Rails based price quote system

Rails
1

Does anyone know of a Rails based Price Quote system? Something where a
company could keep track of price quotes they’ve sent out to potential
customers?

2

Mark H. wrote:

Does anyone know of a Rails based Price Quote system? Something where a
company could keep track of price quotes they’ve sent out to potential
customers?

Mark,

I have written a “mini-crm” application for our internal use that tracks
leads (to which a quote is attached) from the time the lead enters the
system all the way through order completion. With a few mods, I think
our app would be good for small companies that purchase leads and create
orders from them. Basically, a company that doesn’t need the full array
of functionality offered by products like SugarCRM, SalesForce.com,
Siebel, etc…

It is a bit specific to our industry, but I have a near-term goal to
make it more generic.

Right now, it:

  1. Imports leads from lead sources (script/runner task). It parses
    leads received from email and imports them as new leads.

  2. Manually enter new leads.

  3. When you “quote” a lead, it sends the quote using ActionMailer to
    the leads email address.

  4. Allows for search across leads/orders/etc…

  5. Rudimentary “queuing” of calls to be made. This is very basic, but
    all leads are initially assigned to the system by default. When a sales
    rep wants more leads to work it serves 10 new leads out at a time to
    them.

  6. Utilizes LoginEngine for authentication. Would like/need to
    implement Roles Based Access Control at some very near point in time.

  7. Utilizes PDFWriter to generate PDF forms necessary for the process.
    Order Forms, Vendor Assingment forms, etc… These forms can be printed
    or emailed or faxed to the lead/vendor.

  8. Activities can be created against any of the major objects
    (leads/order/etc…)

  9. Audit Trail of designated portions of the app (quotes/orders)
    utilizing acts_as_versioned plugin.

  10. Uses the vTiger look-and-feel from the “blue” theme.

Almost a year ago I was searching for an open source CRM system to use
and came across vTiger and SugarCRM. Upon attempting to modify them for
my needs I quickly realized I didn’t like what I saw under the hoods.
This is when I stumbled upon rails. It took me about a month to learn
and implement the core of our system. I have spent only brief periods
sense then modifying/enhancing the app (as I’m busy working the business
that it was created for).

I have a vision of open-sourcing our app sometime in the very near
future. But before I do that, I want to remove the industry specific
functionality. As a “one-man-tech-shop” I have limited bandwidth to
make this happen.

37Signals is also making a CRM app which I’m sure will blow away what I
have put together.

Does the functionality I described seem to fit what you are looking for?

Michael

3

Michael wrote:

Does the functionality I described seem to fit what you are looking for?

Perhaps, I haven’t gotten the full detailed spec yet from the customer.
I’d be looking for an open source one anyway and just extending it out.

4

Mark,

I have written a “mini-crm” application for our internal use that tracks
leads (to which a quote is attached) from the time the lead enters the
system all the way through order completion. With a few mods, I think
our app would be good for small companies that purchase leads and create
orders from them. Basically, a company that doesn’t need the full array
of functionality offered by products like SugarCRM, SalesForce.com,
Siebel, etc…

It is a bit specific to our industry, but I have a near-term goal to
make it more generic.

Right now, it:

  1. Imports leads from lead sources (script/runner task). It parses
    leads received from email and imports them as new leads.

  2. Manually enter new leads.

  3. When you “quote” a lead, it sends the quote using ActionMailer to
    the leads email address.

  4. Allows for search across leads/orders/etc…

  5. Rudimentary “queuing” of calls to be made. This is very basic, but
    all leads are initially assigned to the system by default. When a sales
    rep wants more leads to work it serves 10 new leads out at a time to
    them.

  6. Utilizes LoginEngine for authentication. Would like/need to
    implement Roles Based Access Control at some very near point in time.

  7. Utilizes PDFWriter to generate PDF forms necessary for the process.
    Order Forms, Vendor Assingment forms, etc… These forms can be printed
    or emailed or faxed to the lead/vendor.

  8. Activities can be created against any of the major objects
    (leads/order/etc…)

  9. Audit Trail of designated portions of the app (quotes/orders)
    utilizing acts_as_versioned plugin.

  10. Uses the vTiger look-and-feel from the “blue” theme.

Almost a year ago I was searching for an open source CRM system to use
and came across vTiger and SugarCRM. Upon attempting to modify them for
my needs I quickly realized I didn’t like what I saw under the hoods.
This is when I stumbled upon rails. It took me about a month to learn
and implement the core of our system. I have spent only brief periods
sense then modifying/enhancing the app (as I’m busy working the business
that it was created for).

I have a vision of open-sourcing our app sometime in the very near
future. But before I do that, I want to remove the industry specific
functionality. As a “one-man-tech-shop” I have limited bandwidth to
make this happen.

37Signals is also making a CRM app which I’m sure will blow away what I
have put together.

Does the functionality I described seem to fit what you are looking for?

Michael

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