Capsule CRM reporting using Crystal Reports
Customer: Care provider
Our customer switched to Capsule CRM to handle their recruitment process. Capsule provides a really efficient way to create and monitor the recruitment workflow from first contact through interviews to training.
Problem is, the database is ‘up there’ in the cloud. Typically of many cloud platforms, the focus is on data in. Data out is more a case of ‘we provide an API for that’! Having worked with SalesForce on a similar project, Pursuit Technology were a good fit for the project.
Capsule CRM provides a RESTful API to retrieve data. In general, you retrieve XML documents, then import the data to a SQL Server database. Main difficulty is that there currently doesn’t appear to be any ‘nice’ way to do it. After a quick review of methods, we just used simple batch file with Curl to fetch the necessary files, then used SQL to parse the XML and insert/update the reporting database. The process is now scheduled to run every hour, but is so fast that it could probably be done much more frequently. Only limitation is that Capsule limits the number of requests you can make per hour.
Our customer now has a good view of the current status of all applicants in their recruitment pipeline.
Technologies:
- Microsoft SQL Server
- Crystal Reports
- Capsule CRM
- Curl
