Deep Dive of Sales Console in the SugarCRM Platform

The subscription based business model charges customers a recurring fee typically monthly or yearly to access a product or service. Subscription revenue model helps organizations to capitalize on the compounding value of customer relationships, Meanings As long as they continually see the value of the product/service, they will continue to pay for it. So it means any user can use a product by subscribing to it. Let us take amazon prime membership where Users can pay for the service yearly or monthly and enjoy all the benefits for the subscription period. And year on year or month on month he can renew  for the service  if he needs or likes. So the service  is renewed based on the user usage and perceived value. Many organizations have products / services  that are subscription based. The core aspect of Subscription Management is managing subscriptions, free trials, freemium accounts and renewals efficiently. Sales teams play a key role to retain existing subscriptions,  manage their renewals and increase the Company’s revenue.  SugarCRM’s Sales Console helps Subscription based business models Manage their new sales and renewals.

SugarCRM is a subscription based product company

Let us take SugarCRM as an example. SugarCRM is a software company  that designs its own products and releases them into the Market. SugarCRM has products like Sugar Enterprise, Professional, Ultimate, Sugar Serve, Sugar Sell and Sugar Market.  Apart from these products, it has many add on services like Sugar Connect, Sugar Hint, Sugar Integrate etc.

Sales Console formerly known as Renewals Console can be very helpful to the sales team by automating many activities it can boost their productivity and enhance their efficiency. Sugar has introduced Sales Console in its cloud products Sugar Sell and Sugar Enterprise.

Sales Admin can configure their products/services in the Product Catalog module. Sugar added three new  fields in the product catalogue namely,  Service,  Renewable and Duration.  All the renewable products and services are mentioned as renewable services using these new fields. Sugar generates a new opportunity for each of the existing “Closed Won” Opportunities that have a “renewable” service or product. This reduces the amount of time  spent  on entering data in CRM during the renewal process. Sales teams can have a quick glance at Sales Console Home Page dashboard and can easily identify the opportunities that are going to come for renewal in each month. In a single word we can say Recurring revenue models lead to higher revenues and stronger customer relationships.

Duration based Products / Subscription-based services 

There are many companies that have duration based or subscription based products. Sugar added Several new service-related fields to the Accounts, Opportunities, Revenue Line Items, Quoted Line Items, and Product Catalog modules.

Duration based products extend the functionality of Renewals Management in Sugar massively and are a key element in the Renewals Automation process. New quote and Invoice templates containing service-related fields have been added to PDF Manager for the Quotes module.

Sales Console formerly known as Renewals Console

Sales Console is a feature released in Sugar Sell and Sugar Enterprise products,  and is geared toward duration-based renewable services  and perfectly aligned with no-touch information philosophy to automate renewals management.

Sales team no need of searching or digging the data deeply and spending more time on it. Sales Console is a Home page Dashboard with the availability of this feature we can add service-based renewal products or subscription-based services in Sugar and make automatic renewals without manual intervention.

This dashboard provides a powerful work environment for the organization’s Sales agents and Customer Success Managers to automate and streamline renewal management. It also gains a new level of Visibility into Business. Every Sales representative will become a top performer as their Productivity increases because of ease of work.

With using Renewals Console Home page dashboard, users can easily 

1. Manage their accounts.
2. They can quickly see the status of their current quarter’s renewal pipeline, past Interactions and Activities / Tasks to be completed.
3. And manage individual renewal opportunities.
4. Users can spend very little time on digging or searching for actionable tasks to be done on priority.

Main Advantages of Renewals Console are as follows 

1. Users can quickly add duration based products and services to a quote.
2. By using this astonishing and affordable feature, Users can easily manage and automate renewable opportunities and products and save tonnes of valuable time without entering manual tasks and searching for information.
3. Users can manage their Subscription-Based Business.
4. It can increase their revenue for recurring revenue models.

Sales Console Overview 

It is a central place where CRM users can track and monitor their activities, to-do’s, and metrics which is divided into three main tabs by default called Overview tab, Accounts tab, and Opportunities tab.

Overview Tab

This tab provides a clear overview of all renewable contracts and opportunities. It displays all vital information in one place, in turn making it easier than ever to manage and sell renewable-based products and services.

There are a number of powerful features within the console that empower staff in easily managing and closing opportunities in the renewals/sales pipeline.  As it gives quick information about the planned activities and tasks users can plan their work accordingly in a perfect manner.  This tab contains four dashlets that give an overview of Planned Activities, Active Tasks, Pipeline dashlet, and Top 10 Sales Revenue Line Items Dashlet. 

The Focus Dashboard is the latest enhancement that provides complete information about the specific record accessed and also includes related dashlets, offering relevant details about that record, such as related activities. This feature significantly eases the workload of Sales Managers, who can now avoid the need to navigate through each module for information, as they can simply use the Focus Dashboard to find what they need. This is how the focus dashboard looks like in the sales console dashboard as shown in the below screenshot.

Accounts Tab

This tab displays all the user’s accounts with those having a pending renewal at the top of the list, sorted by the date of the next renewal. As it displays the date of next renewal, annual revenue, service level, and account type fields data on list view users can quickly and easily analyze their customer account details. By default it displays the Accounts which are related to logged in user and user has the flexibility of setting his own filters and display the data based on any of the available fields in the accounts if he is an admin. 

Sugar has also added the pagination feature in Sales console which helps the users to navigate through the records easily. As per Sugar stock functionality, there will be the Focus Drawer icon for all the clickable record links, when the user opens the Focus Drawer dashboard.

Account Record Dashlet

This dashlet is a concise alternative to the account’s full record view which typically displays the overall information of the account you are currently viewing and also it contains additional tabs that display account’s most important subpanel module content like Opportunities, Contacts, and Quotes. Users can easily switch between the tabs and see the related module information of an account. This tab feature makes the user easier to navigate through important renewal opportunity information.

Comment Log Dashlet

This is the most powerful section in this Console. It is the place where the users can collaborate with the internal team very effectively. Using this dashlet users can add new comments and make new entries by adding the new text in the text box. This dashlet typically displays the entries of the account’s Comment Log Field in chronological order with the most recent entry on the top of the Dashlet.

Active Subscriptions Dashlet

This Dashlet displays a simple bar chart visualization for time elapsed and time remaining on subscription services related to your Accounts ‘closed won’ service opportunities.

Timeline Dashlet

Timeline dashlet formerly known as Account Interactions Dashlet in Sugar, which displays the overview of interactions of a customer like their calls, meetings, and tasks that have been held or to be scheduled with the most interactions on the top. Users can easily add calls, schedule meetings, and send Emails with attachments very easily from this dashlet without navigating to the Calls or Emails module. It makes the user work more efficient and easy.

Purchase History Dashlet

This dashlet shows a list of all the current account’s purchases regardless of the start or end date of the purchase record. The dashlet shows each purchase’s name, date range, quantity, and total. This dashlet helps the users to know about their purchase and its validity.

Opportunities Tab

This tab displays the open opportunities that are assigned to users and sorted by the expected close date with overdue opportunities shown in the topmost positions.

Just like the Accounts tab the Opportunity Foucs Drawer also contains five sections which contain Opportunity Record Dashlet which redirects to the original specific Opportunity record view, Related Account Dashlet of an Opportunity typically displays the account related to the Opportunity and also provides valuable service level and business center information of that account.

Users can easily edit the account here itself without navigating away to the Accounts module, Opportunities Comment Log Dashlet gives an overview of the Opportunity’s Comment Log field with the most recent entry on the top and Opportunities Timeline Dashlet that formerly known as Opportunities Activities Dashlet that displays the Opportunity’s related emails, calls, meeting, and notes with the most recent interactions on the top. Similar to the Accounts Timeline Dashlet the user can easily add a call, schedule a meeting, or note without redirecting to the original module.

Conclusion

Automated Renewals Management and Sales Console features really adds great value and benefits for organizations running renewable or duration based products/services. By using this feature organizations can save tonnes of their valuable resources time entering manual tasks and digging for information by automating and better managing the renewal process.