Deki for CRM from MindTouch and SnapLogic
by Bill Ives
I have written about MindTouch before, see Deki Wiki Tees Itself Up as Your Intranet. They provide an wiki-based enterprise collaboration platform. MindTouch recently announced, Deki for CRM, allowing greater functionality from existing CRM systems such as SugarCRM and Salesforce.com through augmented intelligence and team collaboration.
Deki for CRM is built on MindTouch Deki Enterprise Server and the SnapLogic open source data integration framework and SnapLogic Solution Packs for SugarCRM and Salesforce.com. It provides sales and marketing professionals a dashboard of reports within their CRM application by pulling relevant data from a variety of backend applications and online Web services. Using Deki for CRM, these professionals can create and collaborate on reports and mashups, accessing customer information in Salesforce.com and SugarCRM without the need for advanced SOAP Web services programming. Here is an example of bringing in online intelligence.
I always thought that CRM was a bit of an empty application (apologies to the vendors). You spend a lot of time to input stuff but where is the added value beyond record keeping. Enterprise 2.0 style add-ons like Deki for CRM can bring a lot of value both in terms of proving relevant information through mashups and adding collaboration features. Here is an example of collaboration.
This is another nice example of the benefit of mashups, as well as collaboration. CRM users often require data from other applications and data sources in order to properly handle leads, manage large accounts, and coordinate a strategy to win new business. Moreover, the sale process relies upon collaboration, especially within sales teams and across organizations. Deki for CRM creates an enterprise 2.0 workflow as employees can share expertise and draw on multiple data sources mashed up in a centralized space.
