Connect to SugarCRM Data from Anywhere with CData

Connect to SugarCRM Data from Anywhere

CData Software and SugarCRM have recently partnered to bring CData’s easy-to-use real-time connectivity solutions to all SugarCRM users.

Whether you are a data analyst, citizen integrator, or operations professional, connecting and integrating your SugarCRM data with your preferred BI, analytics, ETL tool, custom application or database, should be easy and pain-free.

CData Sync is a modern cloud data pipeline tool that provides users with convenient solutions for synchronizing data from over 250 on-premises and cloud-based data sources, such as SugarCRM, with a variety of on-premises and cloud-based databases. We’ll show you in three easy steps how CData Sync helps connect your SugarCRM data to any cloud or on-premises destination, using Snowflake as an example.

While this article will focus specifically on data replication using CData Sync, CData offers a suite of real-time data connectivity tools for SugarCRM users. Visit our SugarCRM connectors page here to learn more.

Best-In-Class Connectivity

Data is strewn across every corner of your organization. No longer saddled with a "one size fits all" solution, teams can choose the best CRM, ERP, MarTech, or accounting solution to meet their needs.

As a result, data can be siloed within these applications and systems, making it difficult to integrate the data and produce holistic, actionable insights. Let's explore a few use cases where replicating SugarCRM data to a storage solution like Snowflake will improve business operations.

1. Customer 360 – With data spread across a variety of applications, gaining a complete, accurate picture of the customer journey and experience is more challenging than ever. A unified collaborative view enhances customer intelligence, enabling superior predictive analysis, seamless customer service, and streamlined quote-to-cash processes.

2. Supply chain optimization – Supply chain departments collect tremendous amounts of data, including inventory, POS, and production volume data. But most of the data that can guide decisions and actions isn’t analytics-ready or accessible. By freeing data from silos and consolidating access, you enable supply chain analysts to retrieve and enrich the data, create derivative data from it, and make informed decisions based on up-to-date information.

3. Process automation (master data management) – Automating complex business processes removes bottlenecks, reduces errors and data loss, and increases interdepartmental communication and processing speeds. CData Sync provides automated, continuous data replication to pipeline SugarCRM data with hundreds of traditional and emerging databases.

4. Data backup and disaster recovery – In the event of data loss due to human error, natural disaster, cyber threat, or hardware failure, enterprises must have a secure backup plan for their data. A flexible and agile data pipeline tool like CData Sync provides enterprises with trusted, automated data replication to any database or data warehouse for backup and disaster recovery.

Now that we understand the why, let’s tackle the how!

Data Replication in Three Steps

1. Download CData Sync here to configure the connection to SugarCRM

Connecting to SugarCRM requires knowledge of the server address (i.e. URL), along with the appropriate credentials or, in many cases, authenticating your account directly with SugarCRM via your web browser (using OAuth). For more information on connecting to SugarCRM from Sync, refer to the Online Help.

2. Configure the connection to Snowflake

Connecting to Snowflake requires knowledge of the address of the replication server and the appropriate credentials for write access to the cloud-based database. For more information on connecting to Snowflake, refer to the Online Help.

3. Select the tables to be replicated and click Run

CData Sync works with SQL queries so each Sugar module or entity is treated as a table, replicating the fields and records to the database. After creating a job, we gain access to our SugarCRM database and modules both from within CData Sync and Snowflake.

Now, login to Snowflake, and run a basic SELECT query to verify that the SugarCRM data populates accordingly, and that’s it!

CData Sync users also benefit from more powerful features, such as:

1. Incremental updates – After performing the initial replication, CData Sync performs incremental updates to the replication database. Sync requests only the changes to the data since the last replication, meaning that there are fewer API calls or queries made against the original data source. This mechanism results in faster updates that help you stay below any API or data limits.

2. Flexible configuration and scheduling – You have the freedom to configure CData Sync to replicate exactly the data you need, even to perform operations on the data before it is replicated. For example, writing a query similar to the one below can change the name of the replication table by using the original table, Accounts, and three of its fields:

REPLICATE REP_Account

SELECT FirstName, LastName, Date_Modified

FROM Accounts;

In addition to having full control over what data is replicated, you also have access to flexible replication scheduling, allowing you to replicate data as frequently as every 15 minutes to just once daily.

3. Secure monitored backup and archiving – Since CData Sync is standalone, installed software, meaning your data flows directly from the source to the replication database, with no online hosting or transactional fees. You can closely monitor changes being made to the replicated database with the built-in transaction logging, giving you an up-to-date view of the state of your data and helping you troubleshoot any replication issues.

More Information & Next Steps

If you are interested in replication your SugarCRM data (or data from any of our other supported data sources) to your preferred cloud-based or on-premises stores, you can download a free, 30-day trial of CData Sync today!

For more information on Sync and to see what other data sources we support, refer to our CData Sync listing on SugarOutfitters.