity. I had mentioned this in a comment on Zoho's blog titled "Why we compete with Google" - at that time I was still an employee of Zoho (then called, AdventNet).

Deploying such App Engine applications on Google Apps domains is as easy as "Add a Service" from the dashboard and then adding a CNAME (DNS entry) to map a sub-domain.

But, how far can such apps go ?
Will they be able to at least match the core features of the current breed of SaaS applications ?
How feature rich can such applications be, given the restrictions inherent in the App Engine platform ?
Will Google Wave have a bigger role to play ?

All this, we will have to wait and see. All I can say now is, watch out for more of Google's effects on CRM.

What's Cooking : Sales Opportunities Funnel Chart

2009-11-13T05:52:00.000-08:00

Yes, that is what's cooking at CRM for App Engine - iFreeTools CRM.

The Opportunities Pipeline Chart (aka Sales Potentials Funnel chart) is a standard chart in almost all CRM application. iFreeTools is now working towards providing the same as part of the next upgrade.

Not sure, if this is going to be a simulated funnel shape (which underneath, uses a normal bar chart)...

or if it going to be a simple bar chart (with not exactly the typical funnel shape)...

The problem with adding a dummy column is, that space is click-able and can confuse users about the actual value..

Let me see what I can do. Until then, have a nice weekend !!

And, as always, feel free to send in your suggestions to me, on what you want to see added soon, in iFreeTools CRM.

Related :
Sales Opportunities Pipeline (Funnel Chart) is now available in iFreeTools CRM

CRM for App Engine adds Charts

2009-11-12T01:30:00.000-08:00

iFreeTools CRM, the CRM built for Google App Engine (and hence for Google Apps), just had an upgrade which adds support for charts in the hosted CRM application.

This first step towards broader reporting features in iFreeTools CRM, begins with charts added to the Leads Module.

Now, under Open Leads, the following chart views have been added..

Open Leads
- By Status
- By Source
- By Industry
- By Owner

Each chart view has an option to view the summary in either bar-chart format (loaded by default) or a pie-chart format.

Note : In case you are using Firefox, make sure Firebug is disabled when using these charts as Firebug is known to slow down this charting feature.

Send in your feedback on what charts you would like to have as part of the application and we would add them in subsequent upgrades.

Within this short duration of less than month, iFreeTools CRM (alpha) has attracted a lot of users from across the world. They like the pace at which features are getting added and the personalized support. A few of them have already rebranded and mapped the application to their Google Apps domain.

So, go ahead start using the application and feel free to send in your feedback on what you would like to see soon in iFreeTools CRM.

Related Posts :

What's Cooking : Sales Opportunities Funnel Chart

Sales Opportunities Pipeline (Funnel Chart) is now available in iFreeTools CRM

Task Management module added to iFreeTools CRM

2009-11-10T03:24:00.001-08:00

Google App Engine powered iFreeTools has added support for managing Tasks in its hosted CRM service.

Now users can add Tasks and associate them to other CRM records which can be Lead, Account, Contact, Opportunity, Case, Campaign, Vendor and Product.

A set of pre-defined views have also been provided for the Tasks module..

My Pending Tasks
All Pending Tasks
Past Due
Due Today
Due Tomorrow
Completed

Check out the new module and as always, keep sending in your feedback on the Free CRM for Google Apps.

Add Logo to your Rebranded CRM

2009-11-08T22:16:00.000-08:00

As part of rebranding iFreeTools CRM, you may now provide the URL for your logo, to be displayed in the header of the CRM application. The URL can directly point to the logo on your website - example : http://www.mydomain.com/static/images/logo.png . Uploading images to iFreeTools is not supported, for now.

To help your logo blend with the application, you may choose a header out of "default", "cloud" or "full-white", so as to match your logo better. Transparent PNG logos are also supported.

The following samples show the use of a transparent PNG logo, used for rebranding with the 3 different headers..

With "default" Header :

With "cloud" Header :

With "full-white" header :

Also, you may include the rebranding text (organization name, appName1 and appName2) along with smaller logos, as shown below..

Logo with Text :

Check out the features and feel free to send in your feedback on our Free CRM for Google Apps.

Related Post :
iFreeTools CRM on your sub-domain, with rebranding !!

iFreeTools CRM on your sub-domain, with rebranding !!

2009-11-05T09:10:00.000-08:00

Yet another upgrade just happened at CRM for Google App Engine. This upgrade enables mapping of iFreeTools CRM service to one of your sub-domains and also to configure it with simple rebranding.

Note :
The details provided here are also applicable to iFreeTools Creator, our online database app builder for Google Apps.

Sub-domain mapping

To enable sub-domain mapping, like say http://crm.<yourdomain>.com, you will require to enable Google Apps for your domain and add iFreeTools CRM app as a service.

In the dashboard page click on "Add more services" link..

In the resulting page, add the Google App Engine service, by providing the App ID. The App ID for the 2 iFreeTools applications are given below :

iFreeTools CRM : sahasvat-ifreetools
iFreeTools Creator : sahasvat-ifreetools-creator

Now, proceed to configure your sub-domain and required CNAME entries in your DNS configuration to map to ghs.google.com (not covered in detail here. Follow steps in Google Apps).

After the configuration, you should be able to access iFreeTools CRM service from your subdomain.

Rebranding

When you login into the application, you will see the header with default configuration having values which suggest you to make changes (currently it will be something like "Your-Biz-Name-Here")..

Proceed to Admin::App Settings to view the default settings currently used by the application, which will be similar to the one given below..

Now proceed to modify the configuration. Notice that About Page and Feedback Page have been disabled (unchecked) as part of Rebranding..

And after the modified app settings takes effect, you will see the specified names being used in the header and that the About and Feedback links are removed from the application..

As of now, feedback mails when enabled (with "Show Feedback Page" as True) will be sent to ifreetools.com, behaviour of which will be modified soon.

Hope you like the new features.

Play with the app and feel free to send in your feedback on iFreeTools CRM.

Related :
Add Logo to your Rebranded CRM

Customize selection values in iFreeTools CRM

2009-11-03T22:15:00.000-08:00

iFreeTools CRM (alpha) - the CRM for Google AppEngine, just got an upgrade. With this upgrade, iFreeTools CRM has added support for defining enumerated values for selection fields.

Admin users can now define Enum values to be listed for the following selection fields..

lead.salutation
lead.leadSource
lead.leadIndustry
lead.leadRating
account.accountRating
account.accountType
account.accountOwnership
account.accountIndustry
contact.leadSource
contact.salutation
opportunity.type
opportunity.leadSource
campaign.campaignType
product.productCategory
case.origin
case.reason

For using this option, go to the Enum module under Admin and add comma-separated values for the fields. If no Enum is defined for a property, the default application level settings will be used.

Default selection values before customization

Configure values for the selection field

Selection values after customization

Defining of Enum has been disabled for the following fields, since they are used in pre-defined views.

lead.leadStatus
opportunity.stage
campaign.campaignStatus
solution.status
case.type
case.status
case.priority

Also, currently you will have to configure values for attribute for different modules individually. Example lead.leadSource, contact.leadSource and opportunity.leadSource will have to be configured individually. Since it is a one-time admin operation, we assumed it will be OK. Probably at a later date, we can provide a even more easier option to define once and refer in more than one field.

Check out the feature and feel free to send in your feedback on our Free CRM application.

iFreeTools CRM listed on Google App Engine's App Gallery

2009-11-03T10:25:00.000-08:00

iFreeTools CRM (alpha) - the CRM for Google AppEngine, is now listed on Google App Engine's Application Gallery

Customized solutions over iFreeTools CRM can also be deployed to your sub-domain (like say, http://crm.yourdomain.com).

Such a deployment enables 2000 emails/day and 1GB of storage. Additional capacity can be purchased directly from Google.

For more details on custom deployment options, refer to : http://crm.ifreetools.com/about

CRM for Google AppEngine adds Authorization, Audit and Pre-defined Views

2009-11-01T23:16:00.000-08:00

iFreeTools CRM (alpha) - the CRM for Google AppEngine, just got an upgrade. With this upgrade, iFreeTools CRM has added support for..

Authorization
Audit
Pre-defined Views

Authorization and Audit :

Authorization will be based on the user roles, currently limited to "admin", "user" and "guest".

Audit records will be automatically added for all completed write operations and for attempts to perform unauthorized operations. Audit records cannot be added, edited or deleted directly by users and any attempts to do so will also be audited.

Apart from Audit data, authorization for views and actions are as listed below..

admin - maximum privileges
- viewing, adding, copying, editing and deleting of records in all modules (except for changing own login to non-admin role or deleting one's own login)
user - normal privileges
- viewing of records in all modules
- adding of records in all modules, except Users
- copying, editing and deleting of records for which the user is the owner
guest - limited privileges
- viewing of records in all modules.

Pre-defined Views

First cut support for views is now in. All modules by default will have minimum of two views, one to view all records (example : All Leads, All Accounts, etc.,.) and one to view records related to them (My Leads, My Accounts, etc.,.).

Apart from these 2 views, pre-defined views specific to the module have also been provided. For Leads the additional views are..

Converted Leads
Open Leads
Lost Leads
Junk Leads
My Open Leads

The left-side tab-based navigation has been modified to include such views..

Go ahead and check out the features and send in your feedback.

---

BTW, the ads just got smaller on our free CRM application..
* Horizontal (on header) : From 728x90 ("Leaderboard") to 468x60 ("Banner")
* Vertical (on left sidebar) : From 160x600 ("Wide Skyscraper") to 125x125 ("Button")

So, you will see lesser distractions from competitors of iFreeTools.

---x---

Case Management and Solutions support in iFreeTools CRM

2009-10-27T01:02:00.000-07:00

iFreeTools CRM (Alpha) has now added support for Case Management and Solutions database.

Customers (existing and potential) often raise queries or provide feedback on the organization's products/services and it is in the best interest of the organization to provide prompt replies to such queries and resolve the issues faced. In the process, it is important to track all the interactions as part of the conversation with that customer, so as to enable better relationship with the customer. The Case Management module helps one achieve this.

While solving the problems, it is also useful to catalog the problem along with the solution of resolved case, as part of a solutions database. Such a database can be opened up for all customers, serving as a knowledge base.

Check out the new features at iFreeTools CRM.

Are your marketing people bad-mouthing competition (behind your back) ?!

2009-10-22T01:04:00.000-07:00

Chanced upon a referrer link from collecta.com to my personal blog. Checked out to see the context of how my blog got referenced. Collecta provides search for real time content. So I assumed that my blog should have got into the results because of the "CRM" keyword in my post on iFreeTools CRM.

So did a search for "CRM", to check out the results in collecta. Right on top of the results was a tweet on Zoho CRM, rather in a negative way, which I knew was far from truth (if I cannot say "an outright lie"). For those unaware, Zoho (previously AdventNet) was my employer for 100 months right from when I was fresh out of college until I quit to start out on my own, about a year back.

Went to check out the twitter account of the user and found that it was used as a marketing tool (probably with a minimal cost-per-click and additional cost-per-action payments) to drive traffic to a competitor - FreeCRM. Nothing wrong in promoting ones products/services, but why provide wrong information about a competitor or make unsubstantiated claims..

Wrong info...
Zoho CRM goes down all the time this is better http://bit.ly/18lfAx
Zoho CRM has hidden costs and terrible support http://bit.ly/18lfAx

Unsubstantiated/Dubious claims..
Ranked #1 against Zoho CRM and Sugar CRM http://bit.ly/18lfAx

zohobiz is the handle for the Zoho focussed tweets, while bbakari tweets with more diversifications - targeting Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, Sugar CRM and vTiger. Both twitter accounts use the same bitly link. The bitly link statistics available at http://bit.ly/info/18lfAx shows more than 16,557 clicks in less than 2 months.

Not sure if FreeCRM is aware of the methodology used, but they should be; And moreover they should not fund such marketing activities.

Puzzled at how both Zoho and FreeCRM allow such twitter accounts to exist and continue posting such tweets for around 2 months now !!

--

(After yesterday's alpha release, Vendor module is now available as part of iFreeTools CRM - Alpha. Check it out and let me know your feedback).

iFreeTools CRM - Alpha Version

2009-10-21T06:19:00.000-07:00

Sahasvat is happy to make available an alpha version of its CRM/SFA (Sales Force Automation) hosted solution - iFreeTools CRM

CRM/SFA will be first of the many business applications that will be made available by iFreeTools. The applications will be ad-supported and have restrictions on the storage used and on the number of mails sent.

The modules made available for this initial version are..

Leads
Accounts
Contacts
Opportunities
Campaigns
Products
Users

Other deployment options
If you would like to have one of the applications deployed to run on your domain, we can help you achieve the same with our professional services. Such a deployment will offer you

1 GB of storage (and above)
2000 emails/day (and above)
Rebranding
No advertisements
Additional customizations (optional)

Rates for application deployment start as low as $99/year for upto 25 users going to a maximum of $299/year for unlimited users. Customization charges are one-time only and would depend upon your requirements.

The application will be hosted in Google AppEngine and you need not have to pay more, if you stay within Google AppEngine's Free Quota. Additional usage can be purchased directly from Google at $0.15/GB/month and $0.0001/email.

iFreeTools.com is built over Google App Engine; but is not affiliated to Google.

In case you have any further queries, do get in touch with raj@sahasvat.com.