iDempiere is not only an Open Source ERP. It is also an open Source CRM as well. The CRM component of iDempiere is the overlooked little brother and rarely mentioned feature of iDempiere. The main page of the community site equally defines the CRM together with the ERP:
“Founded in 2011 iDempiere is a powerful, Tier II, open-source ERP/CRM/SCM system supported by a skilful community … “
iDempiere CRM has the most important features of a classic CRM – Leads, Activities and Opportunities. Admittedly, the iDempiere CRM is not Sales Force nor Microsoft Dynamics. It lacks the features that will make it a more dynamic CRM that can track customer behavior in the entire marketing/sales cycle. However, there are many alternatives and workarounds that can make the iDempiere CRM more dynamic. We can customize the ERP to improve features such as forecasting and analytics. We can also integrate the CRM with an intelligence tool such as Metabase to get more dashboard metrics and improve customer management.
Are you an entrepreneur, consultant or developer interested in testing the CRM feature? If so, you might need to tweak a few windows to complete the CRM process. Specifically, you might need to update the application dictionary to allow the Sales Opportunity to insert new Quotes/Orders. The following might be able to help you in completing any Sales Opportunity records:
- Set the Sales Opportunity|Quote Order tab Insert Record = “Y”.
- Set the Sales Opportunity|Quote Order|C_BPartner_ID field default to “@0|C_BPartnerID@”
- Sales Opportunity|Quote Order|C_DocTypeTarget Update Reference to Overwrite; Update Reference to “C_DocType”; Dynamic Validation = “C_DocType Orders”.
- Set Sales Opportunity|Orderline tab Insert Record =”Y”.
- Set Sales Opportunity|Orderline tab|C_BPartner_ID default logic to “@C_BPartnerID@”.
- Set Sales Opportunity|Orderline tab|Order default logic to “@1|C_Order_ID@”
- Set Sales Opportunity|Orderline tab|AD_Org_ID field default logic to “@0|AD_Org_ID@”.
This may not be the only solution for the Sales Opportunity window. However, updating the Application Dictionary was the easiest solution to proceed with what I wanted done. If you’ve encountered some issues with CRM, made some fixes or have extensive experience using the iDempiere CRM, feel free to comment on your solutions/updates in the comment section.
I’ve been using iDempiere for a considerable amount of time and have now fully embraced Open Source iDempiere ERP as a modern, robust and a comparable alternative to other proprietary and Open Source ERPs in its tier. I believe it gives many small and medium size businesses the flexibility and opportunity to obtain a world-class ERP at a fraction of the cost of other ERPs.
