CentraView Review, Part I

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be posting entries containing reviews of the open source CentraView’s features.  Each part will concentrate on one or two specific modules; today’s entry contains a brief introduction to the system and a review of the home-page.

Introduction to CentraView

CentraView is a highly functional and very useful open source CRM system.  The amount of detail available in its modules is great, as is the organization and interaction of the features.  It could, however, use improvements in its ease of use its degree of customization, and its maturity.

The contacts, calendar, and activities module are the software’s strong points; the sales, marketing, accounting, reports, and administration modules are also strong with a few weaknesses; while the projects, support, and HR modules are too simple for all but small organizations. 

CentraView is written in Java and JSP, and uses a MySQL database.  The version used for this evaluation was v.2.1.4, which can be tested on CentraView's demo page after registering and logging in.

The Home-page

After logging in from the first page, the user is transported to a simple, but well designed home-page.  The home page is functional rather than flashy, and even though it is packed with information it is easy to read and use.  The links to all of CentraView’s modules are listed horizontally across the top, while pending tasks, activities, new e-mails, the day’s calendar, opportunities, and a search bar fill up the bulk of the page.   

 Figure 1: CentraView's home-page.

Each pending opportunity, task, etc., is briefly described and can be clicked to display more detailed information.  Thanks to this and to buttons that let the user add new tasks and opportunities the user can see and take care of many of the pending activities by linking directly from the homepage, rather than having to search and navigate the individual modules.  

Unfortunately, this functionality is hampered a bit by the lack of information displayed for each user-created item.  For example, the information for a pending phone-call on the front page includes the title the user gave that call, the time it is scheduled for, and the company that is to be called, but neither the phone number or the name of the contact at the company are displayed.  That info could be written by the user in the task notes when he creates that task, as the notes are displayed on the front page when the mouse pointer hovers over them.  However, busy users often would rather not spend the time repeatedly keying in basic contact information, as that defeats one of the purposes of CRM.

However, overall the home page should receive a “thumbs up,” as it’s an effective entry into the system that makes all of the users most immediate tasks and all of the system’s important features accessible with one click of the mouse.

In Part II, I will review CentraView’s contacts module.