Sam

This is perfect for going into the Ideas Hub.

I am going to discuss this with my colleagues and get back to you.

But having said that it is not at all difficult to use these types of services within a CRM environment. I haven't looked at this area for a while BUT if you have a look for Yahoo Pipes in the articles on this site you will see that it is perfectly possible to use services like this to create integrations. Unfortunately Yahoo Pipes was one of the technologies that didn't fly and is at the end of its life. It did, however, show what was possible.

Sam

A colleague has pointed out that we already have an integration with Podbox.

I don’t think we are planning yet to integrate with other tools.

Thank you Jeff! I'll post this on the Ideas Hub.

In the meantime I did test out the Podbox integration and couldn't quite get access to our Sage CRM account (which is hosted on our servers). I'm wondering if this is one of the reasons (as opposed to being cloud-hosted via cloud.na.sagecrm.com).

Also, not sure if this is another reason, but the current supported version of Sage CRM in Podbox is 7.1 apparently (we run 7.2b which I know isn't even the most recent either!).

Thanks.

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EDIT: Will add to the Ideas Hub, but perhaps it would be worthwhile to put together a list of the best use cases/integrations of Sage CRM within Podbox (since there's a ton of services to choose from). Would make a great blog post!

Sam

Nag me about this in a couple of weeks. I am working on another project at the moment but doing some mashup work with the Podbox feature would be fun.

As far as I can see the integration uses the web services and to authenticate you just need a public URL and username and password. The example it gives is of the Cloud server but if your on-premise instance is publically available then that should be cool.

Hello Sam

What error are you experiencing when you use podbox, i had a working integration between campaignmonitor and sage crm using podbox. Is there anything you would specifically want as an answer ?

regards

Kannan

Thanks for the note Kannan. I'm not entirely sure what the issue is...though I suspect it's how our security/server settings are setup. That's vague, I know!

When I attempt to authenticate Sage CRM in Podbox, I receive the following error message:

javax.xml.ws.WebServiceException: Could not send Message.

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The error message also includes a link to the following resource:

www.podbox.com/.../sage-crm

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I'm not certain of the technical details as to how our Sage CRM is hosted, but we have the CMR tool on a server set up in a similar structu172.16.xxx.xx/.../go

i had the same issue, and i had a call set up with podbox to sort the issue, it turned out that end point needs to be without the go word so i think http://servername/crm , hope it works out for you.

Since Podbox has closed is zapier now back on the table as a option for sage crm users. Sad podbox went away not sure what happened over there :-(

would be cool if sage crm could get on the list of apps for either workato.com or zaiper.com

Hi Chris, we're working on bringing Sage products to Appmixer (self-service cloud apps integration tool). We'd love to hear what your typical use cases are. We welcome anyone to get in touch with us through our Sage landing page here appmixer.com/.../sage-one or directly with me on this forum. I'd appreciate your feedback!

Sam

David works for appmixer rather than Sage or Zapier.

I think to understand Sage decisions I need to explain a little about the strategy for Sage CRM. Sage CRM is positioned as the integrated CRM option for Sage BMS products - these are products like Sage 100, Sage 200, Sage 300. These are the products that have integrations provided by Sage. There are also partner lead integration with Sage CRM and the various Sage 50 versions around the world.

Because Sage CRM is understand to be the Sales, Marketing and Customer Service modules for these accounting products much or our integration strategy comes from the direction provided by the accounting product. So we have integrations with intelligence products like Sage Intelligence and Sage Enterprise Intelligence.

As the Sage accounting products develop their integration story then so will Sage CRM.

Having said that Sage CRM does have a very rich set of cloud APIs (REST & SOAP) that enables it to create integrations with customer systems.

Hi David, nice to see there is movement on building integrations with the Sage platform.

Though I do have to ask: Why no pursuit of an integration with Zapier? Are there platform incompatibility issues? Data security? Or is it more of a concern about pricing/licensing?

We aren't very familiar with Appmixer, but from what I can see it appears to be a relatively new company (launched in 2016). With the ultimate end of Podbox, is Sage not concerned the same fate may occur with a smaller company such as Appmixer?

(We actually don't utilize Zapier as of now, but it's more of a curiosity about the decision to decline to seek out an integration with Zapier, the "standard-bearer" when it comes to integrating business tools and platforms.)

Sorry to keep droning on about integrations, but I would consider this crucial feedback for Sage as a business. When a company like ours is seeking out a new/different platform to assist in our goals, near the top of the list would be integrations.

For instance, if a prospective client is deciding between Sage vs. SalesForce / HubSpot / Zoho / Sugar -- cost aside -- chances are the decision would factor in which platform has the best/most integrations. Businesses need tools which are practical, ease to set up and use, and, ideally, not require significant IT resources to make things work.