invitation to collaborate on developing a customized open source CRM system for ISKCON outreach follow-up

[Pancharatna dasa]

Dandavat pranams. Srila Prabhupada kijaya.

It seems that this group has been fairly inactive for some time, but I'm hoping there are still quite a few IT developers in the group that will receive this.

For the last couple of years I have been co-chairing the ISKCON GBC Outreach committee as part of the GBC's Strategic Planning Network. We have a broad agenda of service, but one of our top priorities is to serve our Society in developing systems for following up on contacts made through various forms of outreach like book distribution, festivals, and Temple visits. These systems would also integrate with online outreach through various ISKCON websites and social media.

We want to develop an online database system of CRM ( contact relationship management) coupled with MAS ( marketing automation systems). We want to do this based on a current open source CRM product like SugarCRM or CiviCRM. Either of these products would require extensive customization to meet our needs fully.

We are looking for volunteers to help us in this effort. Initially, the customization involves standard customizing procedures that come with the core framework. Later there may be some development in PHP or Javascript. We also need volunteers to help test the software implementation.

If anyone on this group is interested please respond to this post.

This is an exciting opportunity to utilize IT talents in the service of Srila Prabhupada. Please also let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

Your servant,

Pancharatna Das

[phanisvara das]

On Tuesday 29 Oct 2013 06:05:38 Pancharatna dasa wrote:
> We want to develop an online database system of CRM ( contact
> relationship management) coupled with MAS ( marketing automation
> systems). We want to do this based on a current open source CRM
> product like SugarCRM or CiviCRM. Either of these products would
> require extensive customization to meet our needs fully.
>
> We are looking for volunteers to help us in this effort. Initially,
> the customization involves standard customizing procedures that
> come with the core framework. Later there may be some development
> in PHP or Javascript.

if you want to go with an existing framework like drupal / CiviCRM, i
would strongly suggest to keep additional customization to a minimum,
if it can't be avoided completely.

drupal is on the verge of a major shift, from ver. 7 -> 8, which will
change a lot of the underlying structure and functionality. CiviCRM
generally stays with older drupal versions for a while, but
eventually will follow drupal's development.

any customizations you apply to the present drupal version (7) would
have to be completely re-done after the (eventually unavoidable)
switch to ver. 8, and even minor upgrades tend to work havoc on
heavily customized applications.

what type of customization are you looking for? mainly aesthetic
ones, or change the basic functionality?

if the first, forget it. isn't worth the effort; just accept the way
things look like. if the latter, perhaps it would be better to look
at a home-grown DB implementation, via a more general framework, like
symphony, django, or ROR.

and if there's no major change / customization, what's the need for
"IT developers" just to customize an off-the-shelf drupal/CiviCRM
installation?

--
ys phani.

[Amala Gaura dasa]

Hare Krishna

I have to agree with Phanisvara prabhu. Customizing an existing framework is a nightmare. It is better to stay within the frameworks bounds or do it yourself. 

I hesitate to get involved because I do not like PHP and I do not like CiviCRM or even Drupal. I was trying to help ISKCON Potomac when they had the unfortunate experience of attempting to switch to CiviCRM and had to go back to their paid software Donor Perfect.

I program in RoR and am fully comfortable with it. I think frameworks have advanced enough that basic CRUD apps (CRM's usually are) are pretty straightforward. Even databases now have support for arbritrary text fields (postgres) and you don't have to go with a nosql approach.

Regardless of what technology you go with I hope you don't get in trouble by customizing some framework to a point that you cannot move with the technology. It happens even in large corporations where they will get stuck with an old technology. My last company was struggling because they did customizations to the core of their framework and could not upgrade. Results in millions of dollars spent for them. The best thing is to make sure you are on a framework and technology that will move along with you. This is just echoing what Phanishvara prabhu is saying.

your servant,

amala gaura das

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[Pancharatna das]

Dandavat pranams. Srila Prabhupada kijaya.

Thank you for your comments. I agree with your warnings about customizing an open-source product, but the demands of the application we are thinking of would require a much larger budget (which we don't have) for a homegrown application. Plus would then be stuck with maintaining it all on our own. I tend to feel that problems with using open-source are often related to our lack of proper planning and staying on top of modifications, upgrades, etc.

There's also the option of using a hosted open-source environment, like Aquia for Drupal.

Amala Gaura prabhu, could you describe the difficulties that ISKCON Potomac had with CiviCRM? What version were they using?

In general we are leaning towards using SugarCRM as it is more oriented towards marketing and cultivation of contacts which is the core of a follow-up system.

Aside from the general customization of the core framework ( changing of terminology, adding fields, reports, etc.) any other more complicated customization would be in the form of add-on modules. We would not be attempting to customize the core.

Although the general customization might not require programming skills, it does require a general familiarity with IT frameworks and thus I thought that there might be some other devotees on this group that would be willing to volunteer some time for this.

Your servant,

Pancharatna dasa

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[phanisvara das]

On Tuesday 29 Oct 2013 19:42:28 Pancharatna das wrote:
> In general we are leaning towards using SugarCRM as it is more
> oriented towards marketing and cultivation of contacts which is
> the core of a follow-up system.

i've never really deployed a system with sugarCRM, but played around
with it extensively. i found it much harder to customize -- within
the framework, just fields, categories, etc. -- than CiviCRM.

one thing that comes to mind is that, after doing a lot of work, a
standard upgrade to sugarCRM obliviated all my cutomizations which
would have to be completely re-done, at which point i gave up on it.

that's been a while ago and they might have changed, but i don't
think so. i'm spending (wasting?) quite a bit of time in online tech
circles, and haven't hardly seen sugarCRM mentioned in the last few
years.

the main problem is setting up your database structure -- just the
principle, not any particular implementation -- so that you'll remain
happy with it. think out all the categories, sub-categories, their
relationships to each other, before starting the implementation.

that's the main problem i've had with any project (CDM, BRC) i've
been working with. ideas about what information to record, how it
relates to people, and how it's going to be used, keep changing.

i'm afraid that's a typical ISKCON situation, where revolving chairs
and different committees each have their own ideas.

as long as that keeps happening, the simplest solution, which
requires the least effort to set up and subsequently change again, is
the best, IMO.

as such drupal / CiviCRM provides the necessary tools, out of the
box, to accomodate pretty much anything you can think of in regards
to data structures and classification.

connecting it to some marketing software might require a little
customization effort, but that shouldn't be too bad. drupal provides
json and other remote services that any decent marketing package
should be able to use.

(personally i think that the terms "care" and "marketing" shouldn't
be used in the same sentence, but that's a different thing...)

--
ys phani.

[Bala Clark]

Hare Krishna Prabhus,

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupda.

I've not used any CRM but I have a lot of PHP and Javascript experience and for the last 2 years have been doing quite extensive Drupal customisations and module development for my day job at a large European government agency.

I can't opine on CiviCRM vs SugarCRM, but my 2cregarding customisations is that as long as they are kept simple and in the form of small independent modules they should be maintainable and upgradable between versions of Drupal. Dependence on third party modules should be kept to a minimum as they are often not ported between Drupal versions.

I will be happy to volunteer some time to the project once it gets started, it would be nice to get a more complete idea of what the use cases will be, who exactly will be using it, etc. 

Your servant,

Nanda Sunu dasa

--
ys phani.

[Sitapati das Joshua J Wulf]

Are you going to have one solution for all ISKCON Centres?

Is it going to be a hosted software as a service that centres can use with just a web browser and an internet connection?

We've been using MindBody Online and Constant Contact, two hosted pay-by-the-month SaaS solutions, for our lead tracking and customer relationship management. 

If I were to invest in developing software, I'd want to have a reference site that did something like that - used an existing solution effectively as a model/test, then evaluate whether it were cheaper to negotiate a global rate for the SaaS, or develop, deploy, and support an independent solution. 

- Sitapati

[phanisvara das]

On Wednesday 30 Oct 2013 08:00:45 Sitapati das Joshua J Wulf wrote:
> If I were to invest in developing software, I'd want to have a
> reference site that did something like that - used an existing
> solution effectively as a model/test, then evaluate whether it
> were cheaper to negotiate a global rate for the SaaS, or develop,
> deploy, and support an independent solution.

specially if you're looking at an acquia hosted solution. the first
hosting plan they show, apart from development setups, costs
U$250/month, and at that rate you're quickly looking at serious
money, which might be spent on developing your own solution instead.

that means that you'd have to clearly formulate your use case and
requirements so that some established development shop could provide
a realistic estimate.

--
ys phani.

[Pancharatna das]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 3:30 AM, Sitapati das Joshua J Wulf <sita...@worldsankirtan.net> wrote:

Are you going to have one solution for all ISKCON Centres?

The solution we hope to create is aimed at being useful for most centers, provided they are actively engaged in outreach and ready to do follow-up.

 

Is it going to be a hosted software as a service that centres can use with just a web browser and an internet connection?

Yes, or they could deploy it on their own server.

 

We've been using MindBody Online and Constant Contact, two hosted pay-by-the-month SaaS solutions, for our lead tracking and customer relationship management. 

If I were to invest in developing software, I'd want to have a reference site that did something like that - used an existing solution effectively as a model/test, then evaluate whether it were cheaper to negotiate a global rate for the SaaS, or develop, deploy, and support an independent solution. 

MIndBOdy Online has a lot of features that are specific to yoga studios which might not be incorporated. 

Though SugarCRM and CiviCRM provide the same functionality, Constant Contact and products like it provide some advantages for delivery on account of their relationships with AOL, Google, Yahoo etc. So we will have both standalone functionality and the capability to integrate with providers like Constant Contact.

One advantage of using SugarCRM is that they have both a paid and community (free) version. Since they are basically a commercial company the free version benefits from their investment in their paid for products.

Your servant,

Pancharatna dasa

[Petr Vacha]

On 30.10.2013 7:45 , phanisvara das wrote:
> On Wednesday 30 Oct 2013 08:00:45 Sitapati das Joshua J Wulf wrote:
>> If I were to invest in developing software, I'd want to have a
>> reference site that did something like that - used an existing
>> solution effectively as a model/test, then evaluate whether it
>> were cheaper to negotiate a global rate for the SaaS, or develop,
>> deploy, and support an independent solution.
> specially if you're looking at an acquia hosted solution. the first
> hosting plan they show, apart from development setups, costs
> U$250/month, and at that rate you're quickly looking at serious
> money, which might be spent on developing your own solution instead.

Hosting with Acquia will not solve issue of upgrading of custom modules
and their incompatibilities etc...

My personal experience with larger projects (those which need some
serious customization) is that in longer term it comes much cheaper and
comfortable to build custom app using Django or similar frameworks and
thus avoid crazy situation when half of modules which you depend on are
not upgraded for new version of your opensource app.



Your servant Prahlad Nrsimha das

[Vinod-bihari das]

Haribol dear Pancaratna Prabhu,

Dandavats. Jaya Srila Prabhupada.

Didn't read all the responses, just your post, but I'd suggest a SaaS solution. I did some implementations of CiviCRM (National Dutch Taekwondo Union, local government projects etc.) but something like Salesforce works just fine for midsize projects. It has a mature infrastructure and feature set; great ecosystem of third party apps to extend functionality. Downside is that it is expensive for larger deployments.

I could help with process design, testing and deployment.

Is there a business case for this project? 

ys,

Vinod