Prepare Your Business for the Upturn with Sage CRM

By Afreen Hasan | Feb 26, 2024 3:33:36 PM

As businesses worldwide anticipate a shift towards economic recovery and growth, it's paramount to equip your organization with the tools and strategies necessary to thrive in the upcoming upturn. One such tool that stands out amidst the plethora of solutions available is Sage CRM. Renowned for its versatility and effectiveness, Sage CRM offers a comprehensive suite of features designed to streamline operations, enhance customer relationships, and drive sustainable growth. In this blog post, we'll explore how Sage CRM can be a game-changer for your business as you prepare for the upturn.


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How to Amplify your Business with Sage CRM and Sage 300

By Zainab Salihi | Jul 8, 2020 9:33:50 AM


This blog will share our recent discussion How to amplify your business with Sage CRM and Sage 300, explaining how your employees can work remotely, all while managing sales with a fully integrated web-based Sage CRM and Sage 300. Make sure to watch the live video to see the products in action; demonstrating how to bridge the gap with CRM so remote workers can access necessary financial data with ease.

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10 Awesome Tricks You Can Do in Sage CRM

By BAASS Author | Feb 2, 2018 4:03:00 PM

Many of our customers use Sage CRM to help their sales, marketing and customer service teams build more profitable relationships every day. It is a full-featured, web-based CRM solution that is easy to use and quick to deploy. In this blog I will outline 10 things that you may not have known you could do within Sage CRM. Hopefully you can learn something new that will improve your user experience of Sage CRM.

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Sage CRM - You may need to create views manually

By BAASS Author | Oct 3, 2013 12:00:00 AM
 
Why does it appear? 

The can be several reasons why this message appears and it usually comes when there has been a change in the configuration of the system. This maybe as a result of an upgrade, or if the SQL password for the "sa" user has been changed, and the same change has not been affected in CRM.  

There are some helpful questions to ask when this happens.  

Does the error appear for all users? 

If the system administrator can logon but another user can not, you will have to turn on the system logs and see what happens. Start looking at the SQL logs and see if the requests are getting to the database. It may give you enough information to sort out the problem.  

Is your database running? 

UnableToConnectToDB  
[DBNETLIB][ConnectionOpen (Connect()).]SQL Server does not exist or access denied  
Driver: MSSQL  
Server: UKTRAINING  
Database: CRM  
LoginName: sa You may need to recreate views manually.  

This is symptomatic of a database server that is not running. Can you connect using query analyser or other SQL tool? 

If the database is already running.. stop and start the database service and retry.  

Have you just restored a backedup database? 

The error message can appear when you have a mismatch between database and CRM versions. For example you may get the message if you have restored a Sage CRM 5.8 database to an install of Sage CRM that is 6.0  

Is CRM trying to connect to the correct database? 

Go to start\run\regedit\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\eware\config click on the CRM beneath that and see the right panel see that default databaseserver name is exactly you have, if it is not, then change it manually. You'll need to do an IISRESET before you try and logon again.  

Have you changed the database password? 

UnableToConnectToDB  
Login failed for user 'sa'  
Driver: MSSQL  
Server: UKTRAINING  
Database: CRM  
LoginName: sa You may need to recreate views manually.  

This can be symptomatic of when the "sa" password was entered correctly but contains a special character, such as $, in the beginning.  

Or more alarmingly it can be symptomatic of someone or something (e.g. a Virus, worm etc) changing the password on the database server.  

Note:
If you need to change the "sa" password, the correct thing to do is to logon to CRM, change the database password under Administration>System>Database first, then reset the password in   MSSQL, and finally reset   IIS  and   logon  to   CRM  again.  

But if the database " sa" password has been reset first, then it will not be known to   CRM, so you will not be able to   connect  to the database. Then you'll need to reset the password in MS   SQL  to the previous password.  

But what if you don't know the database " sa" password? You will first need to reset the " sa" password to something you do know. Then you will have to reset the password in the   CRM  registry. (Backup the registry before doing this!!!).  

In the registry browse to   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | SOFTWARE |   eWare  |   Config  | [ CRM], where [ CRM] is the name of the   CRM  instance.  

You can set the   DatabasePassword  to the new database password in plain text. Do an   IISRESET, then you should be able to   logon  to   CRM. Once you have logged on to   CRM  go and reenter the new password and it will be saved back into the registry in encrypted form.  

But how do I recreate views manually? 

There is a view in the Sage   CRM  database called " vsentinel". When   CRM  first starts up (after an   IISRESET) and it finds that   vsentinel  is not present, it will use this as the trigger to force the recreation of the views based on the definitions stored in meta data. Once the other views have been recreated it then creates the trigger view " vsentinel" again.  

To force the recreation of the views do this:  

1. Do   IISRESET  from the Run prompt.  
2. Go to the   SQL  Manager. Take a backup of your   CRM   SQL  Database first.  
3. Now through   SQL  Manager itself, select the   CRM   SQL  Database instance. There you will find an option Views which lists all the Views against it.  
4. Select the user view " vsentinel". All   CRM  views are prefixed with ‘v’.  
5. Press the Delete key from the keyboard and drop the view.  
6. After the   IISRESET, try to   login  to   CRM  and see whether you are able to   log in  to   CRM  now or not.
 
Have you been editing the Themes CSS files in Sage CRM 6.2?
 
Sage CRM 6.2 has introduced a new way of generating this message.  This can seem surprising as it has nothing to do with the database and everything to do with a corrupt CSS file being in the Themes folder.
 
Sage CRM 6.2 introduced the idea of themes.  There is some training material that covers this within the Resources section of this website that development partners can   download and there are also additional   sample themes  available.
 
As part of developing a theme a cascading stylesheet will have to be created and edited that contains the style settings for the new look and feel that is being constructed.  But there is a section of the stylesheet that has to be preserved.  This is clearly marked in the existing stylesheets.
 
e.g.
 
C:\Program Files\Sage\CRM\CRM\WWWRoot\Themes\default.css
C:\Program Files\Sage\CRM\CRM\WWWRoot\Themes\neutral.css
C:\Program Files\Sage\CRM\CRM\WWWRoot\Themes\sage_green.css
 
/*  
  CRM GREEN CUSTOM SETTINGS  
  DO NOT CHANGE FORMAT BETWEEN 'CRM SETTINGS' TAGS
  [CRM SETTINGS]
    [INITIALIZATION]
      //theme file version
      VERSION = 1.0
    [COLORS DEFINITION]
      //wsEmailclient
      COLORCAPTIONBLUE=#6795C3
      //TSearchEntryGroup.GetEditHtmlFromContent
...
    [FONTS]
      //WrbTriPage, WsEmailClient
      FONTFAMILY=MS P-Mincho
...
  [CRM SETTINGS]
*/
The values within this section maybe changed BUT the structure must be preserved.  If this section is corrupted or is absent in   any  css file contained in the Themes folder
 
C:\Program Files\Sage\CRM\CRM\WWWRoot\Themes\
 
then it will generate the 'You may need to recreate views manually' message when someone tries to first logon after IIS has been reset.  It does not matter is the CSS file is not referenced in translations. All CSS files in the folder are scanned.  The origin of the error may be shown in the system log in this case.

So what happens if I still can't log on

Remember this was not an exhaustive article. Don't panic. Think about what has just changed in the system? Have you applied a new component? Can you restore to the prior state? Have a good look through the forums and   knowledge base  and then log a case with support.  

I hope that this article has helped.
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Sage CRM How To: Document Templates

By BAASS Author | Jul 8, 2013 10:32:00 AM
 
With all of the excitement over the release of Sage 300 ERP v2012 and its new features, it’s easy to forget how many amazing tools you already have at your fingertips. One of the handiest tools for those of us in administration is also one of the more under-utilized features in Sage CRM – Document and Email Templates.

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Sage CRM – The Personal Assistant for a Personal Assistant

By BAASS Author | Apr 12, 2013 12:00:00 AM
Every now and then I like to reflect on the beauty of Sage CRM and voice my appreciation. Sometimes I, (perish the thought) try to contemplate my position without it in my life and that…that takes me to a dark place.
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A Practical Example of Business Intelligence Powered by Sage 300 ERP

By Glen Mund | Feb 5, 2013 8:27:00 AM
 
 
  
 ERP_shutterstock_386111203_technology_busy_coffee_marketing_bi_sales_meeting
 
 

BAASS Business Solutions has been using Sage CRM to manage staff schedules for several years now. It has powerful scheduling features for recurring appointments, conflict notification, email and on screen reminders and more.

One of the Key Performance Indicators I use as a predicative indicator of our capacity and revenue forecast is an adhoc report I export from CRM on a weekly basis. The report takes me about a minute or two to export but once exported it takes about 15 to 30 minutes to manipulate so that it provides the number of days in the month that are booked as compared to those that are not, and the number of days that are booked for non billable vs billable activities. It also requires some sorting to check for double bookings. The report is critical to predict future revenues, lead time, and resource allocation.

I knew this report could be automated with some work but it was beyond my expertise. One of my staff saw the request on our CRM wishlist and decided to take it on. As I was creating the adhoc version of the report in Excel he felt that Sage Intelligence was the best option as it is an Excel based BI tool that can look at any data source including our CRM data. In a few days he designed a report that not only gives me the data I want with the click of a button it allows for easy configuration if we add employees or make other changes to our organization. It now takes less than 15 seconds to get a report that formerly took a half hour to prepare. I can also run the report hourly or more frequently if I want, as opposed to weekly.

We have even set the report to be sent to my email so it is waiting for me every morning.

I now have valuable information at my fingertips when and where I need it.

Thanks Mitch!!!

If you would like us to see if we can help your business get access to data in a more effective manner or get access to data you can't get access to now, give us a call. You might be surprised what your software is capable of doing.

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An Update on My Dashboard - Sage CRM

By BAASS Consultant | Jun 13, 2012 12:00:00 AM

It has been a while since I last updated you on my executive dashboard so I thought I would take this opportunity to let you know where we are at today. I have spent most of the time since we last spoke enhancing the Dashboard within Sage CRM. I check this dashboard almost everyday as it updates me on where BAASS Business Solutions is at from several different departmental perspectives.

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