Exe-CRM — Modern CRM Built to Replace vTiger

The Brief

After years of customising and maintaining vTiger CRM for a long-standing client, the platform hit its ceiling. Field limits per module, inflexible workflow engines, and an increasingly fragile upgrade path meant more time was spent working around the system than building on it. The client needed a purpose-built CRM that fit their actual business processes without compromise.

The new system needed to replicate the functionality they relied on — contacts, organisations, deals, tickets, quotes, invoices — while adding capabilities vTiger couldn’t support: full-text search across all records, a visual workflow builder, proper campaign management, and a modular architecture where features could be toggled per deployment.

The Approach

We designed a modular CRM framework that could serve as both a specific client solution and a reusable foundation. Each functional area — contacts, deals, tickets, campaigns, invoicing — is a toggleable module that can be enabled or disabled per installation. Custom fields are first-class entities that administrators can add to any module without developer involvement.

Meilisearch provides sub-50ms full-text search across all CRM entities — a capability that vTiger’s built-in search couldn’t match at scale. Redis and Laravel Horizon handle background jobs for bulk operations, email sending, and data imports.

The Build

The contact and organisation management system supports the relationship structures that vTiger forced into generic containers. Hierarchical relationships between organisations, role-based contact linking, and a complete activity timeline per record replace vTiger’s flat contact-account model.

The visual workflow builder was the most ambitious module. Built with React Flow embedded into the Laravel application via an Inertia island, it provides a drag-and-drop canvas where administrators create automation rules: “when a deal reaches Proposal stage, send this email template and create a follow-up task for the account manager.” Workflows execute via Laravel’s queue system with retry logic and failure notification.

The deals pipeline uses a Kanban view with drag-and-drop stage transitions. Each stage can have required fields, automated actions, and win probability weighting for forecasting. The ticketing system follows a similar pattern with configurable status workflows and SLA tracking.

Email and SMS campaigns support segmented contact lists, template management with merge fields, sending via queue with rate limiting, and engagement tracking (opens, clicks, replies). Campaign analytics show funnel performance and per-contact engagement history.

The homecare module is an optional vertical extension that adds eMAR (electronic medication administration records), seizure tracking with severity classification, and periodic case review workflows. This demonstrates the modular architecture — a specialised vertical built on the generic CRM foundation.

A REST API with Laravel Sanctum authentication allows third-party integrations. Sharing rules provide record-level access control beyond role-based permissions — specific records can be shared with specific users or teams with read, write, or owner-level access.

The Result

The migration from vTiger eliminated the maintenance burden that had been consuming increasing developer time. Feature development velocity improved immediately — new capabilities that would have taken weeks of workaround implementation in vTiger are built in days against a clean, purpose-built schema.

Full-text search transformed how the client’s team uses the system. Finding any record across any module in under a second replaced the clunky, module-specific search that vTiger provided. The workflow builder gave administrators self-service automation that previously required developer involvement for every rule change.