An Integrated Open Source Solution for Small Business
Novell Cool Solutions: Feature
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Posted: 30 Nov 2006 |
Open Source Solutions - Small Business Scenario
Imagine you're part of a 50-person company looking for open-source solutions to run your business on. You're attracted to the low cost of open source, but perhaps you're unsure whether you can find all the open source solutions necessary to handle your business needs.
Here are some great places to begin your search for open source solutions:
- Novacoast and VoiceRD for the phone system
- Pentaho for business intelligence
- SugarCRM for Customer Management
- CPAASP for accounting
- Alfresco for Content Management
- Other solutions (see end of article)
Focus on VoIP Phones - Novacoast VoiceRD
by Barry Taugher
Novacoast
VoiceRD is an open source voice over IP (VoIP) telephone system designed specifically for small businesses (however, it will accommodate growth by a factor of ten). It is based on Asterisk, the widely used open source PBX, and runs on standard Hewlett Packard hardware.
The major benefits of VoiceRD include:
- Openness
- Integration
- Flexibility
- Cost
Openness
VoiceRD is not a proprietary solution, like all the other small- to mid-range telephone solutions available in the mid-market. (This includes Avaya, Nortel, and Cisco.) The openness starts with industry-standard hardware and runs up the "stack:"
| Function | Product |
| PBX | Asterisk |
| Security | AppArmor |
| Directory Service | eDirectory |
| Operating System | SUSE Linux |
| Hardware | Hewlett Packard |
Integration
Because VoiceRD is based on open components and architecture, it has been fully integrated internally. This has made it possible to integrate voice functions with external applications. VoiceRD can be mixed or matched with three key applications:
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
- Enterprise Messaging
SugarCRM is the CRM application and Alfresco is the ECM application - both are open source. A global community of programmers writes the code. Additional code and support can be purchased on top of what is down-loadable and used for free. It is fast, quality development with dedicated support.
Novell GroupWise on Linux is the messaging application. It's a complete collaboration software solution that provides e-mail, calendaring, instant messaging and task management. VoiceRD integrates voice functions with all three.
Flexibility
Flexibility is essential to firms competing today - all markets are global. The openness and integration of VoiceRD creates unmatched application flexibility.
For example, in a sales-driven scenario, all integration functions would happen in Sugar, the CRM module. Outbound phone calls originate from within a contact record in Sugar. You would click a phone icon to dial the contact's number. When the user picks up the receiver, the voice session begins. The date, time and duration of the call are recorded in the client's record. Notes can be taken and events scheduled.
The call itself can also be recorded in Alfresco, outside of Sugar, with access from the contact's record. All recorded voice calls are stored and indexed and made available to the enterprise work flow rules found in Alfresco. You can turn any conversation into a voice object managed by the ECM.
Actions in Sugar also drive events in Novell GroupWise. An outbound call initiated from within a contact record in Sugar can, at the caller's discretion, schedule a future call. When the call is scheduled, VoiceRD integration creates a GroupWise appointment. If Blackberry support for GroupWise is implemented, it can deliver an alarm to the Blackberry device.
Voicemail is also integrated with GroupWise. As voice mails are left, a message is sent to the user's GroupWise in-box. The caller ID is in the message body, along with the time, date, length and a link to an audio file. The voice mail can then be forwarded through GroupWise internally, or stored in Alfresco.
Cost
Because VoiceRD is an open source solution, the cost of acquiring and implementing a complete VoIP end-to-end is a fraction of the cost of the proprietary alternatives mentioned above. Cost is a big word. There is the cost of acquisition, installation, support, and modification to fit the business down the road. VoiceRD wins in all categories.
Focus on Business Intelligence - Pentaho
by Lance Walter
Pentaho VP of Marketing
In the scenario described above, a typical Pentaho deployment at a small company might include the kinds of functionality described below.
Customer and Sales Reporting
The SugarCRM system captures a lot of valuable information about customer and sales activity. Sales managers at the company want to receive reports every Monday on new customers added, order volumes and revenues for the last week. Using Pentaho's Open BI Suite, they can set up a regular report that provides this information every week, delivered via e-mail as a PDF or Microsoft Excel worksheet, so they can see what customers were added last week and track weekly sales volumes.
Dashboard Capabilities
The CEO uses Pentaho's open source BI capabilities to look at a quick "dashboard" that summarizes his top Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), so that she can make sure that everything is on track and focus her attention on any problem areas. The dashboard shows:
- Average order size
- Average time from between order date and receipt of payment
- Available inventory quantity
- Open issues or complaints in customer support
Data / Financial Integration
The marketing department creates a data mart with Pentaho's open source data integration capabilities, to integrate customer and order data from SugarCRM with payment and financial information from CPAASP, the open source accounting solution. This enables them to use Pentaho's open source OLAP analysis capabilities to analyze revenues by product line, geography, customer segment, and time period. Beyond that, because they have a complete picture of the customer from both a sales and financial perspective, they can analyze and understand their most valuable customers.
Finally, because Pentaho is able to easily integrate with existing applications like SugarCRM, customer support personnel can easily see Pentaho reports within their Sugar application that show customers who have not yet paid their invoices. Pentaho and SugarCRM can "flag" those customers within the application, so that customer service personnel can give them a friendly reminder about where to send their payment.
Other Solutions
Small businesses can also add key open source pieces to their overall solution. Here are a few examples:
* Database Management - MySQL
* Database Management - EnterpriseDB
See http://www.enterprisedb.com
* Data Backup Solutions - Zmanda
See http://www.zmanda.com* Security Management - Astaro
Conclusion
It's surprisingly easy and affordable to build open source solutions for your small business, from phones to database, from customer management to business intelligence, and more. A wealth of industry-leading open source solutions are available today, led by Market Start partners of Novell.
"Yes, Virginia, you can run your business on open source!"
Richard Holder
Manager, Channel Marketing
Novell
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