Gmail Sync - May 2013 - SugarCRM App of the Month

Rolustech Gmail Sync is the May 2013 SugarCRM App of the Month. Automatically sync Calendar, Emails, Contacts and Documents seamlessly between Google and SugarCRM using Module Loader. It is a two way sync, which runs via Sugar Scheduler on specified intervals.. To try out Gmail Sync for SugarCRM, simply start a free trial today.

Your name, title and brief bio?

Shahrukh Riaz is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Rolustech. Shahrukh is very technical and professional entrepreneur. He holds an MS in Software Engineering from University of Manchester, UK with 7 years of experience in the IT industry. Shahrukh is an expert PHP developer who loves to explore latest web 2.0 technologies. Along with technical skills he has interest in management as well. Shahrukh is a very sociable personality.

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

Apart from addressing the obvious need to integrate the most popular email provider with SugarCRM to facilitate users and accelerate sales, we wanted to be different from all the existing Gmail Sync plugins available in the market; plugins that mostly reside on the browser side and are browser specific, whereas, Rolustech’s Gmail Sync is integrated with SugarCRM in such a manner that you install it as a module on the SugarCRM and can use email services from any browser – right away. Promotes CRM adoption and saves time by auto creating items in Gmail when created from SugarCRM and vice versa.

What inspired you to build this app?

It is analyzed that CRM users interact a lot with clients, using emails as a mode of communication and Gmail is quite popular among employees. We synced Gmail with SugarCRM giving users the liberty of using any system. If you are operating from Gmail’s interface – everything is automatically updated on the CRM – saving time and steps. There is no need to install any plugin on any browser making it easy to install and use.

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

We are SugarCRM VAR Partners. SugarCRM is the best open source enterprise application. Its flexibility and extensibility motivated us to develop plugins and add-ons. First, we were only Sugar Partners providing licensing and professional services. Now, our focus is also to develop plugins to facilitate SugarCRM users.

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

We have been involved in numerous other apps and several integrations that we will publish on SugarForge soon. You may review the list from the following link: www.rolustech.com/products.html.

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

The pleasing part is that we are known by our capabilities among the Sugar Community and are able to help several users of SugarCRM directly by implementing their business processes onto SugarCRM or indirectly by helping other SugarCRM Partners.

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

We have been an advocate of open source software since always and we are very privileged and proud of Sugar’s continued commitment towards being an open application and providing an open platform to develop on.

What do you want to build next for Sugar?

We want to develop a Real Estate plugin and portal for SugarCRM as we have received this request from several clients in the Real Estate industry.