Exciting Product Improvements: User Interface Redesign Starting January

We’re thrilled to share that the Sugar platform is going through a User Interface (UI) redesign!  The redesign will launch for our Cloud products beginning in January with the 12.3 upgrade and for our on-premises customers beginning in April of 2023 with the 13.0 upgrade. The redesign is part of our standard upgrade process and is included at no charge to you. This release goes beyond a simple refresh of the look-and-feel with a customer-inspired, research-based user interface and navigation that’s designed to increase productivity and accelerate user adoption of the Sugar platform.  

What’s Changing 

Sugar Sell, Serve, and Enterprise 

Key focus areas for the redesign include 1) further unifying the user interface across the entire platform to support Sugar’s “One Platform” message, 2) simplifying the layout to reduce noise, 3) making the UI more familiar with other popular business productivity apps, 4) bringing “Search” (the most-used Sugar feature) to the top-center of the page, and 5) increasing the amount of visual real estate on the page. 

The newly redesigned UI will move the current “Mega Menu” over to a new, modern left-hand navigation bar using intuitive icons. It will also preserve the sub-menu structure so that you can maintain your existing know-how to navigate the platform. Understanding that you anticipate the alignment of the design with other tools you use daily, these updates will make Sugar more intuitive and comfortable. We heard that the average user uses three modules regularly, so by limiting the top navigation elements in the left navigation, we’re reducing noise and designing an application built for every day.  

Sugar Market 

Inspired and approved by customers, the UI redesign streamlines your marketing automation experience by serving up the latest and greatest Sugar Market features, making it easy to find what you need quickly. By 1) consolidating feature modules by 75%, 2) migrating the navigation to the left-hand side for more working space, 3) reorganizing top features, and 4) making the search bar more prominent, we are providing customers with a more modern, streamlined, and easy-to-use experience that makes it faster to learn and train new users on Sugar Market.   

Benefits to Customers 

The optimized graphics and streamlined navigation align with Sugar’s established promise to “make the hard things easy.” This redesign: 

1. Addresses key customer feedback. 
2. Supports platform adoption and productivity with research-based UI improvements. 
3. Provides a more cohesive UI structure across the platform. 
4. Presents a cleaner, simplified interface that more closely resembles other modern UIs.  

Release Timelines 

Sugar will release the new left-hand UI to Sell and Serve customers starting with the standard upgrade process on January 17 with a targeted completion of March 15. We plan to upgrade the Sugar Market UI on January 23. Enterprise on-premises customers will receive the new UI as a part of the 13.0 download package during the annual release in April 2023.  

How Should I Prepare? 

As is our custom, we will upgrade your Sell/Serve sandbox seven days before we upgrade your production environment. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the new UI before we upgrade your production instance. If you want more than the standard seven-day period for additional testing or need an alternative upgrade date, open a ticket with support by emailing support@sugarcrm.com, and we will be happy to help. Upgrades must start no later than March 15, 2023. For Sugar Market, upgrades will occur automatically on January 23. Sugar will provide training and preparation materials during Release Week to help ease the transition to the new UI. 

Get a Preview 

• Watch the video preview of the Sugar Sell, Serve, and Market UI redesign. 
• Explore the newly redesigned UI and understand the benefits in an interactive way. 
• Experience the Demo Instance in a read-only environment using these instructions. 
  • Please note, this demo instance was disabled on January 31, 2023, as we have officially gone live with the new UI Redesign as part of our 12.3 release. If you are a developer looking for technical details on the UI Redesign, visit here.  If you are a customer on Sugar Cloud and want to see the new UI, you can request that your sandbox environment be updated by emailing our Support team at support@sugarcrm.com with your request. For any additional questions, please contact your Sugar representative or authorized Sugar Partner.

Get Help and Learn More 

• Get answers to your questions using the FAQ 
• Review the changes in more detail with this one-page overview 
• Keep an eye out for invitations to learn more and ask questions at our regional live forums 

Join Us Live

Learn More in Your Native Language 

• Deutsche: SugarCRM Produkt-Update: Ein neues Design mit mehr Süße 
• Español: Actualización del producto SugarCRM: un nuevo aspecto más dulce 
• Français: Mise à jour produit SugarCRM: un nouveau look et une touche de douceur 
• Italiano: Aggiornamento del prodotto SugarCRM: un nuovo look con un tocco di dolcezza in più 

All these enhancements are building upon Sugar’s frictionless environment and accelerating our brand promise of letting the platform do the work! We cannot wait to roll out this exciting UI redesign to all of you. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact your partner or Sugar representative.