This document provides an overview of SugarCRM development including: - The directory structure and key directories like custom, modules, and include - Sugar's MVC framework including models, views, and controllers - Object relationship mapping using SugarBeans and relationships - Customization points like vardefs, logic hooks, and the extension framework - APIs and how to interact with SugarCRM programmatically

2. Intro
• Power Hour
– Developer / Admin Resource
– Promote Successful Implementations
• Ticomix
– SugarCRM “Advanced” Partner
– 2014 Rising Star
– Consulting, Development & Support
– www.ticomixcrm.com
– @TicomixCRM / @TicomixInc
• Webinar Logistics

3. About Jeff Bickart
• Sugar Developer since version 4.0a
• Director of Engineering of a Voice-Enabled CRM
startup
• Chief Technology Officer, NEPO Systems − SugarCRM
GOLD Partner
• CRM Evangelist, Ticomix
• Contact Information
– @bickart
– www.linkedin.com/in/bickart

4. Sugar Development 101
Sugar as a Platform
• MVC (Module View Controller)
– Server Side
– Client Side
• ORM (Object Relationship Mapping)
– Beans
– Relationships
• API (Application Programming Interfaces)
– REST
– SOAP
• How and where to add customizations
– Extension Framework
– Logic Hooks
• Debugging tips and techniques
– IDE – Xdebug
– Logging

5. Development 101
• Directories of Interest
– custom
– cache
– data
– Modules
– include
– vendor
– sidecar
• Where do my changes belong?
– custom
– custom
– custom
– modules

6. Model, View and Controller (MVC)
SuiteCRM, Sugar 6, Sugar 7 #bwc
• Model
– SugarBeans
• View (Sugar 6 and Sugar 7 #bwc)
– Displaying information to the browser
• Detail View
• Edit View
• List View
– Two parts to a view
• metadata
– Example: custom/modules/Accounts/metadata/editviewdefs.php
• class loader
– Example: custom/modules/Accounts/views/view.edit.php
• Controller
– actions such as
• Display
• Save
• Etc.

7. Model, View and Controller (MVC)
Sugar 7 (client)
• Model
– Backbone.js
• gives structure to web applications by providing models with key-value binding and custom events,
collections with a rich API of enumerable functions, views with declarative event handling, and
connects it all to your existing API over a RESTful JSON interface.
• View
– Layouts
• Layouts are components which render the overall page. They are used to define the rows, columns,
and fluid layouts that the content is displayed to the user in.
– Views
• Views are components which render data from a context and may or may not include field
components. Example views include not only record and list views but also widgets
• Utilizes HandleBars and Controllers
– Fields
• Fields render widgets for individual values pulled from the models and handle formatting (or
stripping the formatting of) field values. Just like Layouts and Views, Fields also extend Backbone
Views
• Utilizes HandleBars and Controllers

8. Object Relationship Mapping (ORM)
• Beans
– CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete)
– Defined via Variable Definitions (i.e., vardefs) and
Templates
• Relationships
– Are the basis for linking information within the system

9. Sugar Object Templates
• Basic
– The building blocks needed to communicate with the DB.
– Fields
• id, name, date_entered, date_modified, created_by, modified_user_id, created_by, description, deleted
– Associated Relationships
• Company
– Additional information that pertains to a company; addresses, industry, revenue, etc.
• File
– Addition logic in order to be able to upload and maintain files in a module
• Issue
– This is the basis of cases
• Person
– Additional information as it pertains to a person; first_name, last_name, email addresses, etc.
• Sale
– The building blocks of an Opportunity; amount fields

10. Object Relational Model
• 99.9% of the time you do NOT need to write SQL!
• If you think that you need SQL you are doing something
WRONG!
• Sugar is Object Oriented
• SugarBean
– Performs all operations with the DB
• Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete
– All Modules extend the SugarBean
– Examples
• Leads -> Person -> Basic -> SugarBean
• Accounts -> Company -> Basic -> SugarBean
• Opportunity -> Sale -> Basic -> SugarBean

11. SugarBeans
data/SugarBean.php
• SugarBean is a component, that represents persistent
data maintained in a database
• Types
– basic, company, file, issue, person, sale
• Examples
– Accounts, Documents, Cases, Contacts, Opportunities
• Basic SugarBean
– All Beans extend basic which provides the fields:
– id, name, date_entered, date_modified, modified_user_id,
created_by, description, deleted

12. Vardefs (variable definitions)
• Sugar uses a file based approach to store all of the
information to describe each field as it relates to a module
and how that information should be stored in the DB
• Every module that communicates to the DB will need a
vardefs.php file
– <module>/vardefs.php
– At the end of the file, you must tell Sugar which template to base
your module upon
• if (!class_exists('VardefManager')) {
require_once 'include/SugarObjects/VardefManager.php';
}
VardefManager::createVardef('TCX_Passwords', 'TCX_Passwords',
array('basic', 'team_security', 'assignable'));

13. Vardefs
Continued
• Quick Repair and Rebuild
– Builds the aggregated version of the Vardefs into
cache/modules/<mymodule>/<MyModule>Vardefs.php
• Sugar uses this file for
– communicating to the DB
– display subpanels
– Join field
– Adding fields to the DB
– Aggregated Version comes From
• modules/<mymodule>/vardefs.php
• Template
– Include/SugarObjects/templates/
• fields_meta_data (fields added via Studio)
• custom/Extension/modules/<mymodule>/Ext/Vardefs
– sugarfield_field_name.php – generated when using Studio

14. SugarBean
Tips & Tricks
• Obtain a Bean by ID
• $account = BeanFactory::getBean(‘Accounts’, $id);
• $account = BeanFactory::getBean(‘Accounts’, $id,
array(‘disable_row_level_security’ => true));
• Obtain a set of Beans with filter
– Sugar 6
• $account = BeanFactory::newBean(‘Accounts’);
• $results = $accounts->get_list("", "accounts.assigned_user_id = '1'", 0);
– Sugar 7
• $accounts = BeanFactory::newBean('Accounts');
• $query = new SugarQuery();
• $query->from($accounts)->where()->equals('assigned_user_id','1');
• $results = $accounts->fetchFromQuery($query);

15. SugarBean
Relationships
• $account = BeanFactory::getBean($id);
• Get All Related Objects
– $account->load_relationship(‘contacts’);
– $contactList = $accounts->contacts->getBeans();
– $contactIDs = $accounts->conacts->get();
• Get subset of Related Objects
– Sugar 6
• $contactList = $accounts->get_linked_beans(‘contacts’, ‘Contact’, array(‘date_entered’), 0, 5);
– Sugar 7
• $current = $accounts->contacts->query(
array(
'where' => array(
'lhs_field' => ’type',
'operator' => '=',
'rhs_value' => ’Customer’
)
)

16. APIs
• Sugar 6
– SOAP
• <sugarcrm>/service/v4_1/soap.php
– REST
• <sugarcrm>/service/v4_1/soap.php
• Sugar 7
– <sugarcrm>/rest/v10
– Documentation
• <sugarcrm/rest/v10/help

17. Customizations

18. Sugar 6 Root Directory Structure
• data - This directory contains files related to SugarCRM's Model. You will find information about SugarBean as well as how relationship
are connected to the SugarBean
• examples - In this directory you will find a variety of examples on how to connect external sources into SugarCRM. There is a SOAP
example and some example configurations about
• include -- SugarCRM's framework and 3rd party libraries, except Zend and Xtemplate, used by SugarCRM
• install -- Logic to install SugarCRM. Once installed the files in this directory are unused
• jssource -- Original JavaScript files before they have been minified.
• log4php -- Deprecated logger replaced with include/SugarLogger: SugarCRM no longer uses log4php but the directory remains
• metadata -- This directly contains "join table" definitions. For example the definition of the accounts_contacts table
• ModuleInstall --Utilized by Upgrade Wizard, Module Loader and silentUpgrade to update the SugarCRM environment
• modules -- SugarCRM MVC for each section of the application. Examples include accounts and contacts
• portal -- Customer Portal: This code only works for Sugar Enterprise and Sugar Ultimate
• service -- WebServices are supported from here both REST and SOAP
• soap -- Deprecated version of the SOAP WebService, see the service directory for updated versions
• themes -- User Interface definitions that Sugar supports are located in this directory
• upload -- new location in 6.4. This is where uploaded files will be stored. Prior to 6.4 this directory was under cache
• xtemplate -- A library by PHP Xtemplate that is provided for backward compatibility. SugarCRM now uses the smarty Template Engine.
smarty can be found at include/smarty
• zend -- Portions of the Zend Framework that are used by SugarCRM
• cache -- This directory is used by SugarCRM application to store converted metadata that can be displayed by the SugarCRM application.
Items include screens, and data
• custom --All upgrade safe customization will go into this set of directories. Anything that is in here is safe from SugarCRM upgrade wizard

19. Sugar 7 Directory Structure
• Ext
– The Extension Framework can now be used from the core of Sugar
including within the core modules. So it is now possible to create
system wide extensions in custom/Ext
• ModuleInstall
• api
• cache
• clients
– Sugar UX code;
– Sugar now supports multiple clients
• base – Standard UX
• portal – Portal UX
– UX Elements such as SugarFields, Layouts, View, Dashlets
• custom
• data
• examples
• include
• install
• jssource
– JavaScript source code
• metadata
• mobile
– Access to mobile view of the product for example:
https://crm.ticomix.com/mobile
• modules
• portal2
– Enterprise portal
• service
• sidecar
– files used by the new UX, sidecar. Document can be found here:
https://jsduck.test.ticomix.net/
• soap
• styleguide
– Files used by the sytleguide available in Sugar
https://crm.ticomix.com/#Styleguide
• themes
• upgrade
• upload
• vendor
– All code not created by sugar has been moved to the vendor directory
which is consistent with composer

20. Logic Hooks
• Similar in nature to Workflows
• Not limited in functionality
• Examples:
– Communicate with 3rd Party Web Services
– Update data by assignment
– Send Notification(s)
• Location
– Sugar’s documentation doesn’t specify where Logic Hooks should reside.
– Module Logic Hooks
• custom/modules/<module>/LogicHooks - keeps them all together
• Prefer if you have a separate file for each Logic Hook; Easier to update a single file without effecting other Logic
Hooks
– custom/modules/<module>logic_hooks.php
<?php
/ $hook_version = 1;
$hook_array = Array();
$hook_array['after_save'] = Array();
$hook_array['after_save'][] = Array(10, 'Assign Authorize.Net to the
Contact',
'custom/modules/Leads/LogicHooks/UpdateAuthorizeNet.php','UpdateAuthorize
Net', 'addContactToAuthorizeNet');

21. Logic Hooks
Sugar 6
• Application Hooks
– after_entry_point
– after_ui_footer
– after_ui_frame
– server_round_trip
• Module Hooks
– after_delete
– after_relationship_add
– after_relationship_delete
– after_restore
– after_retrieve
– after_save
– before_delete
– before_relationship_add
– before_relationship_delete
– before_restore
– before_save
– handle_exception
– process_record
• User Hooks
– after_login
– after_logout
– before_logout
– before_login
– login_failed
• Job Queue Hooks
– job_failure
– job_failure_retry
• SNIP Hooks
– after_email_import
– before_email_import

22. Logic Hooks
Sugar 7
• Application Hooks
– after_entry_point
– after_ui_footer
– after_ui_frame
– server_round_trip
• Module Hooks
– after_delete
– after_relationship_add
– after_relationship_delete
– after_relationship_update
– after_restore
– after_retrieve
– after_save
– before_delete
– before_relationship_add
– before_relationship_delete
– before_restore
– before_save
– handle_exception
– process_record
• User Hooks
– after_load_user
– after_login
– after_logout
– before_logout
– login_failed
• Job Queue Hooks
– job_failure
– job_failure_retry
• SNIP Hooks
– after_email_import
– before_email_import
• API Hooks
– after_routing
– before_api_call
– before_filter
– before_respond
– before_routing.
• Web Logic Hooks
– Web Logic Hooks allow for administrators to post
record and event information to a specified URL
when certain sugar events take place

23. LogicHook Example
custom/modules/Accounts/logic_hooks.php
$hook_version = 1;
$hook_array = Array();
$hook_array['before_save'] = Array();
$hook_array['before_save'][] =
Array( 100,
'Reassign All Related Records',
'custom/modules/Accounts/ReassignHandler.php',
'ReassignHandler',
'reassignRecords');

24. Reassign All Related Records
before_save LogicHook
$user = new User();
$user->disable_row_level_security = true;
$user->retrieve($bean->assigned_user_id);
foreach ($bean->field_defs as $field => $info) {
if ($info['type'] == 'link') {
switch ($field) {
default:
$bean->load_relationship($field);
foreach ($bean->$field->getBeans(new $info['bean_name']) as $focus) {
if ($focus->id != "") {
$focus->assigned_user_id = $bean->assigned_user_id;
$focus->team_set_id = $user->team_set_id;
$focus->team_id = $user->default_team;
/* DO NOT SAVE THE EMAIL ADDRESSES */
$focus->in_workflow = true;
$focus->save(false);
}
}
}
}
}

25. Debuging

26. Logging
• $GLOBALS[‘log’]->
– fatal
– error
– warn
– info
– debug
• _ppl

27. Debuging
• xdebug

28. Future Webinars
Topics Subject to Change
• Future Topics
– Using the SugarJobQueue
– LogicHooks
– Deploying Packages
– Layouts
– Views
– Fields
– Building a Wizard