February 5th Office Hours: SugarCRM PHP REST Client Introduction

11 Feb 2025

4 minute read time

On February 5th, we introduced the SugarCRM PHP REST Client, a powerful tool built by own Mike Russell . The PHP REST Client is widely used in our internal applications to interact with SugarCRM. Mike led the session and shared several examples of successful SugarCRM integrations using this tool.

Session Takeaways

Mike kicked off the discussion by explaining that this was not the first version of the client and outlining the reasons for implementing a brand-new version to align with an improved architecture. This new version is proven to work, as it is already used by Sugar's internal teams and applications.

An important point that Mike explained and Rafa emphasized was that this client tool is not something you install in Sugar as part of an MLP. Instead, it's a client designed to push/pull data externally from Sugar.

We then dove into the architecture, followed by one of the most exciting parts—code examples. Mike walked us through examples provided by the project, as well as some use cases brought up by the community.

One of the features I appreciated the most was the fluent code API. In the filter API example, we could easily understand and follow the code’s behavior without needing to write complex code or work with JSON or query strings. Mike demonstrated all of this live, making it incredibly clear.

Mike also showed us how to extend the client and create custom endpoints, highlighting how simple it is to use them in real-world scenarios. Additionally, the returned objects were strikingly similar to SugarBeans, making it easy for developers to work with.

The key takeaway from the session was that this is an open-source client tool designed to speed up development and simplify integration with Sugar. It is not a tool to be installed inside Sugar but rather an external facilitator that encapsulates Sugar objects. These objects can be manipulated and sent back to the server via endpoints. The tool is easily extendable to fit your needs and, most importantly, is open-source. We encourage the community to help improve it by submitting pull requests!