Changes between Version 1 and Version 2 of projects/brecht-civicrm

Timestamp:

Dec 23, 2008, 5:41:01 PM (15 years ago)

Author:

Jamie McClelland

Comment:

--

projects/brecht-civicrm

@@ -1 +1 @@
 = Considerations for the Brecht Forum re Moving to Civicrm =
 
-This project is being discussed in ticket #1639
+This project is being discussed in ticket #1639.
+
+A related project is the [wiki:projects/crm_review CRM review project]. In particular, the [wiki:projects/crm_review/usecases use cases] are relevant.
 
 == OBJECTIVES ==
@@ -48 +50 @@
 ''Q. I’m assuming that civicrm would be simply another feature of our website, among others and be themed, for example: Could the events be displayed just as they are on our current site?''
 
+A. Yes. CiviCRM is a Drupal module and works very nicely with Drupal, allowing you to publish things from your database to your web site using your existing theme.
+
 ''Q. The documentation says that the civicvent component is good for groups that have one or two big events per year. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be good for many events – like we have—but then why would they say that? ''
+
+A. I'm not sure why the documentation says that. I have some ideas though. The events module is pretty heavy duty. It does a lot of stuff, and can be over kill for most small events. On the other hand, I the user interface for setting up events is well written. Although it does take you through five screens, most of the defaults are very sane. So - I think you could effectively use it for Brecht Events.
 
 ''Q. Subscribers make monthly or quarterly donations. Both paypal and our other merchant service provider allow for recurring payments to be charged automatically—I understand that paypal even send out notices to donors when a card expires and helps them update the record. How does civicrm deal with recording recurring payments? It appears to me that that page would have to be customized somehow to function the way we do.''
 
+A. Not sure. Anyone else? I would be surprised if CiviCRM didn't have similar functionality.
+
 ''Q. Re LOGIN: As I remember, one barrier to going with civicrm when we first switched to drupal was that it appeared that everyone had to log in to the site. It appears from the documentation now that people can contribute and register for events without having to login first, but how does that work if they are already a contact? Will they have to enter address details each time they register or donate?''
+
+A. Not sure here either. Although I do know that CiviCRM has good import/export features between contacts and Drupal users. With Paper Tiger, I've setup the ubercart module for purchasing videos (since CiviCRM doesn't have a merchandise capability). Everything works very smoothly. Anonymous users who make purchases are (behind the scenes) given Drupal accounts (if they choose an email address that already exists, they get an error message and have to either use a different email or login to their existing account). CiviCRM automatically imports these new users and displays the items they have purchased. We're still [http://mayfirst.org/trac/pttv/query?status=new&status=assigned&status=reopened&milestone=Develop+improved+contacts+management+system working out the kinks], but over all it's going quite nicely.
 
 ''Q. Filemaker has a “manage database” feature that makes it easy to see the database structure, tables, fields, relationships, etc. -- is this possible in civicrm??
 Would it be possible, once data is all in one system, to use filemaker as a front end for the contact info as we use it now? The only areas that would be “public” on the site would be events and pages for online donations and subscriptions,''
 
+A. Have you ever used phpMyAdmin? That is a web-based tool for looking at the database structure. As for accessing your data from a FileMaker front-end, I believe that is possible. MySQL has a well supported and free [http://www.mysql.com/products/connector/odbc/ ODBC driver]. I think Filemaker can talk ODBC.
+