= CRM Use Cases = The following use cases are being used in the [wiki:projects/crm_review CRM review project]. == Database setup == These are steps that would be taken infrequently to get the database minimally configured for an organization * Define custom fields: * Simple custom field checkbox: Housing status (own/rent) * Drop down field: type of contact (Member, Ally, Other) * Define several groups: * All Members * Everyone in a given zip code == Data Entry == * An organizer returns from a meeting with a sign in sheet, listing 10 names with phone numbers, postal addresses and email addresses that need to be entered into the database * The meeting itself needs to be entered * One of the new contacts is a family member of an existing member (and they share the same house) * One person on the list has indicated that their phone is temporarily disconnected * All new entries should be coded to indicate that they were first contacted at the meeting * One of the members has paid their dues - they need to be entered and have their dues payment recorded * One of the members facilitated the meeting, which should be recorded * An organizing is making phone calls from a call sheet (see below). For several calls, they need to update the records with: * Best time to contact * Add/delete/edit information about number of kids, etc. * An organizer returns from a conference with the list of conference attendees and wants to add several organizations that they met at the conference: * Add an ally organization and two contacts from that organization, with one designated as the primary contact * Add a potential funder * Add a journalist that might be write favorable articles along with the topics of the articles they would write and the date and notes of the meeting they had with the organizer at the conference * A report from an online giving site has been sent with 5 donations. 2 are new donors and 3 are existing donors that need to be updated to reflect the new amounts == Searching and reporting == * Send mass email to everyone * Send email to everyone in a group * Generate phone list by group/arbitrary search criteria * Generate walk list by group/arbitrary search criteria * Generate mailing labels by group/arbitrary search criteria * Export records to spread sheet by group/arbitrary search criteria == Initial impressions == I was able to create new fields and new groups very easily. I was impressed with being able to create groups either based on picking individuals to add or based on a query (for dynamic groups). I got stuck with events. I wanted to add a meeting event. However, CiviEvent seems like over kill and, when I tried to add an activity of type meeting, I was only able to specify a single user. The ability to add meetings for multiple users [http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/CiviCRM+v2.0+(original+list) seems to have made it to a list of candidate features for 2.0], however, it doesn't seem to have made the cut. There's another [http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Activity+Data discussion about re-doing activities] but it doesn't seem to include the feature of multiple-users for a single activity. It still may be possible, but will require more searching around. Not a big deal but... my first instinct was to find the household I wanted to add a contact to, however, when I found the household and click relationships, I could only choose from existing contacts. Adding the contact first, then adding the contact to the household was the right way to do it. CiviCRM comes with a "source" field to indicate (I think) where you met the contact. In some cases, a drop down might be preferred to enforce data integrity, however, that could be added as a custom field. I wonder how to make a CiviCRM defined field go away?