Acreedores por operaciones devengadas. 12

To keep track of the coming sales pipeline, you should enter the expected closing date for each opportunity. By doing this, from the Opportunities screen you can easily filter your pipeline by Expected Closing(button in Group by). This is a clear way to forecast the expected revenues. You can also use this filter to check whether the expected closing date has been set.

Simply by adding an expected closing date, the sales team can manage the sales process more efficiently and effectively.

53

Connecting with your Email and Accessing

from your Mobile Device

6

OpenERP provides all the information you need to pursue your company’s business opportunities effectively. But to stay productive with all the information you have to handle, it is essential that you can keep using your normal communication tools by interfacing them with OpenERP, and that you are not limited just to OpenERP’s interface.

Often your sales persons are already used to working with standard email clients to manage their business. OpenERP allows you to perfectly integrate their knowledge with the use of OpenERP. OpenERP offers this flexibility to those who need to continue using their traditional email programs to maintain their efficiency: OpenERP can be connected to Outlook and Thunderbird. Your users can participate in many OpenERP-maintained processes without ever leaving their familiar environment, and can avoid double data entry, yet easily link information to OpenERP’s database automatically. With the Outlook and Thunderbird plug-ins, you can create and/or open contacts directly from your email client in OpenERP without effort. You can also link emails (with attachments) to OpenERP, to avoid information getting lost. Both plug-ins enable you for instance to create leads based on exchanges you have with the customer.

The email gateway functionality enables you to use Open ERP’s CRM without necessarily using the OpenERP interface. Up-to-date leads can automatically be stored in OpenERP just by sending and receiving emails through a specific email address. You can even answer such mails from your own mailbox.

And of course, you can link the OpenERP meeting calendar to your mobile device.

6.1 Communication Tools

The Fetchmail / Mailgateway functionality lets you interface the CRM with incoming and outgoing emails. So you can receive mails in OpenERP and answer them directly from OpenERP. You can install it when you configure the CRM, through the Reconfigure wizard, Fetch Emails, or by installing the fetchmail module from the list of modules. Thanks to this feature, each email you receive on the specified email address may automatically create a lead, a contact or an other object in OpenERP, while keeping track of email attachments. This is an easy way to ensure that no crucial sales information gets lost.

You set the generic email address you want to use, such as [email protected], and then you tell OpenERP that every incoming email for this address should automatically be created as a lead.

Objects

You can use this feature for any object in OpenERP, so for instance also to keep track of your helpdesk or job applications.

To use the email gateway, you should install the Fetchmail module. You might need a system administrator to carry out this work.

If you followed the steps in the previous chapters, you should have the Fetchmail module installed. If not, you can install the Fetchmail module from the Configuration Wizard (CRM Configuration Wizard, Synchronization, Fetch Emails), or from the modules list.

Scheduled Action

Click the Fetch email button to get the emails directly. OpenERP also automatically creates a Scheduled Action to fetch the mails every 5 minutes.

Step 1

You can configure your incoming mail account(s) from the Sales → Configuration → Emails → Email Servers.

Figure 6.1: How to Configure your Email Server for Incoming Mails?

Go to Tools → Configuration → Email Template → Email Accounts to define the email smtp settings. In the Description field, type the visible name you would like to use for the account.

In Server, type the mail server, i.e. smtp.googlemail.com.

Type the SMTP port (e.g. 587), configure the other settings according to the specifications of your server.

CHAPTER 6. CONNECTING WITH YOUR EMAIL AND ACCESSING FROM YOUR MOBILE DEVICE 55 Add the User Information, such as email address for which the mails will enter OpenERP, i.e. [email protected], the user name and the password. Configure the other settings to your needs. Save and click the Test Outgoing Connection button to check whether the settings are correct. When everything is correctly configured, Approve the account. OpenERP will automatically create a Scheduler for the mails. You can also send/receive mails manually by clicking the Send/Receive button.

Step 2

You can configure your outgoing mail account(s) from the Tools → Configuration → Email Template → Email Accounts.

Figure 6.2: How to Configure your Email Server for Outgoing Mails? Go to Sales > Configuration > Emails > Email Servers to define the email server settings. Assign a Name and select the Server Type, i.e. IMAP Server.

Click Add Attachments if you want to include attachments for the mails received / sent.

Enter the Server Information, check SSL if necessary, i.e. imap.googlemail.com and the Login Information.

You can also choose to send an automatic reply on receipt of the mail. You can configure the mail here from the Email Server Action field.

Assign the Model to use when a new email arrives, i.e. choose Lead (crm.leads) if you want every new email that arrives to be created as a lead.

Click Confirm to confirm the account settings. Server Configuration

You will also have your administrator to configure your server settings to allow for an email gateway. This will not be explained in this book.