openCRX


The Professional Enterprise Class Open Source CRM Solution

Frequently asked questions

General Questions

Downloads, Repositories, and Documentation

Cloud/Groupware Features

Installation Issues

Technical Questions


Is openCRX a true Open Source Project?

The answer is yes. openCRX has always been published with an OSI certified BSD-style license. We have nothing to hide and none of our code is proprietary.

By the way, you should not understimate the importance of your question. Numerous CRM applications claim to be Open Source when in fact they are not. Read Will The Real Open Source CRM Please Stand Up? on the OSI Blog for additional information.

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How can I support the development of openCRX?

It is the hope of the openCRX team that lots of bright people are going to join the effort to make openCRX the tool of choice for limitless relationship management. If you can contribute or want to co-operate or have a look at the information on our community page . Any kind of support is appreciated.

If you want to make a donation to support the development of openCRX, you can do so through PayPal:

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What is the goal of the openCRX project?

It is our goal to establish openCRX as the reference service for customer relationship management (CRM). Starting with openCRX v2.0 we've also begun to move into the realm of Groupware and we intend to position openCRX as an Open Source Groupware server.

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How large is the openCRX development team?

The core team consists of three people which is mainly responsible for managing the project (setting up the roadmap, coordinate contributors, quality assurance, publish software releases, and much more). In addition to the core team there are many contributors who provide ideas, code and documentation. Many of our contributors work at openCRX partners or are employed by companies relying on openCRX or they are involved in openCRX projects. Furthermore, there are many translators (see list of available locales here) and community members providing important input to keep openCRX moving. Several companies (from very small to very large) provide important resources (ideas, people, funding).

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Where can I read about Model Driven Architecture (MDA) before diving into openMDX?

There is a lot of material available at OMG's MDA site. If you just want to get a quick overview, try An introduction to Model Driven Architecture by Allan Brown and Jim Conallen or see what Wikipedia has to say.

In addition, you might want to have a look at some of the documents published by the openCRX/openMDX team.

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From where can I download openCRX distributions?

openCRX distributions are availble from Sourceforge. The openCRX SDK including source code is available from the GIT repository.

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Where is the documentation of the openCRX API (aka Javadoc)?

The openCRX API (also known as Javadoc) is available here.

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Where are the openCRX UML Models and how can I browse them?

If you just want to browse the UML Models, you can do so here.

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Which CardDAV Clients can I use to connect to openCRX?

Please also note that your preferred client might still work with openCRX, even if it is not listed below:

  • The SOGo Connector, an add-on for Mozilla's Thunderbird is a CardDAV client. We tested SOGo Connector 24.0.5 (with Thunderbird 31.0) and it works fine in read-only mode.
  • While Android does not support CardDAV out of the box, you can get CardDAV-Sync or DAVdroid from the Android Market (search for "CalDAV") - DAVdroid is also available from the F-Droid Repo; this apps have full support for CardDAV collections and they're easy to setup/configure.
  • Apple's iOS-Devices (iOS 5+)

Configuration hints are available in the openCRX Admin Guide. The Wizard "Connection Helper" provides all the necessary information to connect.

Additional information about CardDAV is available from Wikipedia.

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Which CalDAV Clients can I use to connect to openCRX?

Please note that your preferred client might still work with openCRX, even if it is not listed below.

  • Mozilla's Lightning, the calendaring add-on for Mozilla's Thunderbird is the best-tested cross-platform CalDAV client. We tested Lightning 3.3 (with Thunderbird 31.0).
  • Chandler Desktop by OSAF (Open Source Applications Foundation) works very well with openCRX in both online and offline settings. We tested Chandler 0.7.1.
  • While Android does not support CalDAV out of the box, you can get CalDAV-Sync or DAVdroid from the Android Market (search for "CalDAV") - DAVdroid is also available from the F-Droid Repo; these apps have full support for CalDAV collections and they're easy to setup/configure. Another option that works is aCal.
  • Apple's iOS-Devices (iOS 5+)

Configuration hints are available in the openCRX Admin Guide. The Wizard "Connection Helper" provides all the necessary information to connect.

If you're using Microsoft Outlook you best forget about CalDAV even though Microsfot joined CalConnect on 15 August 2007 and MS Outlook 2010 apparently can connect to CalDAV Providers in read-only mode. MS Outlook is a client for MS Exchange and it's basically useless if you want to connect to anything else but an MS Exchange server as MS Outlook simply does not support any of the many standard protocols (like CardDAV or CalDAV, for example). If you're into tinkering with VBA code, you might try our Outlook ICS Adapter, but it's really just a start...

Additional information about CalDAV is available from https://www.caldav.org/ or read what Wikipedia is saying about CalDAV.

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Which FreeBusy Clients can I use to connect to openCRX?

Please note that your preferred client might still work with openCRX, even if it is not listed below.

Configuration hints are available in the openCRX Admin Guide. The Wizard "Connection Helper" provides all the necessary information to connect.

Additional information about FreeBusy is available from Wikipedia.

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Which ICS/iCalendar Clients can I use to connect to openCRX?

Please note that your preferred client might still work with openCRX, even if it is not listed below.

Configuration hints are available in the openCRX Admin Guide. The Wizard "Connection Helper" provides all the necessary information to connect.

Additional information about iCalendar is available from Wikipedia.

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Which IMAP Clients can I use to connect to openCRX?

We have tested Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007, and Evolution. We would assume, however, that virtually any IMAP client will work just fine as long as the client really talks IMAP. Give it a try.

Configuration hints are available in the openCRX Admin Guide.

Additional information about IMAP is available from Wikipedia.

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Which WebDAV Clients can I use to connect to openCRX?

We have tested the following clients, but there are certainly many more that will work:

  • Linux: Nautilus (Gnome) and Dolphin (KDE) work just fine. You might have to install the davfs2 package.
  • Windows: you might want to use a third-party tool like BitKinex to avoid the quirky implementation of Microsoft's web folders. The following hint regarding Windows 7 was submitted by a user: Start Regedit and then in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\WebClient\Parameters set BasicAuthLevel to 2.
  • Android: look at WebDAV File Manager (free)
  • iPhone: look at the WebDAV Navigator (free version available) and GoodReader

The Wizard "Connection Helper" provides all the necessary information to connect.

Additional information about WebDAV is available from Wikipedia.

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Installer aborts with error "too many open files"

This is mostly an issue on Linux-based systems. Open a shell and type

ulimit -a

to verify your open file limit. If it is set to 1024 you might want to increase it to 2048 (or even 4096). On CentOS, for example, you can set this limit in the /etc/security/limits.conf file. See here or here for information on other Linux distributions, Solaris, and OS X.

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Should I read the README?

It is always a good idea to read the README because it typically contains important information.

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Which DBMS (Database Management System) can/should I use with openCRX?

The "can"-part of the question is easy to answer: openCRX v2.9.2 has been tested with

HSQLDB (v2.0 or newer) [not recommended for production use]
MySQL (v5.0 or newer) [not recommended for production use, unless you are very good at tuning]
PostgreSQL (v8.3 or newer, best performance with v9.3 or newer)
MS SQL (MS SQL 2000, MS SQL 2005, MS SQL 2008)
Oracle (v9 or newer)
DB2 (v9.5 or newer)
MaxDB (formerly SAP DB) [not supported anymore]
Firebird [not supported]

The "should"-part of the question is more difficult to answer without knowing more about your requirements and constraints. While the table below may be somewhat helpful in your decision making process, the answer to your question boils down to getting clarity on the following 3 issues:

  • how much performance/scalability do you need in terms of #concurrent users, database size, etc.?
  • how much money are you willing to spend on DB licenses?
  • if you already use a DBMS that would work with openCRX why use another DBMS?

If you have no constraints we would recommend PostgreSQL v9 (or newer), v9.3 for best performance.

A note on free DBs: due to the pressure from Open Source DBs various vendors of commercial DBs started offering free versions of their commercial products. Before you jump to any conclusions, however, it is worthwhile reading the small print of those offers. It pays off to understand the limitations/conditions/licenses in order to avoid an unwanted lock-in (example: any free offer with a limit on the size of the database is going to hurt you sooner or later as using/working with openCRX is equivalent to adding data - 4GB may sound like a lot today but once you've added 100'000 accounts and 200'000 sales orders you will probably be past that limit...).

DB Overview HSQLDB* MySQL* PostgreSQL MS SQL 2000 MS SQL 2005/2008 Oracle IBM DB2
free / commercial free free free commercial commercial commercial commercial
Express / free
(with limitations)
--- Express Edition Express Edition DB2 Express-C
#concurrent users
the DB can handle
reasonably well
up to 20 up to 20 virtually unlimited
(with clustering)
up to 20 up to 80 virtually unlimited
(with clustering)
virtually unlimited
(with clustering)
#accounts (data size)
the DB can handle
reasonably well
up to 10000 up to 500
accounts
virtually unlimited up to 100,000
accounts
up to 500,000
accounts
virtually unlimited virtually unlimited
supported platforms - Linux
- Unix
- MacOS
- Windows
- Linux
- Unix
- MacOS
- Windows
- Linux
- Unix
- MacOS
- Windows
- Windows - Windows - Linux
- Unix
- MacOS
- Windows
- Linux
- Unix
- MacOS
- Windows
hints, known
limitations, etc.
- no cursor - no cursor - use version 8.3.5
  or newer
- version 9 adds
  another boost
- best performance
  with v9.3+
- sometimes volatile/
  erratic response times
- sometimes volatile/
  erratic response times
  - cannot search in
  string attributes
  longer than 255
  chars
- openCRX does not
  yet support the
  64bit versions

* Please note that we do not recommend HSQLDB or MySQL for production use. The lack of cursor-support leads to lots of table scans resulting in low performance for large data sets. MySQL v5.x might solve some of these problems. If you are a very experienced MySQL DBA you might be able to tune your instance so that it performs.

Please note that the "limitations" listed in the above table are not hard numbers, but they are based on our experience and on the assumption that users expect decent response times.

openCRX includes all the required configuration/deployment files for HSQLDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS SQL, DB2, and Oracle.

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How can I migrate from HSQLDB to another DBMS?

Instructions for migrating from HSQLDB to another DMBS are available at in the Database migration guide.

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Where is the openCRX API?

Have a look at the openCRX UML Model or the openCRX Javadoc.

If you are looking for the schema files (*.xsd) to verify data files or REST requests, you will find the schema files in opencrx-kernel.jar (e.g. located in {TOMCAT_INSTALL_DIR}apps\opencrx-core-CRX\APP-INF\lib).

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Which Java VM do you recommend with openCRX?

We test openCRX with both the Sun Java VM and OpenJDK.

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Which browser can I use with openCRX (HTML GUI)?

If you have a recent standards-compliant browser you should be fine. We develop and test with the following browsers on Windows XP:

If you get the impression that the rendering of pages is broken you might want to upgrade your browser. If you detect problems in our HTML code or in our Javascripts we would certainly appreciate it if you could post your insights to the bug forum.

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How to add additional languages to openCRX?

The openCRX Language Localization Guide explains in detail how you can add new languages to openCRX or even make your own openCRX language pack. From a technical point of view, adding languages is a trivial issue; the big task is translating all the code tables, labels and tool tips.

The following languages are currently available or being worked on:

locale language locale included
and activated in
core distribution
translation is
"up to date"
locale/translation provided by
en_US English yes
see demo server
yes CRIXP Corp.
cs_CZ Czech yes
see demo server
openCRX v1.8.1 we are looking for a translator
(up to v1.8 David Klíma and David Zejda)
de_CH German yes
see demo server
yes CRIXP Corp.
es_CO Spanish yes
see demo server
openCRX v2.0 Jorge Escallón (Avatar Harden Ltda)
es_MX Spanish yes
see demo server
openCRX v1.9.1 we are looking for a translator
(up to v1.8 Humberto Hernandez from ITBrain)
fr_FR French yes
see demo server
openCRX v2.5.3 Yoann Regardin (France Telecom)
(v1.8.1 Jean-Paul Genty, earlier versions Bruno Dumant)
it_IT Italian yes
see demo server
yes Pietro Mathieu (albedo)
ja_JP Japanese yes
see demo server
openCRX v2.4.1 Yoshiyuki Nakamura
pl_PL Polish yes
see demo server
openCRX v1.9.1 we are looking for a translator
(up to v1.9 Jarek Solowski and Adam Sobkowicz)
pt_BR Portuguese yes
see demo server
openCRX v2.5.3 Claudio Cardozo, Revalino Sandoval
ro_RO Romanian yes yes Radu Silaghi
ru_RU Russian yes
see demo server
yes anonymous translator
(up to v1.9 Bulat Nig, up to v1.5.0 Andrey Bogatyrev)
sk_SK Slovak yes
see demo server
yes Marián Sura (Butteland)
sv_SE Swedish yes
see demo server
openCRX v2.5.3 Patrik Bergström (Monator Technologies)
(up to v1.8 Erik Andersson from Monator Technologies)
tr_TR Turkish yes
see demo server
openCRX v2.0
zh_CN Chinese (Simplified) yes
see demo server
yes Michael Chan
(up to v1.4.0 Thomas Guo)
fa_IR Farsi (Iran) yes
see demo server
openCRX v1.8.1 Hamed Shayan (ASHNA Samane)
(v1.8.1 Afsaneh Ghoddousi and Mayam Rangbast, up to v1.3.0 Farhad Abtahi)
nl_NL Dutch yes
see demo server
openCRX v2.0 Mr. Exvee
(up to v1.5.0 M. van Drunen and J. Baten)
ar_SA Arabic work in progress Habeeb ur Rahman
es_ES Spanish work in progress openCRX v2.0 Benjamin Keller
el_GR Greek work in progress Antony P. Papamichail (red shift hosting)
he_IL Hebrew work in progress Yaron Shahrabani
hu_HU Hungarian work in progress Paul
zh_TW Chinese (Traditional) work in progress James Chien (Intelligent Internet Solution Corp.)
??? feel like contributing?
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How to load a language-specific login page?

If a login page supports locale xx_YY you can request the login page in that locale xx_YY by appending the string "?locale=xx_YY" to the default login URL.
Example: the URL https://demo.opencrx.org/opencrx-core-CRX/Login.jsp?locale=de_CH directly loads the German login page.

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https://www.crixp.com/ https://www.openmdx.org/