🧰Intro to Sugar Studio: Quick Wins for Beginners

Welcome to your first step in customizing SugarCRM like a pro. Studio is one of the most powerful tools in Sugar—no coding required. In this tutorial, we’ll cover:

• What Studio is

• How to customize fields, layouts, and labels

• A beginner-friendly customization you can do today

🔍 What is Sugar Studio?

Studio is a built-in, admin-facing interface in SugarCRM that lets you:

• Add custom fields (text, dropdowns, dates, etc.)

• Reorder layouts and rearrange field placements

• Rename modules and fields to fit your business terms

• Create relationships between modules

Think of it as your WYSIWYG toolkit for tailoring Sugar to your business needs—without writing code.

🛠️ Customizing Sugar with Studio

Let’s walk through a simple customization: Adding a new “Client Type” dropdown to the Accounts module.

Step 1: Navigate to Studio

1. Log into Sugar as an Admin.

2. Go to Admin > Studio.

3. Select Accounts from the module list.

Step 2: Create a New Dropdown Field

1. Click Fields.

2. Click Add Field.

3. Choose:

   • Data Type: Dropdown

   • Field Name: client_type

   • Display Label: Client Type

   • Dropdown List: Create new list (e.g., client_type_list) with options:

     • Prospect

     • Customer

     • Partner

     • Former

4. Click Save.

Step 3: Add the Field to the Layout

1. Still inside Accounts, go to Layouts > Record View.

2. Drag your new “Client Type” field into a visible row.

3. Click Save & Deploy.

Step 4: Test It

1. Go to any existing Account record.

2. You should now see the Client Type dropdown available and ready for use.

✅ That’s it! You’ve added a custom field and deployed it—all within a few minutes.

🧪 Pro Tip: Use Field-Level Access

If different users (like Sales vs. Support) don’t need to see your new field, use Role Management to hide it per role:

Admin > Role Management > [Role] > Accounts > Field-Level Access

🚀 What’s Next?

Now that you’ve made your first customization, try:

• Adding dependent dropdowns

• Reordering tabs and panels for cleaner layout

• Renaming modules (e.g., Accounts → Clients)

💬 Want Help?

Reply in the comments with your Studio questions—or suggest what you want to customize next!