CRM implementation functional specification
This specification defines how the CRM will be configured, integrated, tested and introduced for the wholesaler's 40 sales representatives at three locations. It is based on the customer's requirements for lead and quote management, mobile visit reports, campaigns, ERP integration, migration from Excel and Outlook, and role-based permissions.
1. Introduction
The customer's requirements specification is the basis for implementing a central CRM for sales and customer-related activities. This document describes the contractor's implementation approach, system configuration, interfaces, migration, security, testing and operations.
The objective is to provide one controlled system for leads, quotes, customer interactions, visits and campaigns while exchanging customer master data and revenue information with the ERP system.
- Scope: 40 sales representatives at three company locations.
- Primary users: sales representatives, sales management, marketing, CRM administration and management reporting users.
- The ERP remains the authoritative source for customer master data and revenue figures (assumption).
2. Solution overview and system architecture
The CRM will be implemented as a centrally hosted, browser-based application with responsive pages for desktop and mobile use. A mobile progressive web application or equivalent mobile client will provide visit reporting and offline storage for field sales activities (assumption).
The solution will use a relational CRM data store, a separate integration layer and scheduled or event-based synchronisation with the ERP. The application, database and integration components will be hosted in the European Economic Area (assumption).
The CRM data model will contain organisations, contacts, leads, quotes, activities, visits, campaigns, tasks, documents and audit records. Customer records received from the ERP will be linked using the ERP customer number as the primary external key.
- Browser access for office users and responsive mobile access for sales representatives.
- Integration layer isolates the CRM from the ERP protocol and permits retry and error handling.
- Role-based access will control functions and visibility by user, team and location.
- The solution is sized for 40 sales representatives and at least 20 additional CRM users (assumption).
3. Implementation of the functional requirements
The following requirements define the functional implementation. Each requirement includes a reference to the corresponding customer requirement and a testable acceptance condition.
- Configuration will be performed in a development, test and production environment (assumption).
- Business status values, mandatory fields and validation rules will be documented in the configuration workbook.
- The customer will provide representative test data and nominate key users from all three locations.
Lead capture and qualification
The CRM will provide lead records with source, organisation or person, contact details, responsible sales representative, location, status, expected value and next action. Status changes will follow a configured workflow from new to qualified, disqualified or converted.
Acceptance: A tester creates a lead, completes mandatory fields, changes it through each permitted status and verifies that invalid status changes are rejected and the next action is visible.
Lead conversion and follow-up
A qualified lead will be convertible into an existing or new customer, contact and sales opportunity without duplicate creation. The conversion will retain the lead source, activities and responsible user.
Acceptance: A test lead is converted to an existing customer and a new contact; the tester verifies that the original lead history and assigned representative remain available.
Quote management
Users will create quote records linked to a customer and opportunity, with quote number, date, value, validity, responsible representative and status. The configured statuses will include draft, submitted, accepted, rejected and expired (assumption).
Acceptance: A tester creates a quote, changes it through the permitted statuses and confirms that the quote is searchable from the customer and opportunity record.
Mobile visit reports
Sales representatives will create visit reports on mobile devices with customer, date, participants, purpose, notes, result, follow-up tasks and attachments. The report will be linked to the customer timeline after submission.
Acceptance: Using a supported mobile device, a tester creates and submits a visit report with a follow-up task and attachment and verifies the complete record on the customer timeline.
Offline mobile operation
The mobile client will allow a representative to draft visit reports without a network connection and synchronise them automatically after connectivity is restored. Conflicts will be flagged for user resolution rather than silently overwritten.
Acceptance: A tester disables connectivity, creates and saves a visit report, restores connectivity and verifies synchronisation, confirmation and conflict handling.
Campaign management
The CRM will manage campaigns with name, objective, owner, target segment, start and end date, status and response outcome. Target lists will be generated from customer, contact or lead criteria and campaign activities will be linked to the selected records.
Acceptance: A tester creates a campaign, defines a target filter, adds matching contacts, records a response and verifies the campaign membership and outcome.
ERP customer master synchronisation
The integration will import and update customer master records from the ERP, including ERP customer number, name, address, contact details, status and assigned sales information where available. The ERP customer number will prevent duplicate creation, and CRM users will not overwrite ERP-controlled fields.
Acceptance: A test customer is created and amended in the ERP test interface; the tester runs synchronisation and verifies creation, update, key matching and protection of ERP-controlled fields in the CRM.
ERP revenue integration
Revenue figures will be imported from the ERP and displayed on the customer record and approved CRM reports by defined period. Revenue values will be read-only in the CRM and will show the source date or last synchronisation timestamp.
Acceptance: A test revenue record is changed in the ERP test source; after synchronisation the CRM shows the same value, period and synchronisation timestamp and does not permit manual editing.
Excel migration
Excel files supplied by the customer will be inventoried, mapped to the CRM data model, validated and imported through a controlled migration process. Duplicate organisations and contacts will be identified using customer number, email address and configured name/address matching rules.
Acceptance: The contractor imports a signed-off sample and final migration file, produces an error and duplicate report, and reconciles record counts and mandatory fields against the approved migration protocol.
Outlook migration
Contacts and agreed historical activities from Outlook will be extracted in a supported format, mapped to CRM contacts and activities, and imported with source and import date. Existing Outlook records that cannot be mapped will be listed for manual review (assumption).
Acceptance: The tester imports a representative Outlook export, verifies contact matching and activity dates, and confirms that unmapped records appear in the migration exception report.
Roles and permissions
The CRM will provide separate permission sets for sales representative, sales manager, marketing user, management read-only user, CRM administrator and integration service account (assumption). Permissions will cover create, read, update, delete, export, administration and access to ERP-controlled data.
Acceptance: The customer executes a role test matrix with one test account per role and verifies permitted and rejected actions, including access to records owned by another user and another location.
Customer activity history and search
Users will be able to search organisations, contacts, leads, quotes and visits using configured key fields and view a chronological customer activity history. Search results and timelines will respect the user's permissions.
Acceptance: A tester searches by customer number, name and email, opens the customer timeline and verifies that restricted records are neither displayed nor returned in search results.
4. Implementation of the non-functional requirements
The non-functional requirements define measurable technical targets for the initial implementation. Targets marked as assumptions must be confirmed before final design approval.
- The application will be monitored centrally for availability, errors, synchronisation failures and security events.
- Performance tests will use a representative data volume agreed during the design phase (assumption).
Performance
For normal operation with up to 60 concurrent users (assumption), 95% of standard page and search requests will complete within three seconds, excluding file uploads and external ERP response time.
Acceptance: A load test with the agreed representative dataset and 60 concurrent sessions records response times and confirms that at least 95% meet the three-second target.
Availability
The production CRM will provide at least 99.5% monthly availability, excluding agreed maintenance windows, with maintenance announced at least two working days in advance (assumption).
Acceptance: The operations team verifies the monthly availability report, monitoring configuration and treatment of approved maintenance windows.
Authentication and access security
Access will use individual accounts, strong password controls and multi-factor authentication for privileged users; single sign-on for all users will be enabled if the customer's identity provider supports it (assumption). Sessions will expire after a configurable period of inactivity.
Acceptance: Security testing verifies unique accounts, MFA for administrators, session expiry, failed-login handling and enforcement of the role matrix.
Backup and recovery
The CRM database will be backed up at least daily, with encrypted backups retained for 30 days and a target recovery point of 24 hours and recovery time of eight hours (assumption).
Acceptance: The contractor performs a documented restore test and verifies that the restored system meets the agreed recovery point and recovery time targets.
Auditability
The system will log authentication events, permission changes, ERP synchronisation results, migration actions and changes to key customer, lead and quote fields. Logs will be protected from ordinary user modification and retained for 12 months (assumption).
Acceptance: The tester performs representative create, update, permission and synchronisation actions and verifies that the responsible account, timestamp, action and result appear in the audit records.
Operational monitoring
Monitoring will generate alerts for application failures, failed logins above threshold, integration errors, delayed synchronisation and backup failures. Alerts will be sent to the contractor's support mailbox and the customer's nominated administrators (assumption).
Acceptance: The operations test deliberately triggers each monitored failure type and verifies alert generation, escalation and closure documentation.
5. Interfaces and migration concept
The ERP interface will be implemented through an adapter in the integration layer. The adapter will support the ERP's confirmed protocol, such as REST, SOAP or scheduled secure file exchange (assumption), and will provide field mapping, validation, retry, duplicate prevention and error logging.
Customer master data will be synchronised from the ERP at least every 30 minutes during business hours (assumption). Revenue data will be synchronised daily unless the ERP supports an event-based interface. Failed records will remain in an integration queue and will not block valid records.
The initial migration will use a staging area. Source files will be inventoried, copied to protected storage, mapped, cleansed, deduplicated, loaded into a test tenant and reconciled before the production load. Excel files will be supplied as XLSX or CSV and Outlook data as Microsoft Graph export, CSV or PST according to the confirmed source format (assumption).
A full migration rehearsal will be completed before the cut-over. The final load will include a freeze window for source changes, a signed record-count reconciliation and an exception list for records requiring manual correction.
- Integration direction: ERP to CRM for customer master data and revenue; CRM to ERP only if a separate requirement is approved (assumption).
- External keys: ERP customer number, contact email where available, and source record identifiers.
- Interface security: encrypted transport, service account authentication, least-privilege permissions and IP restrictions where supported.
- Migration deliverables: field mapping, cleansing rules, duplicate report, migration log, reconciliation report and rollback copy.
6. Data protection and IT security
The customer will remain the data controller and the service provider will act as processor under a data processing agreement, unless the parties document a different legal role. Processing will be limited to the CRM purposes defined by the customer, with documented instructions and subprocessor controls.
Personal data will be minimised to the fields required for sales, customer service, visits, quotes and campaigns. The customer will define retention periods; until confirmed, inactive leads and obsolete activities will be retained for 24 months and then reviewed for deletion (assumption).
Data will be encrypted in transit using TLS 1.2 or higher and encrypted at rest using the hosting platform's managed encryption (assumption). Access will be based on least privilege, individual accounts, role separation and periodic access reviews.
The implementation will support data subject access, rectification, deletion, restriction and export requests through controlled administrator procedures. Campaign use will respect documented consent, objection and suppression requirements.
The contractor will maintain a processing record for the service, incident notification procedure, subprocessor list, backup protection, vulnerability management and secure deletion procedure. A data protection impact assessment will be performed if the customer's assessment identifies a high risk.
- Administrative access requires MFA and is limited to named personnel.
- Production data will not be copied to development environments unless anonymised or expressly approved.
- Security incidents will be recorded and escalated to the customer without undue delay, with a target notification within 24 hours of confirmation (assumption).
- Access rights will be reviewed at least quarterly and when a user changes role or leaves the organisation.
7. Test and acceptance concept
Testing will be risk-based and traceable to the requirements in this document. The contractor will maintain a requirements-to-test matrix and record test evidence, defects, retests and approvals.
Testing will cover configuration, interfaces, migration, mobile use, permissions, security controls, performance and operational procedures. Customer key users will perform user acceptance testing with representative scenarios from all three locations.
- Unit and configuration tests by the contractor before customer testing.
- Interface tests using ERP test records, including valid data, duplicates, missing mandatory fields and failed connections.
- Migration rehearsal with record counts, duplicate checks and exception reconciliation.
- Cross-browser and mobile tests on the customer's agreed devices and operating systems.
- Role, authorisation and security tests, including prohibited access and export attempts.
- User acceptance test with lead, quote, visit, campaign, migration and ERP scenarios.
- Production cut-over checklist, smoke test and rollback decision criteria.
Acceptance criteria
The system will be accepted when all MUST requirements have passed, no critical or high-severity defects remain open, migration reconciliation is signed off and the customer has approved the operational documentation and training completion.
Acceptance: The project manager reviews the signed test matrix, defect list, migration report, administrator handover and customer acceptance form.
8. Project phases, roles and schedule
The initial delivery is planned for approximately 12 weeks from confirmed project start to production rollout (assumption). The schedule will be refined after the ERP interface and migration sources have been inspected.
The contractor will manage the project, configuration, integration, migration, testing and training. The customer will provide decisions, data, access to the ERP and Outlook/Excel sources, key users and timely acceptance.
- Weeks 1-2: discovery workshops, process confirmation, role model, data inventory, ERP interface assessment and solution design.
- Weeks 3-5: CRM configuration, data model, workflows, mobile visit forms, campaign setup and permission model.
- Weeks 4-7: ERP adapter development, interface testing, migration mapping, cleansing rules and initial migration rehearsal.
- Weeks 8-9: end-to-end testing, performance and security testing, administrator training and user acceptance preparation.
- Week 10: pilot with selected users at one location, defect correction and final migration rehearsal.
- Weeks 11-12: rollout to all three locations, final migration, production smoke test and two-week hypercare (assumption).
Project governance
The project will use a weekly status meeting, an issue and decision log, a change request process and formal approvals for design, migration readiness, user acceptance and production go-live.
Acceptance: The customer confirms the governance calendar, named decision makers and approval records for each project gate.
9. Operations, support and maintenance
After go-live, the contractor will provide application support, integration monitoring, defect correction and release management. The customer will nominate first-level support contacts and a CRM administrator for user administration and standard configuration.
Support requests will be recorded in a service desk. Severity, response and restoration targets will be agreed before go-live; until confirmed, the following targets apply as an assumption: critical incidents response within one hour, high incidents within four business hours, normal incidents within one business day.
The contractor will perform regular platform updates, security patch assessment, backup verification, monitoring review and interface reconciliation. Changes affecting workflows, permissions, integrations or migration logic will be tested before production deployment.
Operational documentation will include the system overview, role matrix, administrator guide, interface mapping, migration report, backup and recovery procedure, monitoring runbook, support contacts and known limitations.
- Daily review of ERP synchronisation and migration or integration error queues.
- Monthly operational report covering availability, incidents, synchronisation failures, backup status and completed changes.
- Quarterly access review with the customer and immediate removal of leavers.
- Planned maintenance will be announced through the agreed customer communication channel.
- A knowledge transfer session will be held for the customer's CRM administrators and first-level support.
To clarify before use
These points and assumptions are open in the example — your initiative needs to settle them.
- Which ERP product and version are in use, which interface protocols are available, and which fields, revenue periods and synchronisation frequency are required?
- Will the CRM be cloud-hosted in the European Economic Area, hosted by the customer or deployed on premises, and which identity provider is available for single sign-on?
- Which quote functions are required beyond status and value, including product catalogue, pricing, quote document generation, approval workflow and ERP transfer?
- Which campaign channels are required, such as email, telephone or external marketing automation, and how will consent and suppression lists be provided?
- Which mobile devices and operating systems are used by the 40 sales representatives, and how long must offline data remain available?
- What Excel files, Outlook exports, record volumes, historical periods and data owners are available, and which records must be migrated?
- Should users see records across all three locations, only their own location, or a combination of team and management access?
- What final acceptance date, support hours, severity targets, retention periods and customer responsibilities should be contractually agreed?