This article is for companies that may have a CRM in place but are still struggling to generate professional quotes efficiently, and are therefore resorting to using spreadsheets or word documents. This situation is unfortunately quite common as CRM systems just don't offer the enriched and easy to use CPQ functionality in a purpose-built quotation and proposal management tool like Quotewerks.

The good news is that Quotewerks offers integration with many of the top CRMs, including Salesforce.com, Hubspot CRM, Zoho CRM, SugarCRM, SalesLogix and MS CRM. If you don't have a CRM, Quotewerks can integrate with your Google Contacts, or your Outlook Address Book and also offers its very own Contact database. It even integrates with on-premise CRMs like ACT!, Goldmine and Maximizer!

To close the loop, Quotewerks integrates with popular Accounting systems like QuickBooks and Peachtree, so quotes can be converted to Orders and Invoices without duplicate entries.

In this case study, we will share some screenshots and explain the integration between Quotewerks and Zoho CRM.

In the main Quotewerks menu, under Contacts->Set Up Contact Manager, you will find all the possible integrations:

Click on Zoho SetUp and note that Quotewerks will not ask you for your CRM credentials! It will simply request you to log in to your Zoho CRM account directly, at which point Zoho will provide an access token that is used to integrate with Quotewerks.

The Deals Tab in the above screenshot has some important settings which you may wish to configure specifically for your operations. This covers what should happen when Deals are completed to 'Won', whether you'd like the Deals' figures to use the Profit Amount or the Sale Amount and the mapping of items and bundles as shown below:

Once your integration is set up, you can search your Zoho CRM database to pull in Contact information for the Sold To, Ship To, and Bill To (all of which can be different) sections of your quote.

Now that your Contact Database is connected, you can set up your Product Database. This can be the native Quotewerks database, or you can link to multiple external data sources from spreadsheets to MS SQL, MS Access, your ERP, and more recently the Products module in your Zoho CRM.

So far, you've saved duplicating your Contact and Product databases - but what about your ERP? Surely, you don't want the process to have gaps between your Deals and Invoicing! Well, the integration continues to flow so Quotes that are closed successfully not only update the Deal as Won in your CRM, but can also be converted to Orders and/or Invoices in your Peachtree (Sage 50), Quickbooks, Xero and other popular Accounting systems. This can be done for individual orders/invoices or by checking multiple boxes to select multiple documents.

This case study covers only the integration elements so please get in touch if you'd like a demo which would include the full functionality of Quotewerks. A couple of worthwhile points to end with!

If you need item pictures, literature, videos, specification sheets, terms and conditions, company profile to be part of your quote, these can all be catered for, but you generally end up with a very large file which can be a pain to email! Introducing QuoteValet, the hosting add-on to Quotewerks, that enables you to create an online, interactive version of your quote, so all you send is a hyperlink to your branded landing page! What's more you can get notified every time the customer opens the quote, clicks on a link, changes an option, asks a question or digitally signs a PO! Pretty neat!

Another point worth mentioning is that Quotewerks can be installed on-premise and has concurrent licensing so you only need to buy for users that actually need to prepare quotes. And users that have access to the CRM can see the attached quotes anyway (based on security profiles), without needing access to Quotewerks!

Goldmine is a popular, feature-rich, on-premise (or hosted on a Cloud) CRM that offers one of the best ROIs for Contact, Sales, Marketing and Service Management. However, there are times when a business wants to leverage several cloud-based applications all of which require to integrate with a CRM, and a single sign-on from a single vendor becomes a rhetorical question, both from an efficiency and budgetary perspective.

We cover one such case study where an existing, long-standing and satisfied Goldmine customer, reached a point where the decision was made to migrate to Zoho One.

The justification was straightforward – Zoho One replaced several independent applications and offered seamless integration at an unbeatable price point at just £1 per user per day.

The current disparate applications being used…

…there are several other applications from various third-parties, but I will stop here as the main purpose of this article is to cover the migration from Goldmine to Zoho, the justification being that Zoho One provided a replacement for all of the above business objectives, quickly summarised as follows:

Although products like Quotewerks and Constant Contact also integrate with Zoho CRM, in this case, the customer decided to replace them in a phased manner.

As a first step, we needed to segment the data in Goldmine so it could be mapped correctly to Zoho, but before we cover that, it is important to understand the database underlying every Goldmine installation.

Goldmine stores all of its data in MS SQL, across various Tables which have been listed below, all of which are connected by the AccountNo, ReciID and LinkedID:

With Primary contacts having multiple email addresses and then Additional Contacts each having an email address as well, it becomes imperative to find the right links within the database.

Also, whilst there is a Notes table containing generic information, completed activities like Calls and Appointments have their own Notes, which are equally important, and perhaps more pertinent.

Add to this the complexity that certain Notes in the Goldmine database are encrypted, and you have the makings of some fun SQL queries.

Then there is the likelihood that Goldmine Users may no longer be employed by your company, and therefore do not exist as Users in your Zoho subscription. What is the big deal you might well ask? Well, your History in Goldmine will be logged against such Users so it is important to manage this as best as possible and typically, we create a separate custom field to indicate the User, and assign ownership a pre-defined Administrator. Of course, where Users are current in both Goldmine and Zoho, all pending and historical activities are mapped directly.

Bear in mind that in Goldmine there are many types of Activities, so it is important to decide which ones have been used in your system, and where you will map them in Zoho, where there are only three types of Activities out of the box. The table below gives you an idea on what we did:

I have deliberately left out Goldmine Email Messages (Received and Sent) from the above list, as these deserve a separate mention (or perhaps a separate chapter!) given the complexity and diversity of usage. Suffice to say, for the purposes of this article, that we can bring in email messages, whether it is from your Exchange Server or from Goldmine SQL tables.

It is important to note that if you have been using the Goldmine link to Outlook, then this functionality is also offered with the Outlook plug-in to Zoho CRM (not in the Free or Standard Edition mind you! Professional Edition required as a minimum). There are some differences of course, most notably that the Goldmine link allows Outlook to select a Goldmine template to send…a feature request that I have raised with Zoho, so watch this space.

Also worth knowing that if you currently use Constant Contact for mass email marketing, integrated with Goldmine, then you can continue using Constant Contact, integrated with Zoho CRM. You should be aware that Zoho has its own Email Marketing App called Zoho Campaigns, which can be subscribed to separately, or bundled with Zoho One.

We can help you choose between Constant Contact or Zoho Campaigns, but in either case, we would recommend integration with Zoho CRM, so all the contact data and analytics (Sent, Opens, Bounces, Clicks etc.) can flow seamlessly.

Once the data in Goldmine has been identified, the next step is to decide where to import it into Zoho – please note that Goldmine has a flat table structure with all Contacts existing as one entity, whereas in Zoho, there are at least three entities that come into play and I give below a table to illustrate:

Of course, there may be many other segmentation values in your database, perhaps across several  fields, each of will need to be mapped based on an agreed logic.

Zoho Import or Zoho Analytics?

When it comes to importing data into Zoho CRM, why would we need Zoho Analytics, when we have import functions across Zoho CRM modules.

The short answer is simply this; if you have simple spreadsheets or CSV files that can easily be mapped to Zoho CRM modules/fields, then the Import functions are very effective. However, if you need to query, blend, merge, and report on data (especially from multiple sources), then Zoho Analytics is essential.

From our experience, with most migration projects you will need both, Zoho Analytics and the Zoho CRM Import functionality…also, I would recommend your Zoho Administrator understand the de-duplication tools and the built-in templates to assist data migration from popular CRMs.

Just to set expectations, no migration is perfect, so prepare to be realistic, especially where ROI cannot be justified.

Finally, I share some links to get you up and running with trial versions, and a free consultation with me:

Or, simply get in touch via email on ravi@mercerlal.com or WhatsApp on +44 7747599294

Mercer Lal is proud to have partnered with Zoho Corporation, implementing the entire range of 45+ applications in the Zoho One ecosystem.

One of these applications is Zoho CRM, which lies at the heart of the ecosystem and integrates with other applications like Books, Desk, Meetings, Marketing Hub etc.

At MESA, we are implementing Zoho One, starting with the CRM which involves migrating of data from their previous system. This includes data preparation, segmentation, global updates and customisation in Zoho for accurate field mapping. Quite unique to this migration is the importing of historical data which would normally have been beyond budget!

Once Zoho CRM has been implemented, we will be integrating a quotation management tool (Quotewerks) to manage the configure, price, quote (CPQ) process, which will automatically create a Deal, based on the actual quote sent.

Email marketing will also be integrated through an existing platform (Constant Contact) to bring in all the analytics on Open Rates, Bounce Backs, Click Throughs, Opt-Outs etc.

This will be followed by migration of their current accounting system to Zoho Books.

Further phases include Zoho Marketing Hub integration with their website for managing customer journeys, SEO and lead management, as well as many other Zoho Apps.

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