The very best.
SugarCRM.
Extensions.

SugarCRM is an infinitely extensible platform and over the years many useful enhancements have been written for it.

But if you spend any time in SugarForge, the repository for Community supplied and maintained code, it can quickly become bewildering. There are hundreds of Projects and many, if not most, are pretty useless. They contain Projects that have never come to anything, Projects where the code doesn't work or Projects that haven't been updated for years.

Fortunately, SugarForge also contains some great Projects that significantly extend SugarCRM's capabilities. Here are SalesAgility's list of the essential SugarCRM enhancements and links to downloads for them.

Advanced OpenSales

OK, so SalesAgility write and maintain this extension. Advanced OpenSales has richly functional Products, Quotation and Invoices modules. It's an essential plugin for organisations that need to produce professional Quotations that are associated with Contacts/Accounts and Opportunities. Advanced OpenSales delivers customisable, user-designed and parameter-driven Quotation/Invoice templates that can be produced as PDF's and a whole stack of other functionality. Check it out.

Reschedule Call

Another SalesAgility enhancement and just the most sensible addition if you spend your life on the phone trying to get through to busy people. No more closing calls and creating new calls. Just a simple "Reschedule" button ... click it ... from the drop down select the reason why you need to reschedule (Contact was On Holiday/In a Meeting/On another Call etc.), enter the new call time and Save. The record is updated with the date and time of every callback in a history area and the reason for the callback is listed. Perfect for decision making - at a glance you can see how many times you've called, the dates and times of each call and the reasons why you didn't get through.

Outlook plugin

There are many plugins that purport to sync with Outlook. Some are OK, some are awful and some you need a Masters degree in Astrophysics to make sense of. Our current favourite is the Opacus Outlook Connector. It does what it says on the tin. Warning: There's a paid for and a free version. You have to register for the free one and in return you get marketing emails .. a small price to pay you may think ... you can always spam filter them. The free version syncs emails very well although it does occasionally disappear from the Outlook toolbar.

Thunderbird plugin

Some of you really smart people may have realised that Outlook is really a hugely pointless application. All you need (once you have SugarCRM) is an email client that sends emails. Instead, you have this bloatware that has tentacles that tie you into Microsoft's proprietary products and delivers little in the way of essential functionality (end of rant). Thunderbird on the other hand does what it's supposed to do. It sends and receives email and it does it wonderfully. Again the Opacus plugin wins.

ZuckerReports

SugarCRM contains data and a couple of flimsy reports that turn it into headline information. But if you really need to know what is going on in your organisation then you need to get down and dirty with data. Deep dive, calculations, tables, charts, analysis, cross module information. ZuckerReports enables you to do this. Be aware though: This is a very powerful tool enabling deep data-mining and complex reporting. But it's primarily a tool for use by folk that knit their own muesli ... deep geek territory. If that's you then go for it. If it's not you then there are many folk that can do this sort of stuff in their sleep (us for instance). It might cost, but it's turning data into information.

KinamuReports

SugarCRM has been crying out for a decent user-level reporting module for the Community Edition for years. This is it. The recent upgrade has made this an essential component. Simple reporting across modules with the ability to add complex boolean logic and custom SQL if that's your bag. The free version is good for most uses. It's excellent for locating and extracting data to create Target Lists for email Campaigns too.

Calendar2

Uchida, the developer of this extension has been around SugarCRM as least as long as we have. We're going out on a limb here, because this is NOT an Open Source or free extension. But it greatly enhances the SugarCRM calendar functionality.

SecuritySuite

SugarCRM Roles not enough? Need to segment data more? Then this is the tool for you. Set up and administrate Teams-based access to data. There are a myriad of options to control who and what users can access. Granular and powerful although it does need time to understand fully all the options but the support is great. Warning: It's not free and it's not Open Source.

Process Manager

This isn't free either, but Process Manager from SierraCRM is a great extension. A robust workflow engine that can automate tasks and automatically send emails and schedule calls meetings and Tasks depending on a wide variety of variables. Now also supports custom modules too ... and they're great with the support.