Within SugarCRM there are a number of terms which often cause confusion. Hopefully the list below will allow users of SugarCRM to quickly understand these terms.


Accounts
Records containing information about an organisation or business. Includes fields such as Name, Address, and Telephone number.


Activities
A form of "To Do List" subpanel. Shows those Meetings, Calls and Task records currently in the "Planned" state relatating to a record such as an Account, Contact or Lead.


Advanced Search
A more powerful module level search screen, giving the ability to filter results based on more specific criteria such as date created, assigned user or assigned team.


Basic Search
A simple module search screen, giving the ability to filter results based on a combination of record name, assigned to or set as favourite by currently logged in user.


Bug
A malfunctioning feature in a product.


Calendar
A screen allowing users to view their scheduled events (Calls, Meetings, Tasks) listed by day, week, month or year, as well as the ability to view other users' calendars on the Shared calendar on a week-to-view basis.


Calls
Calendared records allowing advance planning and record of telephone communications to Leads, Contacts, Users, Accounts etc.


Case
A record regarding a customer support issue reported by a customer or other individual and logged against a Lead, Contact, Account or Opportunity.


Contact
A person who may be associated with a possible sales opportunity or customer. Usually related to an Account record.


Campaign
Single or multiple marketing activities running for a specific time period, primarily with the goal of increasing consumer awareness of a product or service and, as a result, increasing sales.


Campaign Target
An individual who receives the contennt of a marketing campaign. Can be either a Target, Lead, Contact, Account or User.


Cloud Connector
An integration from within Sugar which enables you to view and add information about Leads, Contacts and Accounts from external systems and data sources (e.g. LinkedIn or Twitter).


Detail View
A view of a single record within a ,module, showing those fields pertaining to the relevant module, showing both field names and the populated data for that record.


Documents
A searchable module within SugarCRM allowing you to store files of any kind for sharing between Users, Leads, Contacts and Accounts via email etc. without the need for Dropboxes, shared desktop space or remote desktop servers.


Edit View
A view of a single record allowing you to change the populated data for that record.


Emails
A web-based client within SugarCRM allowing connection to an IMAP mailbox to give the ability to perform emailing activities using your existing mailbox, when your standard mail client (e.g. Outlook) may not be available, or as a direct replacemnt to a third party mail client. All emails sent using the SugarCRM mail client will be automatically archived against the relevant Lead, Contact, Account where the email address matches.


Email Template
A template allowing you to quickly populate the content of an email from within the SugarCRM Email client, or for use within Campaign emails/newsletters.


Excel Plug-in
A piece of software installed locally on the user's computer giving the ability to create, view and edit Sugar data and view reports from within Microsoft Excel.


Forecast
An estimate of sales opportunities in an organisation for a specific time period (such as a month or a quarter).


Global Search
A keyword search for text that matches the beginning of key field names. The system searches Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Quotes, and Cases and displays search results for each of these modules in separate sub-panels. (Using the wildcard % symbol you can increase the functionality of the Global Search bar - see http://sugaruk.co.uk/blog/sugarcrm-tip-day-wild-card-search)


Global Team
A universal team consisting of all users in an organisation. Any record assigned to the Global team can be accessed by all users.


Grouped Modules
A set of modules listed together under the heading of a common denominator (e.g. Sales, Marketing, Support)


Group User
A container that is used for inbound emails. For example, a group user named Support to handle customer support issues. This user type does not count towards Sugar licences.


Lead
The first record about an individual within the sales process. These records will not yet have been evaluated or qualified to be a contact.


List View
A list of all the records visible to a user in a particular module matching the filter criteria defined in either the Basic or Global search for that module.


Matrix Report
A report which displays data in a rows and columns grid format and allows for grouping by up to three fields.


Meeting
A calendared event to record face-to-face interactions with Leads, Contacts, Users etc.


Module
A section within Sugar containing records of the same type (e.g. Contacts, Accounts, Opportunities)


Opportunity
A record containing information about a potential or existing sales deal. Opportunities progress through varying sales stages to the endpoint of either Closed Won or Closed Lost and can have an associated amount, expected close date, Contact, Account and Quote (licensed SugarCRM instances only) for purposes of tracking and forecasting sales.


Outlook Plug-in
A piece of software installed on a user's local machine which allows Microsoft Outlook to archive emails into SugarCRM, as well as two-way synchronisation of selected Contacts and Calendar events between the Outlook and Sugar calendars.


Portal API User
A unique ID used by a Sugar portal to access the Sugar system. This user type does not count towards Sugar licences.


Private Team
Usually a team of one, consisting of a single user. Every Sugar user belongs to their own private team. Other users can be added to a private team if required.


Projects
A management system allowing specific tasks to be allocated to and tracked against Users, Leads, Contacts, Accounts, with the ability to set start and completion dates, milestones and export to MS Project.


Project Task
A trackable activity assigned to a User, Lead, Contact, Account to be completed as part of a bigger Project.


Product Catalog
An Administrator-controlled list of all products and services offered by an organisation, stored in a searchable list for use in Quotes. The Product Catalog can be subsectioned to allow easy location of the correct "product", which contains description, price and stock level information.


Quote
A record containing specific information about products or services being offered on a proposal. Can be printed out in PDF format to prevent alteration byt the customer.


Quota
The amount of money that a sales representative is expected to bring in within a specified time period.


Regular User
An individual who can access and use Sugar modules but does not have administrative privileges.


Report
A customisable search allowing display of information contained within the entire SugarCRM system, based on set criteria which can be stored and run at any time as required.


Role
A defined set of permissions (access types) to restrict or allow actions such as viewing, editing, and deleting records. Roles are designed to govern actions to entire modules or to specific fields (Licenced SugarCRM instances only) within a module.


Rows and Column Report
A report which shows the results in a simple rows and columns format, similar to Excel Spreadsheets.


Saved Search
The search filters stored from a previous search.


Subpanel
A listing of related items from another module displayed within a record.


Sugar Dashlet
User-configurable panels allowing users to display records, activities, reports and other information on their own SugarCRM Home screen.


Sugar Document
A record or file stored in SugarCRM's Documents module.


Sugar Feed
A data format which allows members of Teams to notify each other immediately when one of them creates a new contact, lead, opportunity, case, or User Feed.


Sugar Portal
A self-service portal that enables your customers to view, create, and edit cases and bugs in Sugar, as well as to view the Knowledge Base, without the need for a Sugar Licence.


Summation Report
A summary report that displays a total count of records based on specific criteria. Summation reports can also be viewed as charts.


Summation with Details Report
A summary report with which you can group data and view more details related to the records in the report than in a summation report. The group-by data is visually represented in the report output. For example, you can group records by the assigned user and sort the results in ascending or descending order.


System Administrator
A user who has administrative privileges in Sugar to perform tasks such as creating users, creating custom fields and changing screen layouts. The System Administrator has the rights to access all modules and records, regardless of permissions set on any other Role or Team.


System Links
Links that are accessible from any page in the Sugar application, such as Employees, Logout, Help, and About.


Targets
Records about individuals which are used solely for the purpose of marketing campaigns. Once a Target has shown an interest, they are converted to a Lead for the sales process to begin.


Target List
A list of individuals who need to be included or excluded from campaign emails (can contain a combination of Targets/Leads/Contacts/Accounts/Users).


Tasks
Record to store planned and performed activities to Leads, Contacts, Accounts etc. which are not Calls or Meetings (e.g. sending of a brochure on a specific date).


Team
A group of users who are assigned to manage specific records in Sugar.


Tracker Report
A report that tracks user actions such as the modules accessed and the actions performed on a specific day. Tracker reports are typically accessed only by administrators, or anyone who has been assigned the Tracker role within the application.


User Feed
A data format that enables you to post your status along with external links, images, and videos.


User
An employee of an organisation who has access to data contained within Sugar. Users are one of the following types Regular User, System Administrator, Group Users, Portal API User


Word Plug-in
A piece of software installed locally on the user's computer which allows SugarCRM to integrate with Microsoft Word to perform mail-merge document creation from within the Sugar platform straight to MS Word.


Workflow
An automated process defined by an Administrator to perform actions or send alerts when set criteria are met within the SugarCRM system (e.g. send out an email when a new lead is created).


If you come across a term within Sugar which you do not understand, drop me an email, send me a tweet or contact me on LinkedIn and I will send you a definition and add it to the list above.