6 Popular CRM Platforms & How to Integrate Them with Your Drupal Site

What is a CRM platform?

Simply put, a customer relationship management (CRM) platform organizes leads and customers. CRM platforms often operate in a separate system from your website. However, there are ways to combine the two so that lead information from your website goes straight to your CRM. For example, a visitor fills out a contact form on your website, and that information gets stored in your CRM platform so that you can refer to it later and take action. Most CRM platforms take the sales process a step further by incorporating scheduled tasks, labels, scoring rules, and pipelines.

Drupal offers various modules for CRM integration. This way, you can automate the sales process by funneling visitors who interact with your website straight into your CRM, as opposed to entering them manually.

6 Popular CRM Platforms & How to Integrate Them

1. Zoho

Zoho offers over 40 integrations for online and mobile applications to automate your sales. The Zoho CRM comes as a stand-alone application starting at $12 per user per month. However, you can upgrade to the enterprise package for only $23 per user per month. The enterprise package includes web forms, scoring rules, email integration, Google AdWords integration, custom modules, and a lot more.

How to Integrate

Using the Zoho CRM suite of modules, you can successfully integrate this CRM with your Drupal site.

1. Install ZohoCRM and rules modules
2. Download ZohoCRM library from GitHub and copy it to sites/all/libraries. When you update ZohoCRM module to the new dev release, make sure to also download the latest version of the library from GitHub
3. Configure Zoho CRM API auth token at admin/settings/zohocrm/settings
4. Add field mapping at admin/settings/zohocrm/mapping/add
5. Configure fields for field mapping at admin/settings/zohocrm/mapping//fields
6. Configure rules module to trigger sending of Drupal data to Zoho every time user object (or node) is saved

2. SugarCRM

SugarCRM promotes a user-friendly interface and flexible integration. Sugar offers CRM services for sales, marketing, and IT. The enterprise package starts at $65 per user per month. That includes sales automation and forecasting, product level quotes, advanced workflow, and 60GB of storage. Integrate this CRM with your Drupal site using the Webform SugarCRM Integration.

How to Integrate

For Drupal 7:

• SugarCRM configuration: /admin/config/services/sugarcrm
• Webform components mapping: /node/{nid}/webform/sugarcrm-mapping

For Drupal 8:

• SugarCRM configuration: /admin/config/services/sugarcrm
• Webform components mapping: admin/structure/webform/manage/{webform}/sugarcrm-mapping

3. Civicrm

This open source CRM features full integration with Drupal and WordPress. Because the CRM is an open source software, it is fully customizable and can be tailored to your needs. CiviCRM features include contact management, email marketing, event tools, accounting integration, and more. This CRM is popular among non-profits and organizations due to its open source community.

How to Integrate

Integrate CiviCRM with your Drupal website using CiviCRM Drupal 8 module. The steps are detailed in GitHub:

• Download the latest Drupal 8 release
• Install Drupal 8
• Create a top-level libraries folder inside Drupal and download CiviCRM master for Drupal 7 so that CiviCRM resides at /libraries/civicrm. CiviCRM can also be installed in /modules/civicrm – see CRM-18222.
• If it exists, remove the Drupal 7 module folder from within CiviCRM (libraries/civicrm/drupal)
• Clone the Drupal 8 module into the top level modules directory: git clone -b 8.x-master https://github.com/civicrm/civicrm-drupal.git civicrm
• Edit civicrm-version.php and change the ‘cms’ value from ‘Drupal’ to ‘Drupal8’. If you’ve already installed CiviCRM and receive an undefined arg(0) error, change the CIVICRM_UF value in your civicrm.settings.php file.
• If you want the installer to load dummy contacts and data, add the following configuration parameter to sites/default/settings.php: $settings[‘civicrm_laod_generate’] = TRUE; 
• Finally, in your browser go to /admin/modules and install CiviCRM Core. Resolve any issues that may prevent a successful installation.

4. RedHen

RedHen is another open source CRM that offers contact management, CMS tools, customization, and the ability to track customer engagement. In addition, RedHen serves as an integration point for Salesforce.

How to Integrate

In order to integrate RedHen and your Drupal site, you’ll need:

• The Entity API module
• Message is required to use redhen_activity
• Relation, including relation_ui and relation_endpoint, is required to use redhen_relation
• Registration, is required to use redhen_registration

Check out Drupal.org for related modules and technical information.

5. Salesforce

Salesforce is one of the most popular CRM platforms. However, it is a pricier option. For the enterprise package, starting at $150 per user per month, you get all the basics of a CRM plus cross-devise usability, the ability to quote and bill clients, as well as see real-time sales insights.

How to Integrate

Install the Salesforce Suite of modules in order to synchronize leads and data. The suite makes use of these important modules:

• Salesforce (salesforce)
• Salesforce Mapping (salesforce_mapping): This is used to map Drupal entities to Salesforce fields, including field level mapping.
• Salesforce Push (salesforce_push): This module allows you to push Drupal entity updates into Salesforce.
• Salesforce Pull (salesforce_pull): Pull Salesforce object updates into Drupal on cron run.
• Salesforce Encrypt (salesforce_encrypt): This module uses the Encryption module to obfuscate access token, refresh token, and salesforce identify.
• Salesforce Example (salesforce_example): Documentation for Salesforce Suite API implementations.

6. Active Campaign

Active Campaign is another CRM front-runner; in fact, we’ve used Active Campaign for quite some time. It allows you to create scoring rules, customize pipelines, schedule tasks, and record all emails in one platform. This integration is only updated for Drupal 7 sites.

How to Integrate

Install the Active Campaign Drupal module. This module includes features such as:

• Add/link a Drupal user to a contact in the ActiveCampaign database.
• Page to view linked ActiveCampaign contact including their lists, tags, and recent activity.
• Allow for tracking embed code with visibility settings.
• Webhook that allows updating Drupal users from changes made in ActiveCampaign.

CRM integration allows you to streamline your workflow and saves you time. Instead of manually updating contacts in a separate system, you can bring your CRM and your Drupal website together so that data seamlessly funnels into your pipelines. Is there a CRM missing from the list that you’d like to know how to integrate with your Drupal site? Let us know in the comments below.

Sevaa Group has experienced, Acquia-certified developers who work with Drupal every day, and we’re happy to initiate integration for your website if you need assistance.