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Sugar Connect Portal User Guide

Overview

The Sugar Connect Portal is a website that is available to all Sugar Connect users as a supplement to the sidebar and is used to set up key features for the sidebar and access the online meeting scheduler.

This guide will cover the following Sugar Connect functionality for Office 365 and Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) users:

In addition, administrators can manage Sugar Connect users in the portal. For more information on user management, refer to the Sugar Connect Administration and Deployment Guide.

Logging In

The section below outlines the steps to log in to your Sugar Connect Portal.

  1. You can open the Sugar Connect Portal from the Sidebar or navigate directly to the Sugar Connect Portal.
  2. In order to log into the correct tenant, ask your administrator in which region your Sugar Connect tenant is hosted:
  3. If your email address is associated with multiple organizations, you may be prompted to select one prior to logging in.
  4. If using the G-suite extension, you must Sign in with Google and if you are using the Office 365 Add-in, you must sign in with Microsoft. If prompted, log in with your professional email account (i.e., not a personal email account created by you) and continue following the instructions in the window. You must click "Allow" to grant permission for the connector to access your data when prompted. If your email address is associated with multiple organizations (tenants), you may be prompted to select one prior to logging in.
    portalloginupdate
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Accessing the Sugar Connect Portal

After you have installed Sugar Connect in your email client, the Sugar Connect Portal can be accessed by clicking "Open Sugar Connect Portal" from the sidebar's lower Settings menu. The portal will open in your default web browser.
sidebarsettings

Alternatively, admins and users may navigate directly to the Sugar Connect Portal following the steps in Logging In. If your email address is associated with multiple organizations, you may be prompted to select one prior to logging in.

Sugar Credentials

The first place that you should visit upon your first login to the portal is the Sugar Credentials to ensure that your Sugar Instance and username are properly configured. If not, you must contact your Sugar Portal Admin user to set up the Server URL before you can authenticate your username and password. 
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Contact Sync

If you want to use Sugar Connect to sync your contacts between Sugar and Outlook or Google, you must first set up Contact Sync in the Sugar Connect Portal. The next two sections explain important rules for syncing your leads and contacts and how to set up the sync once you are ready.

Note: Sugar Connect administrators are able to set the contact sync settings for their tenant. For more information, please refer to the Contact Sync Settings section in the Sugar Connect Deployment and Administration Guide.

Sync Rules for Leads and Contacts

Take note of the following requirements before syncing your contacts between Sugar and your Outlook or Google address book via Sugar Connect.

  • You must have access to the Leads module in Sugar for your leads to sync to your external address book.
  • You must have access to the Contacts module in Sugar for your contacts to sync to your external address book.

The following rules apply to the sync process for leads and contacts to your external address book:

  • Syncing Records
    • Sugar Connect's Contact Sync is either a one-way push from Sugar to your external address book, or it is a two-way sync between Sugar and your external address book.
    • Only leads and contacts that are assigned to you will sync to your external address book by default.
    • Leads and contacts that are not assigned to you can be marked to sync to your external address book within the sidebar after the sync is enabled.
    • The Contact Sync time interval is set to once every 15-20 minutes.
    • Custom fields in Sugar will not sync to the external address book.
    • If the first name, last name, and one of the email addresses listed for a contact in your external address book match that of a Sugar contact or lead record, the Conflict Resolution setting will determine which information is kept.
      Note: This will prevent duplicate record creation but may cause data loss if you update the source that is not used for conflict resolution.
Record Action One-Way Sync Two-Way Sync
Creating Records Creating new Sugar contacts can only be done via the Sugar Connect sidebar or directly in Sugar.  You can create new Sugar contacts by adding contacts to your external address book.
Editing Records The changes made to leads and contacts in your Sugar instance will sync over to your external address book. The changes made to leads and contacts in Sugar and to contacts in your external address book will sync.
Deleting Records If you delete a synced contact from your address book but not from Sugar, the contact will not re-appear in your address book after the next automatic sync update. To restore deleted contacts, pause the current sync and then resume, which is considered a new sync session, allowing deleted records to sync again. If you delete a synced contact from either your address book or Sugar but not from the other one, the contact will not re-appear in the location it was deleted after the next automatic sync update. To restore deleted contacts, pause the current sync and then resume, which is considered a new sync session, allowing deleted records to sync again. 

Enabling Contact Sync

Sugar Connect's Contact Sync feature syncs leads and contacts that are assigned to you from Sugar to your external address book, and optionally from your external address book to Sugar, using Sugar Connect's server-side sync capabilities. Leads and contacts not assigned to you can be marked to sync from within the Sugar Connect sidebar. You must set up Contact Sync using your Sugar credentials in the Sugar Connect Portal.

Note: Please be sure to read the Sync Rules for Leads and Contacts to fully understand the sync behavior.

Follow these steps to enable Contact Sync:

  1. Open the Sugar Connect sidebar in Gmail or Outlook and launch the Sugar Connect Portal.
  2. Click on "Synchronization":
    sync
  3. Under "Setup Credentials" ensure that your email address, SugarCRM username, and SugarCRM URL are correct, or click "Configure" if they have not been set up.
    syncstepone
  4. Under "Contacts Synchronization", choose whether to use one-way or two-way synchronization. If you choose two-way synchronization, you may choose to adjust the following settings: 
    contact-sync-30
    • Conflict Resolution: This option determines what information will be synced in case a record is updated in both your external address book and SugarCRM.
      Note: This option may be disabled when your Portal admin has set the sync method for your tenant.
    • Synchronize Office 365/Google Workspace contacts to Sugar as: This option determines whether contacts in your external address book are added to Sugar as contacts or leads.
      Note: This option may be disabled when your Portal admin has set the sync method for your tenant.
  5. Click on "Start" to begin the sync of your leads and contacts between Sugar and your external address book.
    start-contact-sync-30

Once the sync is complete, the time of the last and next sync occurrences are shown. You have the option to pause upcoming syncs at any time via the Pause button. Simply click on "Resume" when you are ready to start syncing contacts again.
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Working With Your Synced Records

For information on how to view leads and contacts synced from Sugar to your address book and how to sync a lead or contact record not assigned to you, please refer to the appropriate user guide for your installation:

Calendar Sync

If you want to use Sugar Connect to sync events between your Outlook or Google calendar and Sugar, you must first set up Calendar Sync in the Sugar Connect Portal. The next two sections explain important rules for syncing your calendars and how to set up the sync once you are ready.

Note: Sugar Connect administrators are able to set the calendar sync settings for their tenant. For more information, please refer to the Calendar Sync Settings section in the Sugar Connect Deployment and Administration Guide.

Sync Rules for Calendar Events

The sections below outline the rules that apply to the sync process for calendar events (i.e., meetings, calls, and tasks).

Initial Sync Rules

The initial sync for calendar events is a one-way sync from SugarCRM to your external calendar (i.e., Outlook or Google Workspace).

  • Only the calendar events that are assigned to you in Sugar will be synced to your external calendar.
  • It includes all events whose start date is less than 7 days back and not more than 365 days in advance. Please note, if the event has no start date set it will not sync.

General Sync Rules

Subsequent calendar sync is a one-way or two-way sync (depending on your sync settings described in the Enabling Calendar Sync section below) and occurs once every 15-20 minutes.

  • The following describes what events will or will not sync:
    • Only the calendar events that are assigned to you in Sugar will be synced to your external calendar.
    • All calendar events that were created by you in the external calendar you select (e.g., Primary Calendar), will be synced to Sugar.
    • Calendar events for which you are a guest but are not the assigned user or owner will sync to Sugar from your external calendar if:
      • The owner of the meeting is a contact or lead in Sugar.
      • The owner of the meeting is not a user in your Sugar instance.
      • You have accepted (or marked as tentative) the event invitation.
      • You have the Sync non-organized events setting enabled.
    • Recurring calendar events will not sync to Sugar or your external calendar.
  • The following describes what event details will or will not sync:
    • Calendar events created by you in the external calendar will sync meeting participants into Sugar only if the guest exists as a contact, lead, or user.
    • Guests of meetings marked as private in your external calendar will not sync to Sugar.
    • Acceptance statuses will sync to Sugar.
    • In the case of a conflict between corresponding synced events:
      • When the events are modified separately in the Sugar calendar and the external calendar, all details from the event that was modified more recently will be synced.
      • When events were modified at the same time, the external calendar event's changes will win over changes made in Sugar.
    • In the case of all-day events created in the external calendar:
      • The all-day event status can only be added/removed in the external calendar.
      • All-day events are synced to Sugar beginning with a start time of 12:00 AM UTC and ending at 11:59 PM UTC but will display in the user's preferred timezone.
      • If the event's start or end time is modified in Sugar by either making the event start earlier or end later than the external calendar event, especially when taking into account translated timezones, the change in Sugar may cause the external calendar event to take place a day earlier or span multiple days.

Google Workspace Sync Rules

If you are syncing with Google Workspace, take note of the following rules:

  • Sugar calls, meetings, and tasks will become calendar events in Google Calendar.
  • The guests associated with Sugar meetings and calls will sync to Google Calendar.

Office 365 Sync Rules

If you are syncing with Office 365, take note of the following rules:

  • Sugar calls and tasks will become appointments in Outlook, and Sugar meetings will be meetings in Outlook.
  • The guests associated with Sugar meetings and calls:
    • will sync to Outlook when the start date is on or after the current date.
    • will not sync to Outlook if the start date is in the past when the record is created.
  • Private events in your Outlook calendar can be synced optionally.

Calendar Sync Settings

In the Sugar Connect Portal under Synchronization, you can find the Calendar Synchronization settings available to you that determine what event details will sync between your external calendar and Sugar.
syncsettings

Note: The above options will be hidden once you start your sync. To update these options you must pause and then re-start your calendar sync.

The following table describes the Calendar Synchronization settings:

Setting Description

Two-way synchronization1

When two-way sync is enabled, events will sync both to and from your Google or Outlook calendar and your Sugar calendar. When disabled, events will only sync one way, from your Google or Outlook calendar to your Sugar calendar.
Use Primary Calendar By default, "Use primary calendar" is selected so the connector will sync events to and from your main Google or Outlook calendar. You can disable this option if you want Sugar Connect to create a new custom calendar in your client labeled "Sugar" and only events in the "Sugar" calendar will sync with your Sugar instance.
Note: Overriding the default (selected) behavior will result in the need to create duplicates of calendar events that are created from or accepted in your external calendar in order for them to sync with Sugar.
Sync private events1 Select this option to sync meetings marked as private from your calendar to Sugar. Guests of meetings marked as private will not sync to Sugar.
Sync non-organized events1 When enabled, events organized by a contact or lead in Sugar who is not also a Sugar user and where you have accepted the event invitation, will sync to your Sugar calendar. 
Note: The Use Primary Calendar setting must be enabled for this setting to be available. 
Meetings2 For two-way sync, select which Sugar meetings you want to sync based on the meeting status.
Note: In order to enable sync, meetings must be enabled with at least one status set to sync.
Calls2 For two-way sync, select which Sugar calls you want to sync based on the call status.
Tasks2 For two-way sync, select which Sugar tasks you want to sync based on the task status.
Sync "Related to" field with Account associated with Contact1 When enabled, the "Related to" field on the meeting in Sugar will be populated by the account associated with the contacts attending the meeting. Attendees who are CRM users or leads are not considered. If meeting attendees are associated with more than one account, this field will not be populated. This field is populated only when calendar sync first creates the event, and it is not changed if the event is updated.
Sync guests1 When enabled, guests will sync from Sugar to your external calendar.
Delete Canceled Events1 When enabled, Sugar events are deleted when canceled in your external calendar. When disabled, Sugar events are updated with a "Canceled" status.

This option may be disabled when your Portal admin has set the sync method for your tenant.
Custom statuses added in Studio for meetings, calls, or tasks may take up to 60 minutes to appear in the list of available statuses under "Calendar Synchronization".

Enabling Calendar Sync

Follow these steps to enable calendar sync via Sugar Connect:

  1. Open the Sugar Connect sidebar in Gmail or Outlook and launch the Sugar Connect Portal.
  2. Click on "Synchronization":
    sync
  3. Under "Setup Credentials" ensure that your email address, SugarCRM username, and SugarCRM URL are correct, or click "Configure" if they have not been set up.
    syncstepone
  4. Under "Calendar Synchronization" you may choose to adjust the sync settings as described in the Calendar Sync Settings section above.
  5. Click on "Start" to begin your calendar sync.

Editing Calendar Sync

If you want to edit your calendar sync settings, you must first launch the Sugar Connect Portal and click on "Synchronization". Click "Pause" under the Calendar Synchronization section to make changes. 

If you want to reset the entire sync, click "Reset". Resetting the entire sync is necessary if you want to change the "Use primary calendar" option or if you want to initiate the Initial Sync Rules

If you do not want to reset the entire sync, once you have paused the sync you can edit all settings except for the "Use primary calendar" option. Once you have made your edits, click "Continue" to resume the sync. The new sync settings take effect for all events that are edited or created after clicking "Continue". Previously-synced events will not be removed from your calendar when you click "Continue", and events that were not synced before the pause will not be triggered to sync by clicking "Continue". Updated events will be synced according to the new settings. For example, if you previously chose not to sync held meetings, then pause your sync and choose to sync held meetings, any meetings that were previously marked as Held will not be synced. Any meetings that are marked as Held or otherwise modified after this point in time will sync because they have been updated. If you would like to sync all meetings that were previously marked as Held, you will have to reset the entire sync.

Working With Your Synced Events

For information on how to work with synced events once you have completed the calendar sync, please refer to the appropriate user guide for your installation:

Sugar Connect User Guide for Office 365

Sugar Connect User Guide for Google Workspace

Sugar Connect Meeting Scheduler

Sugar Connect's built-in scheduling system gives you a professional and convenient way to schedule meetings with prospects, customers, and anyone with whom you want to set up a meeting. Simply provide the meeting invitee with a custom link to your scheduling page, which syncs with your primary or Sugar calendar and preferred business hours, and the invitee can choose a time slot that works for them.

Note: For the best user experience, please enable calendar sync before using the Sugar Connect Meeting Scheduler.

To access the scheduler, navigate to the Sugar Connect Portal and click on "Scheduler" in the sidebar. You will see your list of standard events and any custom event types you may have created and have the option to set your weekly availability. Refer to the following sections for steps to create, share, and book new meetings using the Sugar Connect Scheduler.
clickscheduler

Scheduler Weekly Hours

If you have a relatively consistent schedule each week and know your availability, you can set these days and hours in the Regular Weekly Hours section of the Sugar Connect Scheduler by clicking the Pencil icon and updating your availability. Refer to the section below to set your weekly availability.
hours

Setting Weekly Hours

The scheduler's weekly days and hours default to Monday-Friday from 9:00 AM-5:00 PM. Clicking the Pencil icon in the Regular Weekly Hours section allows you to configure the days and times you are available for meetings. The days and times you set here drive what is shown when adding event types.
availability

The following options are available when setting your weekly hours:

Enable/Disable Days: Click the slider button to enable or disable the days of the week you are available for meetings.

Edit Hours: Click the Pencil icon to open the hours for that day and edit your availability. 

Add Interval: Click "Add Interval" to enable the Time Start and Time End fields for days currently set to Unavailable. Additionally, you can add subsequent windows of time to your day to accommodate lunch breaks, recurring meetings, etc.

Remove Interval: Click the red Trash icon to remove an interval of time from your day. Removing all intervals will set the time to "Unavailable"

Save: Click "Save" for each day you edit and when you have completed all desired changes for the week.

Scheduler Event Types

The scheduler comes pre-loaded with three default event types, which represent standard 15-, 30-, and 60-minute meetings. You may also choose to create new event types for common meeting durations or for a specific date/time/duration use case. The available event types are displayed in the Sugar Connect Portal's Scheduler list view. At any time, you can share and re-share the scheduler links for the enabled events in your scheduler account. 
manageeventtype

Please refer to the Event Type Actions section for information on the actions available from the Scheduler list view.

Adding Event Types

If there is a specific meeting window or duration that you would like to set up, simply create a new event type by clicking on "Add Event Type". For example, if you want to meet with John for 30 minutes next week on Monday or Tuesday morning, you can create a new 30-minute event type called "Meet with John", limit the number of days in the future to 7, and set your availability for that event to only the morning hours of Monday and Tuesday. Please note, if you have set your weekly availability, the days/times will default to your settings for each newly added event type. For more information on configuring the individual event type's settings, refer to the Event Type Fields section below.
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When you share the scheduler link with John, he will be able to select a 30-minute time slot from these available times, minus any times that are already blocked off from your synced calendar.
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Event Type Fields

When creating a new Event Type, the Event Type form contains the following fields:

Field Description
Event Name A short name that will help you recognize the event in list view, is displayed when you share the scheduler link, and serves as the event subject.
Event Description A longer explanation that displays under the name in list view and serves as the body of the meeting invitation.
Note: Because the person scheduling the event with you will see the event description after the meeting has been confirmed, it could contain a video conferencing link (e.g., Zoom) if desired.
Meeting Location The physical or virtual location of the meeting. This meeting location will be used for every meeting scheduled via configured event type.
Note: If you use an online meeting link (e.g., Zoom personal meeting room, Skype), the same meeting link will be used for every meeting.
Duration (minutes) The length of time in minutes to be reserved.
Minimum Schedule Notice (hours) The number of hours in advance that the meeting must be booked.
Limit Number of Days The maximum number of available days into the future the meeting may be booked.
Note: Only days with availability are counted. For example, if you set Limit Number of Days to 3, Minimum Schedule Notice to 24 hours, and are unavailable on Wednesday, a user that uses the scheduler link on Monday will see options for Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Create Leads in CRM Enable this option to have Sugar Connect create a new lead record in Sugar when a meeting invitee books with an email address that is not already found in Sugar.
Note: You must have access to Sugar's Leads module and role permission to create leads in Sugar for this option to work as expected.
Use primary calendar Enable or disable the option to have the meeting appear in your primary calendar instead of your Sugar calendar.
Note: The Sugar calendar, created by Sugar Connect, exists in your external email client (i.e., Outlook or Gmail). Enabling/disabling the use of primary calendar for meeting scheduler is controlled seperately from the configuration options you have selected for your Calendar Sync.
Add additional participants

Search for active Sugar Connect users in your tenant to add to the meeting. When additional participants are added, the event link only displays times when the event creator and additional participants are available.

Availability

Set the available days and hours of the day for the invitee to choose from. Any existing events on your synced calendar will be automatically deducted from the available hours. Additional options are available per day:

Enable/Disable: Toggle availability for the day

Edit: For enabled days, edit the hours of the day to be available

Add interval: Set one or more windows of time to be available within a day

Event Type Actions

The Event Types list view allows the following actions for each event type:
60minute

Action Icon Description
Open Calendar Link link Open the custom scheduler page for this event type.
Copy Event Type copyevent Create a copy of the event type.
Copy Calendar Link copylink Copy the shareable scheduler page link to share with an invitee.
Edit edit Edit the event type's settings (see Event Type Fields).
Delete delete Delete this event type and disable its scheduler page.
Disable/Enable toggle Disable the scheduler page for this event type without deleting the event type. When enabled, the event type's status indicator is blue; when disabled, the status indicator is gray.

When you are ready to set up a meeting with someone, simply click on the Copy Calendar Link icon next to the relevant event type in Sugar Connect Portal as shown in the above section. The URL for the scheduler page will be stored in your clipboard and you can paste it into an email message, chat client, or any other messaging service that you prefer to use.
send-scheduler

When the recipient clicks on your link, they will see your availability according to your synced calendar and preferred meeting times for the selected event type. The options available to the invitee are explained in the Booking a Meeting section of this page.

Booking a Meeting

After you have shared a scheduler link, the invitee will click on the link and book the meeting time and date that works best for them. The following image shows an example of the page they see:
meetingscheduler

The timezone option at the top of the page lets the invitee convert the available times to their own locale. The arrows on either side of the page can be used to scroll to the next or previous week.

The invitee should click on the time they prefer and will then be prompted to enter their name, email address, and phone number.
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On save, the invitee will see a screen with the meeting's details and will receive an email with the subject "Sugar Connect: Confirm Booking Schedule".
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Note: The invitee must click the link in the confirmation email in order to successfully schedule the meeting.
meetingconfirmationemail

Note: The meeting will only be scheduled when the link is clicked and the below screen is shown, confirming success.

confirmed

The meeting details will then be sent to you in an automated email notification from sugar-connect-noreply@cloud.sugarcrm.com with a subject line starting with "Booked meeting:".
confirmation-email

In addition, Sugar Connect will add the meeting to your calendar with a status of "Busy" and will send a formal calendar invitation to the invitee who can then accept the meeting request to add it to their own calendar.
calendar-item

Email Tracking

Sugar Connect offers you the ability to track emails sent from your Office 365 or Google Workspace account to prospects, customers, and anyone with whom you want to track interactions. Email Tracking will show if and when a recipient has opened your email, clicked any links you provided, and replied. Those activities will be tracked for a 60-day period beginning when the email is sent. After that time, the email will no longer be tracking those activities. If you have set up any email templates, the same metrics can be tracked and viewed in a summary per template. 

To enable or disable email tracking for Sugar Connect, please refer to the instructions in the Sugar Connect User Guide for Office 365 or the Sugar Connect User Guide for Google Workspace as appropriate for your installation.

Note: Sugar Connect administrators are able to set the Email Tracking default settings. For more information, please refer to the Tracking Settings section in the Sugar Connect Deployment and Administration Guide.

To access Email Tracking, navigate to the Sugar Connect Portal and click on "Email Tracking". You will see your list of emails you have opted to track as well as additional tabs related to email tracking. Refer to the following sections for additional information on utilizing these features.
Email tracking dashboard

Tracked Emails Tab

Clicking on "Email Tracking" takes you to the Tracked Emails page where you can view the following:

A list of the recipients of tracked emails, subject, status, date sent, and the number of opens, clicks, and replies. The last column allows you to pause and resume tracking the email.

A set of filters for the list view: Opened, Clicked, Replied, Template, Subject, and Recipients. You can also filter the list to show emails sent within the last 7, 15, 30, or 90 days.

The Export button which allows the user to download a csv file of the information contained in the list view.

A Details panel which displays the email you are viewing at the top followed by a timeline of each instance when the email was opened, a link was clicked, and any replies sent. Clicking anywhere on the email line in the list view, with the exception of the pause or resume button, will open the Details.

portaltrackedemails

Dashboard Tab

The Dashboard tab within the Email Tracking section contains a number of reports, which are able to be filtered by the Reporting Period dropdown, that will show you the following information:

A total number of emails tracked, opened, clicked, and replied.

A graph showing the total number of emails tracked, viewed, clicked, and replied.

A total number of contacts reached.

A list of the top contacts.

The top email templates.

The top links.

dashboard

Email Templates Tab

The Email Templates tab within the Email Tracking section shows a list of templates and the number of opens, clicks, and replies for each. You can filter the list by category and search by template name or owner.

Settings Tab

The Settings tab within the Email Tracking section allows the user to:

Track clicks on links in tracked emails

Auto enable email tracking

Show real-time click notifications

Enable real-time email view notifications

Note: Auto enable email tracking is not currently available for Outlook.

Last modified: 2023-05-15 19:08:42