Overview & Features

Welcome to Social Sales Management

Unlike many existing CRM applications that have become unnecessarily complex and bloated while attempting to be everything to everyone, X2Engine has been designed as a very usable, social, yet flexible and extensible, application enabling users to focus on relationships with people rather than their relationship with an overgrown CRM application.

While it’s often touted in competitor marketing materials, usability is frequently overlooked by CRM vendors because slick demos and feature-packed products help close software licensing deals while usability issues may not be evident until much later. At X2Engine we spend as much time considering what remains out or is removed from our solution to keep it “fast, clean & easy”, as what goes into it. Significant effort was devoted to the X2Engine CRM user interface to enable a wide range of users to be immediately productive. Instead of awkwardly adding bolt-on “social” features like many CRM applications have been forced to do, X2Engine CRM was designed from the ground up to leverage both interactive capabilities and the flexible, modular look-and-feel associated with popular social media sites.

Social media has and continues to alter the ways in which we interact with other people as well as with information, and this trend will only increase as the next generation enters the workplace. X2Engine CRM was built to leverage this trend. For example, every record (i.e., Contacts, Accounts, etc.) includes a blog-like History feed which allows users to quickly review any info or activity just as they would peruse a social media feed. Each record also includes modular, customizable widgets such as Chat, Twitter Feeds, Note Pad, maps, etc. which allow users to interact, collaborate and retrieve additional info while still viewing an individual record.

Different groups of users within the same organization can have different requirements and, of course, requirements can change over time, so flexibility and extensibility are critical aspects of any CRM solution. For example, X2Engine CRM provides a flexible text box which allows users to include any type of notes, unstructured data, etc. Users can also create and include any type of X2Tags, which are similar to Twitter’s Hash Tags, in the text box and then easily locate tagged records via X2CRM search. This permits organizations and individuals to easily customize records to meet their needs without having to add new fields to the database itself. Also, X2Engine CRM includes X2Studio which enables developers and administrators to extend the X2Engine CRM through menu-based options, as well as the powerful, yet relatively intuitive, Yii Code Generation Module.

***(Click on the blue words for more info)

Contacts 

Recognizing the importance of relationships with prospects, customers, partners, and other constituents, X2CRM is centered around Contacts.

• Contacts can be captured directly from the web, imported from different applications or file types, or manually entered
• Streamlined Contacts entry form significantly reduces manual data capture time and effort
• Range of Contact data can also be captured whenever relevant, including lead source, rating, background info, etc. Including a phone number or email allows users to directly connect with the Contact through a simple mouse click.
• Users can also include a Contact’s info for social media sites including Skype, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+ . When the appropriate social media address info is included, a Contact’s Twitter Feed will automatically appear in a Twitter widget whenever the record is viewed, and the Contact can be reached directly via Skype (clicking on Phone also launches Skpe using the Contact’s phone number instead of the Skype Name).
• Users can also attach any type of file to the record, and can easily “Share Contact” which sends an email with the record info along with a personal note to an input email address (e.g., “please follow up with the following lead”).
• Contacts can also be assigned to specific users along with a priority and a flag indicating whether Contact is visible to other users or not.
• Contact fields can easily be customized as needed to meet organization, company, or industry-specific requirements

Actions

• Users can quickly schedule Actions, which are tasks to be completed in the future
• Actions can be assigned to specific individuals, along with priority, visibility and reminder indicators
• Actions can be independent tasks, or explicitly associated with Contacts, Sales or Accounts
• Users can conveniently view their Actions, today’s actions or everyone’s actions, and can, of course, flexibly search and sort for quick retrieval and optimal viewing

Sales

• Sales opportunities are simple to create, assign to colleagues, and associate with Contacts and/or an Account
• Like all X2CRM records, Sales records have been streamlined to minimize required fields and, as a result, the time and effort required to get critical sales info into the system, while still giving users the option to include, as needed, pertinent Sales-related info such as Quote, Stage, Source, Probability, Description, etc. Custom fields can also be added when appropriate.

Accounts

• Accounts are companies or organizations and these records are easily created with a bare minimum of required fields, but with the option of including additional info and assigning the Account to a colleague.
• Contacts can be associated with Accounts giving users a complete view of an organization or company, allowing them to manage/target organizations in a consistent, coordinated manner.

Products and Quotes

• Authorized managers create product and pricing combinations which can form the basis of all sales quotations.
• Designed for services as well as products. Users can include free text, attach documents, and review product/service histories in order to better facilitate sales and customer support.
• Sales representatives generate quotes from the product/service list and can apply apply discounts per line item. Sales quotes can be quickly created, versioned, locked and emailed or printed for the Contact.

Shared Documents

• Users can quickly and easily create, share, and collaborate on a variety of different document types within X2CRM
• Document editing access is set by simply selecting which colleagues are permitted to edit any given document
• A WYSIWYG editor enables even users with limited computer experience to create rich documents

Communication and Collaboration

• Chat capabilities allow employees to effectively and efficiently communicate and collaborate within X2Contacts itself, so all users don’t need to standardize on a particular chat platform or launch a dedicated chat application
• Chat is designed for daily, impromptu communication and feeds are cleared every 24 hours to enhance readability (use Social for longer-lasting discussions). In addition to the Chat page, users can quickly chat and review their feed from within the Chat widget located throughout the application
• Clickable hyperlinks within Chat and Social allow users to include and link directly to sites and info across the Web
• Social is an organization-wide discussion forum where users can efficiently communicate with one another or everyone in the organization. The Social feed persists until it’s explicitly deleted
• In addition to the Social page, users can communicate with each other from a colleague’s Profile page where posts can be public or private and a wide variety of file types can be uploaded and attached to posts

Workflow

• To ensure that every step of the sales process (or any other customer-related process) is properly completed in sequence, X2CRM allows administrators to create intuitive multi-staged workflows and assign user roles as needed.
• Workflows help users manage different sales processes, and gives managers insight into individual and collective sales progress.

Operational Visibility

• Graphic dashboards for Marketing, Pipeline and Sales data enable uses to spot actionable trends and opportunities.
• Users can see a variety of different operational snapshots by easily changing parameters such as time period, deal status, assigned representative, etc., and can add custom fields through X2Studio as needed.

Calendars

• An intuitive and flexible daily/weekly/monthly calendar allows users to schedule individual and group actions and events within X2CRM, selecting a range of options including priority, visibility and reminders.
• Easy synchronization with Google Calendar.
• Authorized managers can see individual and group calendars.

Mobility

• X2CRM automatically includes a specially designed mobile application for smartphones called X2Touch, a lightweight, yet powerful, interface which gives users quick access to basic X2CRM functionality through increasingly ubiquitous smartphones.
• X2Touch allows users to create and access Contacts records and chat with other users
• X2Touch includes support for iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, and BlackBerry OS

Profile and Settings

• Every X2CRM user can create and manage their own Profile, which includes their contact info.
• Users can also communicate with each other through the Social functionality found on each Profile page, designating posts as public or private and attaching a wide range of uploaded files to posts. Previous posts can be easily reviewed in the blog-like feed found on the Profile page itself.
• Users can customize their personal preferences and look-and-feel within Settings. Here they can make a variety of  changes including language, time zone, background color, menu color, etc. A collection of attractive background images are available out-of-box or users can upload their own background images. Once a background image has been selected, users can make the X2Contacts application transparent by simply clicking on the background image and then have it reappear instantaneously by clicking on X2CRM.

Administration

X2Studio

Internationalization

Example: Spanish

X2CRM automatically supports the following languages:

• American English
• French
• German
• Italian
• Japanese
• Chinese
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Spanish

Sample templates are included so support for other languages can be added

User Guides (Screen Shot Tour)

A variety of online user guides and manuals are either currently available or under development

Platform Support

X2CRM currently supports the following platforms and technologies, and will add support, as demand warrants, for additional platforms.

• Databases: MySQL
• Operating Systems: Linux, Mac OS X, Windows 8, Solaris
• Web Servers: Apache
• Scripting Languages: PHP 5.1 and above