Blog Entry
We all flew back from San Diego last night after GWAVACon finished. It was a great event, highlighted by Ron's keynote. GWAVA did an exceptional job and it ran very smoothly. Richard Bliss gave a great keynote all about owning words. The 2 NTS guys that we took along were buried with questions the whole time and we had a nice dinner with our customer, Dan, on the last night.
Anyway, this blog entry is about GroupWise CRM integrations. I will have more to say in this space over the coming months as I am co-presenting with Omni-TS on this subject at Brainshare (if my wife doesn't give birth in the middle that is). We have been asking around in our channel on what the biggest integration needs are for GroupWise, and the pretty overwhelming response was CRM. Well, we reckon that has changed, and I can't even say 'of late' - more of this when I get to LinkPoint 360.
Omni have a Riva CRM solution that integrates Salesforce.com, Microsoft CRM and SugarCRM. Aldo showed it to me at GWAVACon - pretty nice I have to say. It can either be a desktop sync, or server side, and it's cross platform. It's based on an underlying GW SOAP engine, so adding a new CRM is going to be pretty quick - based on a need more than anything else. I think he plans to add more CRMs as well as more features as time goes on. They are in beta right now but keep watching his site for news.
Next - VoiceRD has a SugarCRM integration, as well as some PBX, Asterisk things going on. It's pretty slick too. I am struggling to get to the site at this point, but I know they are still around as I talk to them all the time. It is also based on an underlying GW SOAP engine so will be pretty versatile.
The one that blew us away was LinkPoint 360 from the point of view that none of us had heard of them before. They had a booth at GWAVACon and they were a new presenter in the GW space, though they have been providing GW/CRM integrations for YEARS! They integrate though the client C3PO and Object API interfaces, into the 8 biggest CRMs. When I spoke to them they reckoned that they could add almost any other CRM integration within 3-4 of coding.
So, if you are a GW customer with CRM needs then you really have a lot of choices with some deep integrations into your CRM. Keep watching this blog as I hope to have some other news really quite soon.
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User Comments
** FINALLY ** An appropriate
Submitted by Flyingguy (not verified) on 30 January 2008 - 8:43pm.
** FINALLY ** An appropriate use of SOAP.
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Hello Alex This is WAY off
Submitted by Simon Tideswell (not verified) on 31 January 2008 - 2:26am.
Hello Alex
This is WAY off of topic so sorry, but here goes ....
I am just writing because I am evaluating third party GroupWise archiving/retention solutions. I have heard though that in Bonsai there will be additional support added within GroupWise for "stubbing" which will allow the client to operate more seemlessly with third party archive solutions (in the same way archiving solutions work with Outlook/Exchange). It is highly desirable to have an archive solution that is accessible from within the GroupWise client (rather than an extra application) and where you can reply to/forward emails directly without intermediate steps such as moving from the archive to the online mailbox first.
Are you aware of the additon of stubbing support in Bonsai? What will that mean for archive solutions and the like? Are there any improvements being made in native GroupWise archving in Bonsai? Are you able to offer a deeper, technical description of how "stubbing" would work and what its limitations will be?
I personally think GroupWise archiving is a VERY weak point with the product and is one primary area around users tend to whinge. It would be very helpful to improve what GroupWise can offer in this area.
Simon
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It's nice to see GW finally
Submitted by Tim Baum (not verified) on 31 January 2008 - 5:56am.
It's nice to see GW finally getting some CRM love....but I'm still hoping for CentricCRM (now called ConcourseSuite) can make this list too someday.
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While I was listening to
Submitted by Phillip Karren (not verified) on 31 January 2008 - 1:44pm.
While I was listening to Dean's keynote, Richard Bliss came by with Glenn Lehner, from Linkpoint360, and we stepped out for a conversation. Glenn says that they've been doing CRM integrations with e-mail/ICE products for some time, and picked GroupWise without prompting from us. Glenn mentioned that he's already done work for some Novell customers, and works with Robert Diaz at RDANet. Glenn's e-mail address is glehner@linkpoint360.com. If you're intersted in CRM integration, I'm sure he'll be glad to talk to you.
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If there is a market they
Submitted by Alex Evans (not verified) on 1 February 2008 - 8:52am.
If there is a market they will come. Basically all it would take is a few GW shops with CentricCRM, or any other, to talk to one of the 3 vendors I just mentioned and they will likely be able to come up with something very quickly as a boxed solution.
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Simon, Yes I know about the
Submitted by Alex Evans (not verified) on 1 February 2008 - 8:55am.
Simon, Yes I know about the stubbing API set but I am not able to talk about the solutions that the partners will come up with. Silverdane already have a solution on the market that uses stubbing. I saw it at GW Advisor back in November and it seemed to work pretty well. http://www.silverdane.com/
There are no changes to native GroupWise archiving
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Archive manager does a good
Submitted by John (not verified) on 3 February 2008 - 5:11pm.
Archive manager does a good job with GW.
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Excellent that you talk
Submitted by John (not verified) on 3 February 2008 - 5:16pm.
Excellent that you talk about these types of integration. Nobody complains about groupwise the email system just that integration with third party is mainly done for MS. Is there a good business case for say using link 360 with GW rather than converting to the you know what. There is an obvious cost of the product which wouldn't be there if you ran outlook etc.
Keep pointing out these integrations etc.
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I get people complaining
Submitted by George Passantino (not verified) on 6 February 2008 - 3:21pm.
I get people complaining about CRM integration all the time. With the MS stuff it is a link in the chain. Win XP, Office, Outlook. I would love to see more CRM support for GroupWise. Document integration is fine, but if I can use GroupWise for a CRM client, that would be a dream come true.
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Great comments by everyone!
Submitted by Flyingguy (not verified) on 7 February 2008 - 8:15pm.
Great comments by everyone! Yea!!!!!
Now we just have to keep pushing Novell to make GW even MORE vendor friendly and even more bullet proof. We need to show the world just how much more superior GW is to Exchange, or Notes E-mail and collaboration. I mean I just *HATE* ( yes I will use that very strong word ) to quote the chair thrower, but it is, after all, "The Developers Stupid" Nothing like great 3rd party app's that can go directly to the GW message store as a trusted application to really push GW into more and more companies.
We need CLEAN WELL DOCUMENTED API's in C, C++, Java and yes, as much as I think its an abominable interface, even SOAP.
Instant Messaging is a perfect example of how the GW API should be. Messenger does not have to be installed to use the DLL's or .o files the API is contained in, you just load the appropriate Shared Library and GO!
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Thanks for all the comments.
Submitted by Alex Evans (not verified) on 8 February 2008 - 3:11pm.
Thanks for all the comments. That's what I like to see. We have been hearing from multiple places that the SOAP interface is the best API set out there, bar none. This is not from our existing partner base (though they love it too) but from new partners coding to GroupWise for the first time ever, after having experienced Exchange and Notes.
Omni's Riva is making full use of that API set and the CRM integrations are staggering when compared to those for Outlook - and note that I emphasize Outlook here, and not Exchange, as all the integrations are client based for MS. What this means is that CRM updates, no matter which client you use will appear on all other clients. Send a mail from you device? No, problem - your CRM is update. From WebAccess - covered too. In fact, make the change in the CRM itself and you can see it in GW through Omni Riva. I use Omni as an example here, but the VoiceRD integration does the same.
This is incredibly powerful and a complete solution - compared to the normal client based integration when you have to manually select which items sync to the CRM (though Omni's CRM Desktop has that option too, as does Link Point 360).
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I hope the C3PO was also
Submitted by Lou Orenstein (not verified) on 28 February 2008 - 9:49am.
I hope the C3PO was also able to provide you with etiquette and protocol :-)
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You've been looking at Star
Submitted by Ron van Herk (not verified) on 29 February 2008 - 8:45am.
You've been looking at Star Wars too much...
LOL
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Well, George, your dream has
Submitted by Aldo Zanoni (not verified) on 11 April 2008 - 2:43pm.
Well, George, your dream has come true. Riva CRM Integration for GroupWise has literally transformed GroupWise into the ultimate on-line and off-line CRM client (caching and remote mode supported)!
It is compatible with all GroupWise clients. It provides bi-directional, transparent, background synchronisation rather than relying on a Windows client "plug-in" that requires user intervention. Whether you are working in your Windows, Linux, WebAccess, BlackBerry or GroupWise Mobile clients, your CRM and GroupWise appointments, tasks, notes; accounts and contacts address information; opportunities, quotes and cases are available! Mark a task as completed on your BlackBerry, that task is marked as completed in your CRM. And with this week's announcement of Riva "SmartConvert Drop Folders", you can automatically convert a GroupWise email into a CRM opportunity, quote or case.
Riva CRM Integration for GroupWise is compatible with SugarCRM, info@hand, Microsoft CRM and Salesforce. Other CRMs are planned and are a simple matter of demand to determine the order of their release.
I invite you to register for a web seminar at http://www.omni-ts.com to see what the excitement is all about.
Regards,
Aldo Zanoni
CEO, Director of Customer Service
Omni Technology Solutions Inc.
www.omni-ts.com
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