SugarCRM Modules Customization Options
Our last post explained how to create custom SugarCRM modules. Modules allow you to represent custom objects in SugarCRM. In past SugarCRM versions, you had to build modules by editing PHP files, but now Sugar’s Module Builder does all the dirty work for you. Once you created a new module, you will need to customize it further - define the data structure representing the objects and build the UI elements supporting this object.
To make this tutorial more clear, we will create our won custom modules in SugarCRM. As an example, we will create modules that are related to blogs - blog posts and writers. We will then customize our writers object. But first, lets go over some of the customization options SugarCRM provides.
SugarCRM Customization Options
Go to Admin->Module builder. On the left pane of the screen, you should see all your custom packages and related modules, represented in a tree hierarchy. Since I created a Blog package and two modules - writers and posts - this is how my Blog package tree looks like:
You will notice under each module the following customization items:
1.Fields - these are the fields of the object you are building. The default list of fields is determined according to the ‘Type’ of module you selected when you created the module. In our case, for the writer object, we used the ‘Person’ type, so our custom writer object contains fields such as salutation, first and last name and address. We will later create additional custom fields that make up a writer object.
2. Labels - a list of all available labels of each field of our custom module. Although you can change each individual label by selecting the relevant filed, this list is a true productivity booster, especially when you need to change multiple fields.
3. Relationships -a simple, yet very powerful option. Relationships between object is a core attribute of information systems. Defining and creating relationships between objects can be a real task, but Sugar makes it as simple as possible. We will create relationships between the writers and the posts objects.
4.Layouts - layouts in SugarCRM module builder lets build screens that represent your objects with unparalleled ease, using a simple drag and drop interface. There are 3 different views you probably already know, that needs to be defined - edit view, detail view and list view. Additional layouts include Dashlets, which are the the small windows (sometimes called widget, gadgets, portlets..you get the idea) that appear in each users homepage, and search appearance, which let you define on which fields users can perform search.
As you can see, SugarCRM provides powerful customization features that require no coding (although in later posts we will show you some real code power). Just one thing you need to remember - after making any changes to your module, you need to deploy the relevant package for the changes to reflect in your SugarCRM instance. If you made changes but you can’t see them in the user interface, you forgot to deploy your package! ( To deploy, go to Admin->Module Builder, click on the modified package, and then on the deploy button. See screenshot below).
Next post will explain how to add some of our own fields to the writers module, and create relationships between the writers object with the posts object. We always recommend you register to our RSS feed.
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