CMD Spec

Existing CRM System

Currently CMD operates two websites: PRWatch.org (powered by Drupal) and Sourcewatch.org (powered by Mediawiki). Both websites share a single user database (hosted on our Drupal site), so a user who registers an account on PRWatch.org also creates an account with the same username and password on Sourcewatch.org and vice versa. However, we would like to streamline this system somewhat and make it more user-friendly. Ideally, we would like to achieve single sign-on. (Although the same user account works on both sites, currently users have to log in separate on each site.) (This is probably outside the scope of CiviCRM, but including it for completeness.)

Separately from our public websites, we use Democracy in Action (DIA) as our contact relationship management system and also to record donations from our supporters. Currently we have 38,000 contacts stored in DIA and are using it for tasks including:

• Email blasting
• Petition campaigns (for example, to members of Congress)
• Online donation processing
• Recording offline donations

We would like to migrate away from DIA. We would also (potentially) like to combine our DIA CRM database with our website user database on CiviCRM so that all of our contacts are maintained within a single CiviCRM repository and we can avoid having redundant information systems.

Requirements

• Email Blasts
  We send out a weekly email bulletin called "The Weekly Spin," which goes out in both plain-text and HTML-formatted versions to roughly 23,000 subscribers. From our websites, recipients are able to specify whether they want the HTML or plain-text version.

Currently our process for generating the email bulletin consists of first compiling the HTML and plain-text versions of the email. We do this outside DIA, using a custom Drupal module that we have developed. A human editor reviews the HTML and plain-text versions and sends a test copy to herself to ensure that the formatting is correct before sending out the finalized email.

We would like to replicate this functionality within CiviCRM, presumably using CiviMail.
One feature that DIA provides (and we don't fully understand) is spam blacklist management. DIA does some screening to ensure that mailings which we send through them do not result in complaints that could result in our ending up on a spam blacklist. We need to ensure that we are similarly protected once we begin sending out mailings ourselves using CiviCRM.

• Donation Reporting
  Queries report ONLY on donations made through the online processor; we receive many donations through the mail which, in turn, are hand entered into the CRM Generating reports for ALL donations, including those that are hand entered, is done in a couple of less than ideal ways:
• Dump the entire donations table into a .csv or .xls file and re-open in Excel or Filemaker Pro and generate reports from these applications
  • Reports built this way cannot be reused or extended and have to be rebuilt from scratch every time you want a similar report
• Build a custom report using DIA's advanced reporting feature
  • Reports built this way are reusable and extensible but this method of reporting is difficult to use for non-techie end-users
    • Uses complicated table joins
    • If an advanced report uses custom fields, the user first has to figure out what internal names like BOOL1, VARCHAR1 refer to in order to build the report; e.g., many times we need to know how many major donors, donor prospects, or sustainers we have – all of which are custom fields with internal names assigned to them

Wish List

• Offline Synchronization
  Before adopting DIA, we used a Filemaker Pro database to manage our contact information. Our staff uses Apple computers and also has experience using Address Book for personal contact management. We would like to be able to synchronize information from Address Book with CiviCRM so that we could (1) add contacts from Address Book on individual staff members' computers to the CiviCRM database; and (2) export lists of names from CiviCRM to individual computers for specialized purposes, such as compiling a list of journalists to contact with a story idea, or printing mailing labels.

We could also be interested in synchronizing data between CiviCRM and a Filemaker Pro database such as eBase, both for backup purposes and to enable access to our contact list when we don't have internet access.

(VCard / Microformat import / export?)

• Online Petitions / Campaigns

Goals for Developer's BootCamp

• Familiarize ourselves with CiviCRM Universe/Lingo
• Figure out best practices for migrating/importing our DIA data
• Best practices for server management
• Streamline workflow for Email Blasting
• Streamline workflow for offline donation data entry