[consulting] CRM Questions

[Matt Chapman]

Sam Cohen wrote:
 > I've been getting more and more requests for CRM integration.  Does
 > anyone know if anyone has written a good article/comparison on the
 > various CRM options as they relate to Drupal, particularly comparing
 > CiviCRM to the others. (or does anyone want to share their experience
 > here)
 >
 > It would also be good to know if anyone recommends creating CRM
 > functionality in Drupal with CCK/Views instead instead of integrating.


CiviCRM now has Views2 integration, which is very cool. The Organic
Groups integration & role syncing are also features that you're unlikely
to find in other CRMs which are less Drupal-aware.

If you want to get up & running with Membership/Event/Donor/Activity
management quickly, and you're happy with the way things work out of the
box, CiviCRM is excellent. If you're going to need a lot of integration
with existing Drupal modules, consider rolling your own CRM with CCK/Views.

CiviCRM is noticeably more difficult to customize and extend as compared
to Drupal. It can be done; there's an extensive API and a few hooks, but
they are buggy & the documentation is sometimes just wrong. We have to
fix some bug in the API code almost every time we write a new hook for
CiviCRM.

Also, in case you're not aware, CiviCRM is not a Drupal module in the
proper sense; it does not use Drupal's DB abstraction (->PEAR:DB), Forms
API (->QuickForm), theming layers (->Smarty), nodes, etc.

Permissioning is also complex (but powerful!), as you'll need to
carefully configure the right mix of settings between Drupal's
permissions and CiviCRM's own ACLs in order to get the intended
security. I regularly consult with clients who've accidentally opened up
private data to the world because they did not understand the
interactions between the two sets of permission controls.

I'm not trying to talk you out of it; CiviCRM is an excellent tool in 
many respects. But save yourself some frustration by going in with your 
eyes open, and not expecting things to be done "The Drupal Way". On the 
plus side, since it's local and AGPL, you'll have a lot more ultimate 
control than you will with Salesforce.

Best,

Matt Chapman
Ninjitsu Web Development
http://www.NinjitsuWeb.com