Overview of CRM

Learn about the areas of the CRM module, how to access them and what you can do there.

In CRM, you access and manage your customer data. In Analytics, you analyze your CRM data alongside information about sales, purchasing, stock, budgets, and so on. For example, you might want to correlate sales activity with sales value. You can also create activities and open account records directly from within Analytics.

In the Phocas menu, click CRM, then select the CRM item you want to open:

• My agenda - view and manage your upcoming activities.

• Contacts - People who work for or are associated with an account.

• Accounts - Companies with whom you currently do business, or have done business with in the past.

• Leads - People with whom you would like to do business with in the future.

• Campaigns - Series of independent activities (across multiple accounts, contacts and leads) linked together, often as part of a marketing effort.

• Activities - Actions associated with an account or a contact, such as a business note, phone log, meeting and task.

The CRM Settings items only display if you are a CRM administrator.

Phocas CRM is 100% user driven, so it is important to keep it up-to-date. As addresses, phone numbers and other details change, meetings, phone calls and other activities take place, etc, these changes should be entered as soon as possible.

Access CRM

To access the CRM module, you need both the CRM license and the main CRM user permission. Other CRM-related user permissions are also available to control the actions you can take within CRM. CRM user restrictions control the type of CRM-related data you can access.

Note for administrators:

• You need to assign the CRM license to users. You can either do this for individual users on their user maintenance form or multiple users using the bulk update tool or License view on the Users page.
• You also need to assign the applicable CRM user permissions to each user.
• You can add or remove CRM restrictions for users as required.

Work with the CRM grids

Typically a large number of records will appear on your screen. You have several options to limit the number of records that display.

• Filter: Use the filters above the grid to narrow your results. The filter button turns orange (and displays your selection) to let you know the filter is active. The types of filters you can apply vary depending on which section of CRM you are in. You can apply multiple filters at the same time. In the following example, the Activities screen is filtered by Next week and the user Bert.

  
• Sort: Click (or tap on a mobile device) a column heading to sort the data in the grid in descending order, and again to sort in ascending order.

• Search: Type the search term into the box, and either press Enter or click the Search button.

  • The column that is searched depends on what section you are searching, and an ‘is like’ search is performed on the relevant column only:

    • Accounts: Name column only.

    • Contacts: Name column only.

    • Leads: Name and Company columns only.

    • Activities: Subject column only.

    • Campaign: Name column only.

  • The search buttons turn orange to let you know a search is active. Search is not case sensitive. To cancel a search, click the X button.

    

Use keyboard shortcuts

A number of keyboard shortcuts are available in CRM.

Shortcut	What it does
Ctrl+S	Save
Alt+S	Search
Alt+B	New Business Note
Alt+P	New Phone Log
Alt+T	New Task
Alt+M	New Meeting
Alt+C	Close
Alt+/	Activates Help