Learning EspoCRM and Design

[tothewine]

Thank you! You are doing a great service to the community in indexing knowledge, especially for the newcomers.

[esforim]

I added the current Table of Contents on first post, but here is the future (proposed) table of contents)

1 Part 2 – Admin Panel & GUI (Graphical User Interface)
1.1 General Guide
1.2 FAQ_ Questions and Answer
1.3 Design & Layout & GUI_
1.4 Formula
1.5 Free Extensions
1.6 Workflow (Paid Extensions)

2 Part 2 – Server & Administration Access
2.1 API & Integration
2.2 Server CRM_ Installation Maintenance and Administration

3 Part 3 – Coding
3.1 General Code
3.2 Code: PDF
3.3 Code: Extensions
3.4 Code: Webhook

4 Part 4 – Resources
4.1 EspoCRM Team (Internal)
4.2 3rd Party Developer & Service Provider (External)
4.3 Theme(s)
4.4 Tools
4.5 API / Sync / Integration / Call, Read, Post, Get / CRUD

5 Part 5 – Troubleshoot Error
5.1 Administration Details / Server Developer
5.2 General Troubleshoot
5.3 Email
5.4 Server

[esforim]

Been slowly updating this thread; which isn't noticeable unless you use some sort of monitor software.

Anyway there is a bunch of new section in Part 2 and Part 3 of the thread (can be found on first post). If there any more section that should be added, let me know.

Some new section I include are:

Free Extensions:
Administration Details / Server Developer
Server CRM_ Installation Maintenance and Administration
Theme


Also add preliminary Table of Contents

[esforim]

For anyone that following this thread I thought I give a quick update. The Android app's "Breakfree" is being revived, there is an update plan to it be to compatible again. There is a thread here mentioning of it but it might go unseen so this post is to give it a bit more exposure.

https://forum.espocrm.com/forum/extensions/62125-metadata-auth-fails-with-basic-authentication#post62139

[esforim]

Haven't been learning lately, mostly everything is quite static and made little to no progress in term of the app.

Just discovered something today as I looked at Email Draft and wanted to share. I could not find where I post about Email Layout so I use this learning thread instead.

It look like Email Layout (Details) can be edit and change from GUI! Unfortunately these change only applies to the Draft email section!

[tothewine]

imho well written tutorials are better than video

[esforim]

Memento Database and Javascript plan end up in failure, still no true progress that will work with EspoCRM. I decided to try out the Mobile Android app and guides using RecyclerView.

Unfortunately after watching about 3 hours worth of video it seem that it still a long way to go before a prototype can be done. Hopefully some good result from the weekend.

[esforim]

Rather than learning using the provided sample, I thought about seeing how other people does it for a more open style API (without keys and such). I found this guide here that is quite detail in it step. I will slowly read over and do a practice to see if I can get the same result and hopefully from that training we can adapt it to EspoCRM

https://www.taniarascia.com/how-to-connect-to-an-api-with-javascript/

Update: I manage to reproduce the Guide but were unable to adapt it to Espo. So no luck at the moment.

Used these code as adaptation but can't even get pass the "console" F12 error, all trial and error result in Syntax error.

https://docs.espocrm.com/development/api-tutorial/

[esforim]

Script is still out of my skill level unless it something I can copy/paste and change URL only. Anyway I update the guide a little for typo and rewords to make to clearer. Please let me know if anything not clear. Maybe one day I can be bother to do Video tutorial time permit and written format just too difficult to understand.

It does have a bit of weakness though, I saw a few other plugins that provide more control and will look into it once I feel the need to "update and upgrade".

[esforim]

Hi guys,

Now that I made some success in API and have a small idea of how to use this magic (API) further, my next step is, "how to do I convert these data onto my phone". I have watch and read a few guides but it seem like it quite long and take quite a lot of coding, skill and new software installation to develop an App, write these API call, debug and test, etc, etc.

But first thing I want to the baby step. I just want to somehow grab 1 single detail (for example: their Phone number) from my EspoCRM onto my phone, the more advance stuff can be development once we have a working example.

I can already get these information through API (using Network Tools and Rest API Test Software/Apps) but the way it display thing is just difficult to read, I need to convert these JSON style data into a "Form" style layout and looks.

Looking through various Apps and thinking of various way to do this the only solution I came up with was one App (Android) call: "Memento Database". https://mementodatabase.com/

This App is quite nice, it allow but to create database on my Phone but I don't want to have two separate system (already got like 5 system at the moments that I want all to converge into EspoCRM).

Anyway I don't have much luck with it at the moment after a couple of test, so I thought I might post here hoping someone who is interested in this "side" project can figure it out with me.

From reading information, I should be able to do this through "Data Sources" function, allowing me to Get data from EspoCRM and merge/transform these field into Memento field:

https://wiki.mementodatabase.com/index.php/Data_Sources

EspoCRM also describe some method here: https://docs.espocrm.com/development/api-client-js/

---

As for why we need to do this?

Well, at the moment there is still no Apps available (there was a few brief mention of it on the forum but no working system yet), there is an iOS apps but that is closed sources and pay-to-use. Secondly if I (and we) can learn more about this can we can help build the Phone App together or contribute to it development.

Anyway hopefully this post garner some interest in our next step a Prototype "Mobile PhoneApp".

[tothewine]

Great! I usually do this manually with an external script that loads espo and then inserts the data so that I can accommodate the external system.

[esforim]

Topic: How to get Contact from Wordpress into EspoCRM.

1) Step up your EspoCRM installation first by doing this.
2) Log in admin account, go to Administion > Lead Captures (or this URL: /#LeadCapture/
3) Create Entry Point (button top right)
4) Fill in any detail you (create a Target List if you haven't, I call mine, "Wordpress Website")
5) For Payload field, I only choose Last name, Email and Description for this example.
6) Save.

On the right side you will see something like this:

URL https://demo.espocrm.com:443/api/v1/LeadCapture/9123hjasdhasd/


MethodPOST


Payload
{ lastName: LAST_NAME, emailAddress: EMAIL_ADDRESS, description: DESCRIPTION }

Log in your Wordpress website.
(This guide will not provided for how to set up Contact form but if you have trouble let me know).

Part 2.

1. Set up your wordpress website.
2. Login admin panel > Plugins > add new > Search plugins > cf7 api > install "Contact form 7 TO API + Basic Auth"
3. (Note install Contact Form 7 if you don't have it yet)
4. Activate Plugins
5. On the side bar, open your form (Contact > Contact Forms > (open a form) > Edit > API Integration
6. Click "Send to API"
7. Paste the Base URL from the code above, for example: https://demo.espocrm.com:443/api/v1/...9123hjasdhasd/
8. Input type: json
9. Method: Post
10. JSON Template would be something like this:

{
"lastName": "[your-name]",
"emailAddress": "[your-email]",
"description": "[your-message]"
}

1. Click Save.

By now it won't work yet because this document (https://docs.espocrm.com/development/api-tutorial/ ) say we need the headers "Accept: application/json" too.

For that we need to follow these step:

Go to your Host file manager (or make these edit before uploading to your Wordpress website). Assuming it is uploaded then make the edit to this file (this guide is applicable to version 1.4.6 only, I think it general work for all version).

\wp-content\plugins\cf7-to-api-basic-auth\includes\class-cf7-api-admin.php

Around lines 561 you should see this code:

if( $record_type == "json" )

{ $args['headers']['Content-Type'] = 'application/json';

Now I want to add another custom headers in here, I would change the above code to this code:

if( $record_type == "json" ) {
$args['headers']['Content-Type'] = 'application/json';
$args['headers']['Accept'] = 'application/json';

Save the file. Now try submitting your form from your Wordpress website. Data should be send to your Target List or Leads page.

Feel free to ask if there any question. I skipped a few details as it too basic and non relevant to this guide. (e.g how to add form to your website; use shortcode)

One issue with this method is, if you update the plugins, you need to update the file again (until this plugin support custom headers)

END OF GUIDE.
----

My Insight to Learning:
Finally I made a success to learning API, our main website is a Wordpress Page and currently data is just being send by email, making us having to retype everything (or copy/paste) if we want those update. Good news is I finally made some progress that is actually working (I have just been testing and playing with it).

Not to bore you with too much detail and there is too many mistake and error which I didn't note down. So just jump straight to the guide, I think other type of form will have similar concept. Currently I only use Contact Form 7 because it usually is the default contact in Worpdress installation.

[telecastg]

Entity (model), Controller and View are three different concepts that are part of the Model-View-Controller software design pattern, which is used by Espo and many modern applications.

If you are not familiar with these technical terms and are interested in going beyond the Admin facility to customize Espo by coding, I suggest this article that explains it in layman's language. https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/mo...-efcba6255053/

[esforim]

Hmmm with that knowledge in mind, I suppose it might be possible for me to do some button in the future. The key word you use here, and I remember mention of "Controller" in thread of button; I would always call it Entity (e.g. Admin > Entity Manager) instead of Controller.

But what you are saying it a layman way to explain a concept? Or are those word technical and correct usage when it come to coding aspect of EspoCRM?

It been over a week, but I haven't really think up of any usage to make Espo even greater yet.

[esforim]

I wanted to add this to the first post but unfortunately it has finally reached the 10,000 character limits. Until I made a move to a less restrictive platform make edit in post #15 (https://forum.espocrm.com/forum/gene...5114#post55114) . This section is about tools (although choice is very limited at the moment)