Creatio CRM

Has anyone ever been asked to integrate Creatio CRM? I would love to hear any experiences good or bad.

Thanks!

Paul

Hey Paul,

It’s really important to describe what we mean by integrate. What do you want to be able to do?

  • Linking records (customers, contacts, …)?
  • View Epicor information (quotes, orders, QOH, credit worthiness, RMA, Cases, …)in the CRM?
  • View CRM info (forecasts, Future Customers, …) in Epicor?
  • Sync contacts and Customers?
  • Offline (without Internet access) capability?

Hello Mark,

In the beginning it was a tool for Sales. So synching customers and contacts. As (ballpark) quoting and Field Service needs were introduced it became interesting to look at more info flowing into Epicor. Quoting can be fed by costing from Epicor. Field Service can benefit from looking at jobs and BoM’s in addition to Contact Management.

Truthfully, in our business model (large capital equipment) a sales manager should be so in synch with the customers and the business that anything he needs to do can be accomplished with Outlook and a dashboard or two.

Now as for the Field Service Team, their needs are far more diverse; they need Concur expenses and ADP integration, a package that works out in the field without internet, scheduling, ticketing, access to Jobs, BoMs, Projects, Parts, EPDM, the ability to track parts en route, Job schedules; the works…

Both groups have looked at the Epicor CRM and Field Service modules (in 10.1.500) and deemed them too cumbersome to work with, short on features, and not fit for use in the field. I am on the fence whether we can help Field Service with a CRM; it would require extensive customization to make that thing fly.

So that is where we are at. I know what I can do with something like Saleforce and Jitterbit; did that with Oracle and Infor. I also know SFDC is total overkill for us, and probably will be mismanaged due to lack of long term committed resources required. Unfortunately it is the “shiny precious” for the Sales Team.

I don’t know much about Creatio, and I don’t know anybody that is running it, so that’s what I would like to find out: is there anyone with firsthand experience specifically with them?

Syncing is the most complicated method of integration. It means there are now two sources of “the truth” and one will be out of date until the next sync. It’s also difficult to manage with Live and Test systems.

A “view” into the other system however reduces these risks. A quick check of the Creatio site shows they support iFrames. So you build a URL in Creatio and display the information. Combine this with REST calls in Epicor, now you have a live view into Epicor from Creatio. The converse is true as well. With the WebControl in Epicor, you should have a window into Creatio. This works for any system, not just Creatio or SalesForce or whatever. I think it’s a cleaner model.

The main concern is linkage between the systems.

And yes, the “shiny precious” for the “we want our own system…” people :face_vomiting: because we work better when we don’t have to work with others!

:roll_eyes:

I saw the iFrames support too, and a few other things which caused me no to dismiss it. It is half the price of SFDC, and it seems to allow for easier integration and rollout. I have been assured it doesn’t need a team of programmers just to set it up…

@psiebers

Concur integration - We are sending Job information to Concur, and users select the job when entering expense in Concur. Downloading the expense information from Concur and upload into Epicor into a UD table to do required validation and generate a file for upload as AP Invoice through DMT. Use this for travel and credit card statement upload.

Field Service - Using Epicor’s Field Service for a long time. But not a big fan of it due to few limitations like can’t split labour and material for billing, no credit check, and can’t add expenses to a job after invoicing. After extensive investigation, went down a path of using the Sales Order cycle using an Order Type. Few customisations/BPMs were done in SO.Entry/Job Entry to get billing price, display in the invoice, etc which works fine. That way, users are using same screen for entering normal sales and service. Currently working on Service Contracts. Just using Epcior’s Service Contract as master data and using the Sales Order cycle.

CRM - Successfully implemented Epicor CRM for three customers. With a few customisations, I believe users will be happy with Epicor CRM. Initially, I was not confident. But after showing to users and meeting some of their requirement, it was not that hard. On the other side, I had to do the integration with Microsoft CRM. Kind of effort put to get up and running and user experience is not that great.

Arul,

I had been looking at the Concur Integration as well, so I am interested in your findings with regard to that. It would save our guys a lot of time when entering, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to find the time. How long did it take you to get it to work?

I think Epicor’s CRM would be plenty for us, but I have many voices demanding the shiny precious.

I’ll document the Creatio integration if that happens. Even at half the price of SFDC, it is still a big chunk of money to throw at something that we are not sure about the ROI. It might be a while.

We already had a integration with Kronos for sending job details and receiving from it. So that was not a problem. BAQ can be scheduled to send job data to Concur. From Concur, output can be configured to get required data in a csv which is fairly straightforward. Data from that file was copy and paste inserted into a UD table to do required validation and output for DMT upload is generated and loaded into Epicor. Again we already had credit card and travel statement upload function. If you start freshly may be 5 days depends upon data. DMT doesn’t support mixing job related and misc lines in AP Invoice. So I have to do BPMs to make it work.

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