Technical Specifications of Vtiger Relations Module

Technical Specifications of the „Vtiger Relations“ Module page 1/6

© by Florian Dieckmann [email protected] 2011-05-22

Technical specifications of a vtiger module called

“vtiger relations” to document and analyze

relationships among various stakeholders

Table of Contents 1. General Description ............................................................................................................................. 1

2. Data Items ........................................................................................................................................... 2

3. Usage ................................................................................................................................................... 2

3.1 Input ............................................................................................................................................. 2

3.2 Output ........................................................................................................................................... 4

3.3 Export ............................................................................................................................................ 5

4. Implementation and known issues ..................................................................................................... 5

5. Licensing .............................................................................................................................................. 6

6. Procedure and Payment Conditions .................................................................................................... 6

1. General Description

This document outlines the technical specifications of a new module in vtiger called “Vtiger

Relations”. It serves as a request for proposals (RFP).

Vtiger provides us with a structure to manage data related to entities called accounts and

contacts. The new module makes it possible to manage data related to a directed

„relationship“ between two stakeholders including relations between two contacts, two

accounts, as well as between a single arbitrary contact and a single arbitrary account, or, vice

versa, between a single arbitrary account and a single arbitrary contact selected by the user.

Thereby, every „relationship“ is handled as an entity of its own. It is not just an annex of one

of the other entities.

The basic structure and functionality of the new module resembles other modules. The

module shall be an optional extension of vtiger and shall be available at the „Marketing“-tab.

It shall be a 100% compatible to the module manager of vtiger using vtlib. Its usage shall be

restricted by the rules defined throughout roles and profiles. Its picklists shall be

administrated via the picklist-editor of vtiger. Furthermore, the administrator shall be able to

add custom fields at the module manager interface .

The module is designated to (1) document, show and edit relationships among accounts,

contacts as well as accounts and contacts and, vice-versa, contacts and accounts. As usual, the

view of every single „relationship“ shows the two classical tabs: „Relationship Information“

and „More Information“. It shall be possible to analyze relationships by (2) list, order, filter

and search relationships and by (3) the usage of social network analysis software using



collected data through an export of collected and selected data to comma separated value

(csv) files.

2. Data Items

A „relationship“ represents a data entity with an own primary key. The number of those

„relationships“ is potentially unlimited due to the unlimited number of various „types of

relationships“ which might be defined. Their number can be calculated as follows:

„number of relationsships“ = („number of stakeholders“)2 * „number of types of relationships“

A „relationship“ consists at minimum of the following data items:

1. ID of the „relationship“ (Primary Key like e.g. “REL1”, “REL2,…, “RELn”)

2. Actor A (uitype 10 to Accounts or Contacts)

3. Actor B (uitype 10 to Accounts or Contacts)

4. type of relationship (string from picklist)

5. relationship start date (manually entry, converted into timestamp)

6. relationship end date (manually entry, converted into timestamp)

7. creation time of entry (automatic timestamp)

8. time of last editing (automatic timestamp)

9. owner (vtiger user in charge)

10. relationship status (string from picklist)

11. transacted good (string, direct input)

12. transacted value (string, direct input)

13. general description (input of some plain text)

The administrator shall be free to add additional custom fields.

3. Usage

3.1 Input

The usage of the new module shall be similar to other modules like e.g. Accounts or Contacts.

As known from other modules like e.g. leads, accounts, contacts, potentials etc., any

„Relationship Information“ can be associated with „More Information“ like e.g. „Activities“,

„Activity History“ or „Documents“.

The user is free to add a new relationship or to edit or to delete an existing one. First he has to

capture

1. the first stakeholder or “source” of the relationship from the account or the contact

module by a dialogue menu.

2. the second stakeholder or “destination” of the relationship from the account or the

contact module by calling the dialogue menu a second time.

Furthermore, the user has to enter manually



3. the type of relationship chosen from a drop-down menu (defined by the picklist editor)

4. the status of the relationship chosen from a drop-down menu (defined by the picklist

editor)

5. relationship start date (optionally)

6. relationship end date (optionally)

7. transacted good (optionally)

8. transacted value (optionally)

9. general description (optionally)

10. data in custom fields (optionally)

Data related to versioning and ownership such as

11. creation time of the relationship entry

12. last editing time of the relationship entry

13. user assigned to the relationship

has to be entered automatically, whereby the user assigned to the entry can be changed

manually.



3.2 Output

Figure 1: Relationship Information Panel (Dummy)

Figure 2: Relationship list view (Dummy)

The list of relationships shall be sortable by filters too.



For example, it will be possible to look for all „relations“ related to a certain stakeholder

(source or destination) on which the user is focusing.

One of the most interesting feature ideas is to list outgoing and ingoing relationships at the

+info tab of the account or contact entity.

3.3 Export

The ability to export entries as a list of comma separated values is crucial to make use of data by e.g.

social network analysis software.

The export as comma separated values (csv) has to include all data items according to section 2,

including not only ID of source and ID of destination (like e.g. “ACC1, ACC2,…, ACCn” or “CON1,

CON2,…,CONn”), but also name of those (name of account/ name of contact like e.g. Mr. John Doe)

• ID of relation (like e.g. “REL1, REL2,…,RELn”)

• ID of source (like e.g. “CONn” or “ACCn”)

• Name of source (like e.g. “John Doe” or “ACME Co., Ltd.”

• ID of destination (like e.g. “CONn” or “ACCn”)

• Name of source (like e.g. “John Doe” or “ACME Co., Ltd.”

• type of relationship

• status of the relationship

• relationship start date

• relationship end date

• transacted good

• transacted value

• general description

• data in custom fields

If analysis needs data about the stakeholders, users are free to export account or contact information

by using the according export functionality implemented in the account or contact module and to

merge it based on the ID of source or ID of destination.

4. Implementation and known issues Technically, the relationship module challenges its programmer to capture the source and the

destination of a relation both from the same modules (accounts or contacts) by a capture dialogue

menue as known from other vtiger modules.

To ease the development of the module in general, the "Relation Type" will not be defined by a

separate module, because and as far as it can be defined via picklist editor at the administration

panel.



5. Licensing The new module shall be Open Source Software. Its license shall be compatible to the license model

of vtiger. I suggest to publish vtiger relations under GNU General Public License or, if preferred by the

programmer, under LGPL. The programmer is free to offer any other licensing model which open the

opportunity for the customer to get into an open discussion, advanced evaluative programming and

free usage of the software with others.

6. Procedure and Payment Conditions The first installment will be paid after the programmer has defined his offer based on the description

outlined in this document and the customer has accepted this offer.

30% will be paid in advance, 30% after a functionality proof in a sandbox hosted on the

programmer’s server visible and testable for the customer, and the last 40% after delivery of the

code via Email.

Payment will be done via Paypal or via bank transfer (IBAN/SWIFT).

Technical Specifications of Vtiger Relations Module

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