E-mail
The activities which have been carried out so far has been summarized below
Magic Bus
Met with Magic Bus with Deval and Mathew. Have had a look at their MIS system currently in use. The system has been developed using Access with reports. It is still under development. (It is over 2 years since development began).
Discussed with them intermediate steps to be taken between now and implementation of CiviCRM, which they all are very excited about. I am giving below the activities planned along with their status.
a. Creation of pdf newsletter
Alison wanted help in creating their monthly newsletter. We crated one for them for February. We then installed conversion software and trained the MagicBus Team to create a newsletter in word and convert the same to .pdf.
b. Online Newsletter Subscription
Based on Lobo's recommendation that they have an "Online Newsletter Subscription" on their website. The idea was immediately conveyed and discussed with Alison. After internal discussions, they agreed that it was a good idea. The same was implemented within 2 days of acceptance. All subscriptions now generate an email to . This has been operational since the past 1 1/2 month and they have started getting subscriptions through this system. The clients comment "Thanks so so much Claudian - I say the title page with the three newsletter options it looks great "
c. Communication Templates
Newsletters are currently PDF based and are very heavy. Have proposed 3 options that will be used.
1. Newsletter in html format available online
2. Newsletter in pdf format available online for download and printing.
3. Html e-mail with news in brief and links for the complete article pointing to the website.
The templates and the first set of pdf documents have been created. (2 newsletters ) Additionally html templates as well as e-mail newsletter formats have been created. Two of my colleagues (Bhavna and Sanjay) are going to MagicBus tomorrow to train their team on generating the required documents using the templates.
d. Mass Mailing System
Presently all communication, including newsletters are being sent linearly (1 at a time). We are developing a small mailing system that will automatically send the selected mail to the selected group. The system will use their current Access database, so that it becomes immediately usable.
It is proposed that the system will then be migrated to the CiviCRM System once the contact management system becomes functional.
Dasra
Website
Have update the website periodically, especially wrt the efforts being made by Deval and Neera for the Tsunami effort.
Prerana
We were to meet Preeti and Anagha (Prerana's designated IT person). However due to Neera being out of station and Preeti also travelling, we have been unable to meet them. We have once again scheduled a meeting for Wednesday. We will be implementing interim solutions that can lead towards their complete implementation of the CivCRM solution, once the modules are operational.
As of now, a 2 person team is working on the project, with inputs from the designers for the template, etc. They are presently building the e-mail solution that we hope to have completed in the next 2 weeks with the required customization.
Will send monthly reports and also interim reports when any significant activity takes place.
Regards
Claudian
