Studio and Module Builder
The Studio and Module Builder section includes topics covering creating, modifying, and troubleshooting custom fields, relationships, dropdown lists, and modules via Sugar's Studio and Module Builder tools.
Topics
Sugar provides two tools for building and maintaining custom module configurations: Module Builder and Studio. As an administrator of Sugar, it is important to understand the strengths of both tools so that you have a sound development process as you look to build on Sugar's framework.
Sugar allows you to add a blank (NULL) value as the first field of a dropdown list via Studio and the Dropdown Editor. The blank value should be the first item of the list so that when the dropdown list is used for a required field, the user will be forced to make a selection rather than allowing the field to default to a non-null value. This article will cover how to add a blank (NULL) value to a dropdown list via Studio and the Dropdown Editor.
Mass updating in Sugar® allows users to easily update multiple records at one time from the module's list view. Out of the box, there are a number of stock fields that are enabled for mass update. However, there may be occasions when you need to enable this option for other fields in Sugar. This article will cover how to enable fields and relationship fields for mass update. Some fields can be enabled via Admin > Studio while others will require code-level customization.
Administrators can leverage the Google Maps™ mapping service's API to embed a map image on Sugar® record views and let users visualize their clients' locations.
Users are able to view the history of changes via each record's audit log which can be accessed by selecting "View Audit Log" from the record view's Actions menu. Please note that only fields that are marked as "Audit" via Admin > Studio will have changes tracked in the audit log. For more information regarding the audit log, please refer to the Historical Summary vs. Activity Stream vs. Audit Log article. In addition, fields marked as "Audit" will generate update posts in the activity stream for Sidecar modules (e.g. Accounts and Contacts) whenever the field gets updated in a record. This article will cover how to mark a field for "Audit" in Studio to be added to a module's audit log.
Organizations' lead qualification process typically culminates in lead conversion where a contact record is created based on the converted lead. Other records such as accounts and opportunities are also available by default to be created during lead conversion. Should you wish to create other types of records during lead conversion, custom modules and the following stock modules can be added to the Convert Lead page: Bugs, Calls, Cases, Meetings, Notes, Targets, and Tasks. This article explains how an administrator or a user with developer-level role access can make additional modules available during lead conversion.
While utilizing Sugar®, there may be occasions where you may need to change an existing list item in your dropdown list. For example, you might need to alter the dropdown options available when setting an account's type. There are two components to dropdown list items, the item name and the display label. The display label is what Sugar displays in the application and can be edited any time via Admin > Dropdown Editor. The item name is what Sugar stores in the database and cannot be edited after creation.
When scheduling a call, the Direction field defaults to "Inbound". If your organization primarily performs outbound calls, this article explains how to change the default value of the Direction field.
As part of configuring Sugar® to match your business process, you may initially create various dropdown fields. As time goes by, you may need to add more values to your dropdown lists to keep up with the growth and change in your business. Before you know it, a dropdown field may not seem like the best solution as you need more customizable and general values. To better suit your needs, you may decide to convert this dropdown field into a text field. This article covers how to move an existing dropdown field's value to a new text field using Sugar's import tool.
Both multiselect and dropdown fields allow users to select from a list of options when editing the field. The field types differ, however, in that multiselect fields allow multiple options to be set while dropdowns only allow for one. There may be occasions where you wish to convert an existing multiselect field to a dropdown field to better suit your business' needs, however, it is not possible to switch field types on existing fields in the Sugar application. This article covers how to mass update existing multiselect field's values and then run a database query to change the field to a dropdown.
The Leads module is often used to track less-developed relationships with individuals, often in conjunction with a qualification process that results in leads being converted to accounts, contacts, opportunities, etc. While Sugar automatically carries over most stock lead fields, you need to take additional steps for conversion to carry over any custom fields you have added to the leads module. This article covers how to make additional fields copy over to related modules (e.g., Accounts, Contacts, and Opportunities) during lead conversion.
Action Buttons are custom buttons that can be added to records to enable users to perform quick actions directly from records such as sending an email, creating or editing a related record, and opening an external web page. Action Buttons are implemented as a field type in Studio and are easily configurable with Sugar Logic and SugarBPM. This article provides information on stock Action Buttons and steps to implement several use-case examples. For more information on Action Buttons, please refer to the Studio documentation in the Administration Guide.
From time to time the modules offered out of the box don't fully encompass your needs, and it may be time to explore building a custom module
Dropdown fields in Sugar are fields where users can choose a value from a list of values when creating or editing records. A dependent dropdown field is the same except that the list of values is dynamic and dependent on a parent dropdown. Dependent dropdowns usually represent category and sub-category scenarios. The first, parent dropdown's value controls which options are available to choose in the second, dependent dropdown. This article covers how to create a dependent dropdown field and configure the options that appear for each value of the parent dropdown.
Dropdown lists can be used for fields that should be populated with one of a predetermined list of values. Using dropdown lists will result in increased control of your data, reducing data redundancy and improving the integrity of your database. Dropdown fields make it easier to sort and report in Sugar because they prevent misspellings and word variations that may disrupt the natural order of your data. This article covers how to create a new dropdown field and define its list of values.
Linking various pieces of information together is a vital function of CRM. Sugar provides three different ways you can create connections between modules: relationships, relate fields, and flex relate fields.
Linking various pieces of information together is a vital function of a CRM. Sugar provides three different ways you can create connections between modules: relationships, relate fields, and flex relate fields. This article explains how to create a relate field in Sugar. For more information about each of these three types of connections, including a thorough description of relate fields, please refer to the article Introduction to Relationships and Relate Fields article.
Linking various pieces of information together is a vital function of CRM. Sugar provides three different ways you can create connections between modules: relationships, relate fields, and flex relate fields. For more information about each of these three types of connections, including a more thorough description of relationships, please refer to the article Introduction to Relationships and Relate Fields.
Role-based dropdown lists enable administrators to control the dropdown options that are available for users to select when creating or editing records. The options users should be able to select may vary among users depending on their function in the organization. For example, users associated with the marketing or sales roles may see more sales-related dropdown values than users in a customer support role. This article covers how to create a role-based dropdown list and modify the list of options available for users to select based on their assigned role.
Role-based views provide a way for administrators to set unique layouts for users depending on their role. In organizations of all sizes, employees may need to view and modify different data in a single Sugar record. With role-based views, managers can see a different record view layout than their direct reports while marketing and salespeople can see more sales-related fields than users in a customer support role.
As a Sugar administrator, you can easily alter the displayed label for a module or for any field within a module to better match your business needs and vocabulary.
Sugar® offers administrators and users a wide range of configuration, and one of the most common changes administrators will perform is editing the various layouts in Studio to suit their organization's needs and processes. For more information regarding the various layouts and how to edit them, please refer to the Studio documentation.
Every record's detailview will display subpanels which list related records from other modules. The fields displayed on these subpanel as well as the label of each subpanel can be easily modified through Studio so that your users have visibility to the most important fields for your organization.
Linking various pieces of information together is a vital function of CRM. Sugar® provides three different ways to create connections between modules:
When performing an import in Sugar®, any fields that are marked as required must be included in the import file in order for the import process to complete successfully. Sugar administrators have the ability to make certain fields required for import via Admin > Studio. Please note that there is a Required Field checkbox in Studio > {Module Name} > Fields, which does not affect importing but is used to mark fields as required for a module's list view and record view. The Importable option in Studio is what controls if a field is required when importing into Sugar. This article will go over how administrators can mark necessary fields as required for import via Admin > Studio.
Sugar administrators have the ability to mark a field as required in Studio to ensure that a value is provided for a particular field when a record is created or modified. Please note that all field types except for "HTML" and "Checkbox" can be made required in Sugar. Once a field is marked as required, Sugar will not allow a user to save the record unless the required field contains a value.
In Sugar's list views and subpanels, some of the displayed fields are hyperlinks that take you to a related record in Sugar. This article explains how to transform a text field that is normally not clickable into an internal hyperlink that takes the user to view the record.
The Quotes, Cases, and Bugs modules include a stock number field (e.g. Quote number) to help identify and distinguish each record in the module. When a new record is created and saved in Sugar®, the number field automatically increments based on the last created record's number. By default, the first quotes, cases, and bugs created in Sugar start at "1", but administrators can easily alter the starting number based on their organization's needs via Admin > Studio.
The Sugar Logic section of the Knowledge Base includes articles covering the use of dependent and calculated fields. Topics range from introductory information to example Sugar Logic formulas, to detailed walkthroughs of how to construct various fields and formulas.
feature enhancement
After removing the case number field from the Cases module editview, the field is not read-only if it is added back to the layout.
In Sugar, reports are a valuable tool that is able to access the fields of most stock or custom modules. You may find, however, that a particular field is missing from the Available Fields panel when building a report.
When a new field has been created in Studio, the field needs to be added to the relevant layouts so that it can be viewed and used. If you have added the new field to your layouts via Studio, but it still does not appear in your layouts after clicking Save & Deploy, there are several possible solutions.
There may be occasions where changes made to the PopupView layouts (Popup Search and Popup ListView) for the Projects module in Studio do not display in the Projects module as expected after clicking "Save & Deploy". This article will cover how to resolve this issue in order for the changes made in Studio to be reflected in the Projects module.
Dashlets displaying forecasting information, such as closed deals, are incorrectly returning a $0 amount.
The ActionButton field type introduced in version 11.1.0 of Sugar Sell, Serve, and Enterprise was developed from the wTools Custom Buttons package from W-Systems. While Sugar Action Buttons incorporate most of the functionality that existed in the wTools Custom Buttons package, there are some differences that are important to understand. If you previously installed the W-Systems product and are upgrading to Action Buttons, this article describes the differences between the two solutions to help you determine whether you should continue to use your existing buttons, create new buttons, or both.
Module Builder is a very useful and versatile part of Sugar. With Module Builder, Sugar administrators and developers have the ability to build custom modules to fulfill any needs that are not covered by the out-of-the-box Sugar modules (Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities, Cases, etc.). This article will cover the various options for working with the custom module package when it is finished being built-in Module Builder.
In Sugar, relationships can be created in either Module Builder (custom module) or Studio (custom and stock module). When a relationship is created via Admin > Studio, relate fields and subpanels are automatically created to represent a two-way relationship between the modules. When a related module record is selected in the relate field or subpanel, a relationship is established between the primary module record and the related module record. This article covers the different types of relationships and how to create new relationships in Sugar.
Sugar® dashlets let users get a quick view of various records, activities, reports, etc. from their home pages or intelligence panes. Every user in Sugar can easily customize their dashlets to meet their individual needs. List view dashlets are a type of dashlet which displays tables of records. When configuring these dashlets, users can choose the column fields the dashlet will display as well as build filters controlling which records will show.