Filepicker.io - Jan 2013 - SugarCRM AotM

Filepicker.io SugarField is the January 2013 SugarCRM App of the Month. This is a addon for adding a SugarField for leveraging the filepicker.io service for handling a file upload for any record in any module in SugarCRM. Visit the SugarForge project

Name, title and brief bio?

Anand Dass, Developer evangelist, Filepicker.io. As co-founder of Filepicker.io, Anand is actively focused on gaining adoption for Filepicker.io products. Filepicker.io is a one stop cloud connector and Filesystem-as-a- service for web and mobile applications. Filepicker.io's API connects web and mobile apps to data from Dropbox, Facebook, Box, Google Drive, Evernote, Instagram, Flickr, Picasa, and 15 other platforms.

Prior to Filepicker.io, Anand was a consultant at McKinsey and also ran a $35mn. enterprise sales organization in APAC and Japan. He has extensive experience in architecting and deploying CRM systems for the enterprise. Anand is a graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management.

When you designed and built this app, what problems were you looking to solve for SugarCRM users?

Our goal is to help SugarCRM developers & administrators capitalize on the consumerization of enterprise IT.

Employees increasingly bring in their own device to the enterprise and use platforms such as Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Sharepoint, Alfresco to store their work related files. They also use these platforms to collaborate with other employees within the company, with partners, suppliers and customers. However the sales and marketing automation workflows that drive these processes are built in SugarCRM.

Therefore it is important to provide a simple and intuitive way to bring the content in Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Sharepoint, Alfresco into SugarCRM.

The Filepicker.io SugarCRM cloud connector solves this problem!

Once the SugarCRM-Filepicker.io cloud connector is installed by the SugarCRM admin, users can access their cloud storage accounts from within the SugarCRM application interface. Users can upload & import content and export & save the finished work products back into the cloud storage platform of their choice. No more lost documents in the cloud, no more mailing around documents etc.!

Sugar CRM developers and administrators can implement this cloud connector in less than 30 minutes. Filepicker.io saves Sugar administrators from having to implement separate APIs for Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, Alfresco, Evernote & 15 other platforms which would otherwise take them 4-6 person weeks of integration effort.

For more information on Filepicker.io APIs please visit https://developers.filepicker.io/docs/

What inspired you to build this app?

As users of workflow applications ourselves, we noticed that we were having a tough time working with our data strewn across our Dropbox, Box, Google drive and Sharepoint accounts. We found ourselves constantly downloading and uploading content back and forth between the applications and our data storage platforms so we decided to build a solution that would solve this problem!

What attracted you to being a part of the Sugar ecosystem?

With 11 Mn. downloads, 1 Mn. end users, 6000 paid customers SugarCRM is one of the biggest workflow application platform. Being part of the Sugar ecosystem is a fantastic opportunity for application developers like us who want to build integrations that positively impact a large audience.

SugarCRM is the central nervous system that manages the sales and marketing automation flow in an organization. We felt that building a Filepicker.io integration would help workflow applications built on Sugar integrate with the public cloud in a simple and easy to use way.

What other apps have you been involved with in the Sugar ecosystem?

This is the first application that we have built for the Sugar ecosystem.

What has been the most rewarding part of being a part of the Sugar ecosystem?

The SugarCRM ecosystem has been incredibly open and welcoming in comparison with some of the other platforms we have worked with. As a firm with strong roots in Javascript and HTML standards we are firm believers in open web technologies. As developers ourselves, we identify with the philosophy of a strong developer community that shapes the product evolution. Thus working with a partner like SugarCRM who shares these values has been rewarding.

How has Sugar's open ecosystem and vast community made building this app?

With 30,000 registered developers, 300 partners, SugarCRM has one of the most impressive ecosystems. The ability to quickly extend the functionality of the core SugarCRM platform and receive feedback from the community has been valuable in reducing the lead time for deployment.

What do you want to build next for Sugar?

We are considering adding additional features around document tracking and ACL for the Filepicker.io SugarCRM cloud connector