Method Community

I am a previous user of SugarCRM and felt like it had a good mechanism for a file repository solution.  Also have used SharePoint quite a bit in the past. 

What I am needing is to find an effective way to store information in Method, primarily PDF, Word Documents and Excel spreadsheets.  It seems there are too many screens to have to go through to simply upload a document in a certain categorized areas.  For example for my company my needs are as follows, think of these bullet points as directories or categories:

 - Bill of materials, Work Orders, Shop Floor Production Documents

- How to Manuals - MFG

- How to Manuals - Sales

- Corporate Documents

- Client Project Notes

- Product Brochures / Price Lists

- Dealer Information

These are primarily geared for Internal company  consumption only, not exposed externally.  It seems like it takes a great of effort to publish documents and then it is hard to navigate back to them, especially the least sophisticated users.

Can anyone offer me what you have done for your company to solve this problem, I hate to have to go to another software application to do this and feel Method has got the infrastructure to do this but the workflow and speed to implement is not there.

Another big ticket item is responding to prospects and the ability to attach documents from the repository such as brochures.  SugarCRM had this down cold and it was easy. 

Advice and suggestions would be appreciated maybe I am missing something here.

Thank you - Rob Griffin

Rob,

What you are looking to do is possible in Method it would just involve some customization of screens to organize the uploaded files to better suit your particular needs. Some users may have already done something like this and may provide great insight :).

-Michael

I have heard rumors of integration between Method and a certain "intelligent repository" cloud based document storage platform that is already tightly integrated with QB Desktop.  Unfortunately I have also heard from Method that they are waiting on the storage folks, and the storage folks have told me they are waiting on Method... so who knows how far away that is.

The ability to attach a file to any record in the database (similar to existing functionality in QB) would be incredible.

Method could improve it's existing document capabilities with a few things:
1.  Add a documents tab to virtually all Method screens such as Customer, Vendor, Lead, Activity, Solution, Budget/Contract, etc.  This would make the existing link fields on the document record such as Activity No., Entity and Solution meaningful.  Right now, setting these fields is useless because you cannot view documents from Activity, Entity or Solution.

2.  Like Rob says, the ability to add a document from the library to an outgoing email would be cool.  Come to think of it, the ability to add ANY attachment to an email in Method would be nice.

3.  A screen with a grid to access all documents, with ability to filter by type of record file is attached to, etc. with the ability to initiate an email with document attached from the grid.

Basic functionality like Rob is requesting should not have to be customization, it should be added to Method for all!  The Method Team needs to look at requests of users and make a judgement on whether the request would benefit the requesting user and maybe a few others, or MOST/ALL Method users.  Seeing you repeatedly tell users that they have to customize Method on their own (or their client's) dime for basic functionality that is expected relative to other competing systems is getting old.

I know the Method Team is listening, and I know that they respond to the users.  Speak up and be heard!

Thanks,
Michael 

I'm bringing this thread back to life, because my questions are essentially identical.

I've already discovered the ability to upload documents to Cases. The thing is, I can only seem to find it in the Case tab. And when I go into customization, I can't find the appropriate table/screen that controls uploaded files.

Where can I go for info on how to customize my CRM setup to allow me to upload files and link them to relevant records?

Edit: OK, after looking a bit longer, I found some relevant tables: DocumentLibrary, DocumentLibraryFolder, DocumentLibraryLink. I'm going to assume that with enough know-how, it will be possible to upload any file I want and link it to any record I want (IE to upload customer order PDFs and associate them with the relevant customer records). Stop me if that isn't possible! Also, I'm betting there are size limits on how much data you can upload, but I don't know what it is.

smohyee-

What you are trying to do is possible using the Document Library. Method also has a field type call File Attachment which you can add to any table and use that field to store files.

In regards to data limits in Method read THIS

-Michael