[Tmanagement]

Hi all,

I am very interested in an open source CRM program called XRMS.

It is an excellent program that works in practise the way you want rather then you having you to adjust to the program.

The point is, since it is having a clean core you must add extra functionality by using the plugin architecture. For example, I would like to integrate full e-mail capabilities to XRMS by using a plugin but this has to be developed.

I have modest knowledge of PHP but I do have some references and am a quick learner so ..

main question:
- Where do I have to start?

subquestions:
1) How do you integrate programs or synchronize
2) What are the important rules to remember when starting to code
3) Are there tutorials available that deal with integration or synchronization
4) What are the technical terms used for this kind of programming in order to google for more information

Although my question is directly directed to XRMS I would like to understand the techniques used generally so that I can pick up other programs.

Furthermore, I hear API all the time and that it is so easy to connect programs when they are API capable. What is API, why is it easy, are there good tutorials etc etc.

And last but not least....if there are good programmers searching for interesting open source products, look at XRMS.

[tomasgtz]

Hello there,

main question:
- Where do I have to start?

well, if you want to modify any program, you need to check its source code and to try to be familiar with the internal structure defined by the original programmer
, as more code you understand as more easy will be to add new functionalities and capabilities.

1) How do you integrate programs or synchronize
2) What are the important rules to remember when starting to code
3) Are there tutorials available that deal with integration or synchronization
4) What are the technical terms used for this kind of programming in order to google for more information

There are not a standard procedure for modification of a php each applictions is different and has its own structure.
There are no rules, but there are some best practices to follow, check in google all related to indentation, security stuff...
Technical terms? you will find all kind of function names, SQL sentences, but all is available on internet. just google it.


API definition took from wikipedia.
API is a source code interface that a computer system or program library provides in order to support requests for services to be made of it by a computer program.

By the way, every API is defined and documented by application's programmer, and some applications does not have an documented API, I dont know if XRMS API is published.

Good luck and read the code.

[Tmanagement]

Hi,

Thanks for your answer. I understand that my question is a bit difficult to answer but for me it is like sitting in a airplane cockpit and asking how do we get this plane of the ground. I understand your hints and I will sure follow them but for now your answer sounds to me as.....just look at the buttons, try some out and see what they do etc.

To get it more clearly:
For example take the email integration. I only need a screen popup when I click a "send mail to this contact" button. When the mail is send I would like to see that recorded under the activities. In addition I would like to have a general mailpage where you can see all the emails that are comming in just like an ordinary mailclient or webmail screen. Suppose that a certain contact send me a mail I would like that particular mail be attached to the contact history of that person in XRMS.

To me it looks like it is simple to do since you only have to see if the incomming email matches a contacts email and if so it should put that mail in the database table. A button for sending mail to contact which will tricker a popup screen shouldnt be that hard in my opinion as well, same for the email page where you can see the webmail or other client program (just integrate the webmailpage).

Nevertheless it is not done yet and so I guesse that I am missing the bigger picture.

Could you or somebody else show links to tutorials or more in depth explanations of this subject? Or maybe you could tell me if I am missing the bigger picture or not.

[tomasgtz]

As I mentioned there are not a tutorial to do that, this is very different to an airplane, because every airplane has a flight manual, just the opposite to web applications.

All php documentation is on php.net, and simple php tutorials are in www.w3schools.com

The point is, make your own mail module, using classes or functions and call this functions or objects in all places that you need, this is the only way to integrate it.

Nobody is goint to tell you what each piece of code is doing, except the original programmer, so you need to search and read.

good luck

[braverock]

Originally Posted by Tmanagement

To get it more clearly:
For example take the email integration. I only need a screen popup when I click a "send mail to this contact" button. When the mail is send I would like to see that recorded under the activities. In addition I would like to have a general mailpage where you can see all the emails that are comming in just like an ordinary mailclient or webmail screen. Suppose that a certain contact send me a mail I would like that particular mail be attached to the contact history of that person in XRMS.

To me it looks like it is simple to do since you only have to see if the incoming email matches a contacts email and if so it should put that mail in the database table. A button for sending mail to contact which will tricker a popup screen shouldnt be that hard in my opinion as well, same for the email page where you can see the webmail or other client program (just integrate the webmailpage).

Nevertheless it is not done yet and so I guess that I am missing the bigger picture.

For outbound mail in XRMS, one would use the existing 'Mail Merge' function in the application.

For tracking inbound mail as Activities, some integration to your mail server's Mail Transport Agent (MTA) is required. There are several patches in the Patches tracker on the XRMS Sourceforge project pages that show examples of this. Integrating this functionality as a standard part of XRMS will take some work, but if you're willing to do that work, we're happy to have the help. Integration at the MTA layer will track all emails to and from your domain with Contacts listed in XRMS as Activities, regardless of which email client is used.

Now, as for the API and plugins. XRMS does have published API's for most of the key functionality: Contacts, Companies, Activities, Opportunities, Cases, ACL, Plugins, Pagers, and i18n all have API's. There's no API layer for Campaigns, but I think that's the only major subsystem of XRMS that is lacking an API. documentation on all of these is referenced in the XRMS Administrator Guide. Additional documentation on all the code is available in PHPDoc format, so basically complete code-level documentation can always be created.

In general, most of the discussion about modifying XRMS happens on the Forums on the XRMS Sourceforge project site. We'd love to see you over there.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/xrms/

Regards,

- Brian
XRMS Project Team lead
http://xrms.org/
http://braverock.com/brian/