CRM-CTT is a web-based (business-) process automation application

CRM-CTT is designed to track and process “entities”. One can attach files to such an “entity”, own it, assign it, put alerts on it, prioritize it, publish it, invoice it, etcetera. The point is that the system doesn’t decide what an entity is, you do!

The tool is multi-lingual (currently available lots of languages) and is fully customizable. Besides that your webmaster will need about half an hour to get it up and running, after which it takes about another 30 minutes to import your data - and off you go.

The advantage of CRM-CTT over similar software is the way it can be configured. Wether you want to register customer requests, computer assets, help desk tickets, or just your own to-do list (or all together in one database), it can be simply modified to act the way you like it to act. Virtually everything can be adjusted to your needs.
Some examples of what you can do with crm-ctt
For example, you could use CRM-CTT to process purchase orders, including the approval process. But, you could also use it to administer your website. Maybe you need a system to deliver a front-end for financial transaction logs, or for your backup status. Or maybe you just need an allround tool to process your helpdesk tickets or your projects. Whatever it is, it can be handled by CRM-CTT.
crm-ctt’s praised user interface
Unlike most common web-based applications, CRM-CTT has a clean, tight and intuitive user interface. It’s not loaded with links and images; it just focusses on the things the current user needs to focus on. For a new user with no experience with web-based applications, it’s a matter of minutes to get used to the interface. Besides that, a user profile can be adjusted to bother the user only with the things he/she needs to be bothered with. No endless lists or options; just the things the user needs.

Do you hate the Oracle Applications or Microsoft Sharepoint interface? We do, too.
configurable to your needs

You can add extra fields (textboxes, drop-down menus, etcetera). You can also create fields with formulas to calculate values based on other field values. You can create custom reports, and all text in the application can be modified. Futhermore all the priority- and status variables can also be adjusted to your needs, including the colors. CRM-CTT supports so-called language masks; easy-to-make lists enabling you to change any text in the application and the reports. For instance; the language mask “CHANGE REQUEST DB” turns CRM-CTT from handling customer requests (the default) to a Change Management application. Many of these masks can be auto-installed using the administration interface.

crm-ctt philosophy
CRM-CTT uses a strict way to process its data. This method is used throughout the application. Because of the strict way this method is used, you, as a user, will get used to the CRM-CTT way of thinking enabling you to configure CRM-CTT fast and easy.

For data modification you must create triggers, for output you must define templates. Security is important so you will be forced to think about it; no user will see or alter anything unless you gave him/her permission to do so.

However beautiful and serious this philosophy, of course you can override everything if you just need a simple installation. That’s how we are
crm-ctt integration in your organisation

Because of CRM-CTT’s simple setup, it’s easy for new users to get used to the user interface. It’s clean and clear, so you’re up and running with your department within a day. Next to that, customers could from now on start register their own request using the limited interface CRM-CTT provides. It’s even possible to hook up your e-mail system with CRM-CTT in a way that customers can e-mail their requests - they will appear on the “incoming request” list automatically. If desired, customers can track their request on-line until closure. Triggers enable you to implement your current work flow processes into CRM-CTT.
workflow

Using CRM-CTT’s “Event Triggers” you can create workflows. Using event triggers you can make CRM-CTT action on certain events like the value change of a field. As an example; when the status of a record changes from “Open” to “Closed”, inform the customer that his ticket has been closed, using a given e-mail template. They can also be used for common things like approval processes; when an entity reaches a certain status, the appropriate person is notified that he/she has to approve something
templating

Virtually everything you see or create with CRM-CTT can be templated - and it’s not the layout of the application itself. E-mails which are sent are based on a template; in this template you can use all data stored in your database in an easy way - you don’t need to be a programmer to understand how to create such a template.
Using templates, you can make sure all things associated with CRM-CTT look according to your companies standards.

reporting

CRM-CTT supports exporting and importing of all its data. It even has a “I don’t want to use this anymore”-option which dumps all contents to a directory structure on disk enabling you to keep working with your CRM-CTT data. It’s also able to create command-line PDF-summary reports for batch usage. The management summary gives you a perfect view on everybodies whereabouts, the most active customers, most slow requests, etcetera.
invoice and mail-merge

CRM-CTT is able to generate invoices based on the data you register in the database and will create mailmerges based on the customers and tasks registered by you and your employees. These documents are based on templates which can be created using your favourite text editor (MS Word, OpenOffice) and thus be fully compliant with your companies style, including logo’s, disclaimers etcetera.
cms - content management system

Starting from 4.0 CRM-CTT can also be used as a CMS system. You could even use it as your primary CMS for large websites. Using all features like user authorization levels and workflow you can publish information about projects, tasks or whatever it is you keep in CRM-CTT to the outside world which could be the internet our your corporate intranet. In fact, this very page is not served as a normal page, it’s generated by CRM-CTT. As you may expect CRM-CTT as CMS is designed for heavy use; it pre-caches all pages for fast serving.
maturity

CRM-CTT is designed to be used in serious enterprises. As such, it supports database clustering, Active Directory/LDAP user management, database maintenance and much more stuff you may expect of an application which is mission-critical for your business. Next to that, CRM-CTT has been around since 2001 and it has proven it’s robustness.

CRM-CTT Supports on-line patching which is useful to quick-fix a bug. This can come in handy because like all other software CRM-CTT also contains bugs. Using easy-to-write modules you can also communicate with other applications in your company landscape. Hook up your e-mail or ERP system in a pinch!

Due to some on going legal hassles from AOL, Gaim, which was a derived from AOL’s “AOL Instant Messenger”, has been renamed to Pidgin. Shouldn’t be any legal hassles there, unless of course, some Lionel Hutz like trial-lawyer tries to figure out how to get money from the project maintainers.

My initial impressions are pretty good. The interface is smoother, the GTK theme looks clean, and tight, and all of the good plugins, like Gaim-Encryption and Guificaitons have been updated to reflect the new project. Also, Google has already updated it’s IM client “Talk” website to reflect the new Pidgin Jabber interface. Here are the instructions. The one really big disappointment is that video and voice support seem to be no where in sight. No word when these features may be added, if ever. Seems like it might be a monumental task to add, especially considering Pidgin’s cross platform support. Wish these additions would make it into the Google Summer of Code sponsorship list. Apple’s iChat is phenomenally easy to use, and well integrated with video and voice capability, however, in typical fashion, iChat is OS X only. Video and Voice support are the only major features that Gaim lacks, and have those would close the gap with the other proprietary clients out there.

I received two calls last week from different family members claiming that their computers suddenly stopped working. About two years, ago, I helped each family buy a used, off-lease, Dell D400 laptop for general home use. The computers have identical configurations, running Windows XP as the base, and of course, a full stack of open source software such as Open Office, ClamWinAV, Firefox, TightVNC, Thunderbird, Gaim (Pidgin), etc. One family member dropped off the computer to my home for me to look at it, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong; whether or not it was software of hardware related. Some research found an interesting article over at the UK’s The Register.com about how a certain Microsoft Update is eating people’s CPU cycles. Although no one knows for sure what the problem is, one thing is for sure, it seems to be wide spread as a few Prometheon clients now have the issue too. I’ve tried the various fixes with no luck, however, the only way that I’ve found to reclaim your system’s CPU, is to turn off Microsoft Update entirely. Assuming that Microsoft doesn’t acknowledge the problem or plans issue a fix, will of course leave your Windows system vulnerable over time. If Automatic Update is turned off, naturally, you will no longer receive updates to either Windows or Office. This, however, is the only remedy right now until Microsoft offers a remedy or software fix.

This incident goes to the heart of the argument on why the open source software development process is more often better than a closed source code, proprietary approach. Mistakes and errors like this on a major and vital component like the operating system can be avoided simply by having a widespread, peer reviewed operating system development method like BSD or Linux. The only reason my family members run Windows XP instead of say, a Linux distribution like Fedora or Ubuntu, is because at the time they bought the latops, there was a the lack of wireless driver support on Linux. Now that the major Linux distributions have better wireless card support, I’m going to seriously consider moving them to Linux entirely, instead of just “open source apps on top of Windows”. I wasted a few hours trying to trouble shoot these machines and never did figure out the exact problem, and I still don’t have a fix for them so that they can continue receiving critical updates to the frequently vulnerable Windows XP. The computer industry needs a better solution to complex, closed source operating systems like Windows, and I believe a collaborative rather than competitive approach would benefit us all.

Read more about the Microsoft Update problem at the following websites:

http://www.theregister.com/2007/05/11/ms_update_glitch/
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=927891
http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=2792