How to use Trello Boards with SuiteCRM

What is Trello?

Trello is a task management software based on the principles of Kanban boards. A Kanban board is an agile project management tool designed to help visualize work, limit work-in-progress, and maximize efficiency (Atlassian). Trello has helped millions of customers improve their process management with the help of Kanban boards.

The need of Kanban in SuiteCRM

Your company may be using a CRM software such as SuiteCRM which is an open source software promising useful features for the sales team, but you are not getting the most out of the software. SuiteCRM is a wonderful tool to view your sales pipeline, but its default views and configurations make it impossible to glean helpful insights from the data that could prompt swift action.

This is the typical flow for a SuiteCRM user:

1. Open a module.
2. See a list of records.
3. Open a particular record in detail view.

The detail view provides the option to make changes in the fields which in turn make an item move along the sales pipeline, or which make a lead step forward in qualification status. But this process is unnecessarily drawn out, and doesn’t give us the bigger picture of where we are relative to other records in the same module.

The list view isn’t much better in giving us relative information either. Let’s take an example of just one module.

In the Opportunities list view:

• Can we categorize Opportunities by sales stage?
• Can we move them to another stage without having to go through the detail view field editing process?
• Can we evaluate if there are more opportunities in one stage compared to another?
• Is there a way to take swift action on an item, like calling the related account if we want to initiate a conversation about an opportunity?

The answer is a simple no. The traditional list view for different items is neither helpful in getting insights about a record relative to the others, nor does it make interacting with them any easier without having to go through individual fields in the detail view.

Now, consider a Kanban board of the same Opportunities module. All the opportunities are displayed in columns, with each column representing a stage, from prospecting to review. Each opportunity is in the form of a card with all the basic information like the account it’s linked to, the user it’s assigned to, and the source all readily visible. You have an organized, clear view of all the records, and where in the pipeline each of them resides.

That’s what Trello does. It organizes the records into groups and gives a bird’s eye view of the whole pipeline to the viewer. The tool is used by more than 1 million teams including at companies such as Google, Ebay, and SquareSpace.

Our Solution

In order to make use of the power of Trello boards within SuiteCRM, RT Dynamic has introduced a tool which works on all sidecar modules, even the custom built ones. It can handle all the scenarios mentioned above and many more. Click here to look at Dynamic boards in more detail.

What can Dynamic Boards do for me?

Considering only the Leads and Opportunities for a start, following are a few of the things you can accomplish with the help of Dynamic Boards:

1. See CRM data drawn on a Trello-style board with the details you need (Name, Likely value, Assigned to and more).
2. See leads organized by their qualification stage.
3. Simply drag and drop an opportunity from one column to another to change its status, or drop it in a separate box to mark it closed won or closed lost. All the necessary information is updated without need for manual intervention.
4. Take notes against a record.
5. Associate a calendar event with a record.

The best part is, it not only works with Opportunities and Leads but with almost all modules and can create groups by their respective fields so that you can make informed decisions, plan out strategy and understand what is cooking organization-wide.

How can I get Dynamic Boards for my CRM?

If you use SuiteCRM in your business, and would like to enjoy the advantages that Dynamic Boards offers compared to the default views of different modules, click here.

RT Dynamic, being an Official SuiteCRM Experts firm, is proficient in the provision of services including SuiteCRM Migration, Integration, Customization and Support.  Get in touch by filling out the Contact form. We will be glad to assist you!