[TW5] Using TW for CRM?
1,148 views
Skip to first unread message
Hegart Dmishiv
Mar 4, 2016, 12:33:32 PM3/4/16
to TiddlyWiki
Tzag everyone,
I see this question was raised back in 2008, and Jeremy Ruston mentioned it again in 2014. I'm planning to create a TW5-based CRM system as my Semester Project for the {{DesignWrite}} course. Is anyone doing / has done something similar? Does anyone have any specific tips or advice that I should take into consideration? I'd like to release my work back to the community, and I have no experience with creating "Editions", but I figure this might well result in one. Any advice would be appreciated.
Hegart.
I see this question was raised back in 2008, and Jeremy Ruston mentioned it again in 2014. I'm planning to create a TW5-based CRM system as my Semester Project for the {{DesignWrite}} course. Is anyone doing / has done something similar? Does anyone have any specific tips or advice that I should take into consideration? I'd like to release my work back to the community, and I have no experience with creating "Editions", but I figure this might well result in one. Any advice would be appreciated.
Hegart.
Hegart Dmishiv
Mar 5, 2016, 6:48:28 AM3/5/16
to tiddl...@googlegroups.com
I'm making a start on this project. I'll be drafting some mindmaps to help organise the structure of the tags, ViewTemplates, etc which will need to be created. Any input and advice will be very welcome.
The purpose of this project is to create a "Contact Relationship Management" (CRM) system for home users. This will be similar to "Customer Relationship Management" for business, but targeted instead at household contacts, such as insurance agents, govt departments, family members, etc.
The CRM system should be able to answer questions such as:
- "When did I last make contact with my distant cousin Jack, and what did we speak about then?"
- "According to this letter, my insurance premiums are going up. What were they previously?"
- "Who was it that I handed my IR12 tax form in to at Inland Revenue last month? They've lost it again!"
- "What was the cellphone number of that plumber we used last year?"
Tristan Kohl
Mar 12, 2016, 2:50:42 PM3/12/16
to TiddlyWiki
Hi Hegart,
this sounds super interesting, I am looking for a tool like this for ages but did not find something that fits my (small) private needs. Your first ideas sound very promising and I hope you will find a good start for this. Unfortunately is far beyond my JavaScript skills but I started learning by developing a simple budget app for my monthly expenses so maybe one day I will be capable of helping you out with this.
Cheers
Tristan
this sounds super interesting, I am looking for a tool like this for ages but did not find something that fits my (small) private needs. Your first ideas sound very promising and I hope you will find a good start for this. Unfortunately is far beyond my JavaScript skills but I started learning by developing a simple budget app for my monthly expenses so maybe one day I will be capable of helping you out with this.
Cheers
Tristan
Hegart Dmishiv
Mar 13, 2016, 3:51:46 AM3/13/16
to tiddl...@googlegroups.com, mye...@sunyit.edu
Hi Tristan,
Thanks for your interest in this project. This is something I've been thinking of for a long time now, and finally I sense that TiddlyWiki will be the ideal platform to make it happen. I'm not a programmer either, and was for a long time daunted by the prospect of having to code such a system from scratch, or at least having to mangle an open-source product such as CiviCRM to make it do what I want it to. Building it in TiddlyWiki will be so much easier than either of those options, I think. My Javascript skills definitely aren't the best, either.
Also, I'm happy to announce that I now have a collaborator / co-conspirator from amongst my fellow {{DesignWrite}} students to help with this project. Welcome to the TiddlyCRM team, Andrew Myers. We'll be working on this together for a {{DesignWrite}} courseware exercise, with the aim of submitting it for assessment as: "closing in on a finished product – that is, a project that is conceptualized as a whole, and delivered as best as possible." Once we have turned our exercise answers in for assessment, based on this project, we'd like to open TiddlyCRM wider, for further community involvement, testing, and improvement.
Until then, please do continue to submit suggestions and advice in this discussion thread. Part of the {[DesignWrite}} course is about writing hypertextually in a collaborative, open-source environment.
Hegart.
Thanks for your interest in this project. This is something I've been thinking of for a long time now, and finally I sense that TiddlyWiki will be the ideal platform to make it happen. I'm not a programmer either, and was for a long time daunted by the prospect of having to code such a system from scratch, or at least having to mangle an open-source product such as CiviCRM to make it do what I want it to. Building it in TiddlyWiki will be so much easier than either of those options, I think. My Javascript skills definitely aren't the best, either.
Also, I'm happy to announce that I now have a collaborator / co-conspirator from amongst my fellow {{DesignWrite}} students to help with this project. Welcome to the TiddlyCRM team, Andrew Myers. We'll be working on this together for a {{DesignWrite}} courseware exercise, with the aim of submitting it for assessment as: "closing in on a finished product – that is, a project that is conceptualized as a whole, and delivered as best as possible." Once we have turned our exercise answers in for assessment, based on this project, we'd like to open TiddlyCRM wider, for further community involvement, testing, and improvement.
Until then, please do continue to submit suggestions and advice in this discussion thread. Part of the {[DesignWrite}} course is about writing hypertextually in a collaborative, open-source environment.
Hegart.
Hegart Dmishiv
Mar 14, 2016, 3:19:22 PM3/14/16
to TiddlyWiki, mye...@sunyit.edu
Hi all,
There is now a publicly-viewable Trello board for TiddlyCRM, where Andrew and I will be working collaboratively on the project management for the initial stages of creating TiddlyCRM, up to at least submitting it as a {{DesignWrite}} semester project. You are invited to "look over our shoulders", so to speak, as we get this project started. Any feedback, advice, or suggestions would be welcome here in this discussion thread.
Kind regards,
Hegart.
There is now a publicly-viewable Trello board for TiddlyCRM, where Andrew and I will be working collaboratively on the project management for the initial stages of creating TiddlyCRM, up to at least submitting it as a {{DesignWrite}} semester project. You are invited to "look over our shoulders", so to speak, as we get this project started. Any feedback, advice, or suggestions would be welcome here in this discussion thread.
Kind regards,
Hegart.
Andrew Myers
Apr 4, 2016, 5:14:16 AM4/4/16
to TiddlyWiki
Tristan, all others interested.
The TiddlyCRM project is coming along quite nicely. The alpha development functionality portion is nearing a close.
The trello board has been updated to reflect this.
Any inquiries about this project can also be sent to tidd...@gmail.com. Hegart or myself will contact you as soon as we can!
Tristan Kohl
Apr 5, 2016, 3:20:59 AM4/5/16
to TiddlyWiki
Hi Andrew,
your progress on the trello board looks very promissing, I am looking forward for the first "release" of TiddlyCRM.
Regards
Tristan
your progress on the trello board looks very promissing, I am looking forward for the first "release" of TiddlyCRM.
Regards
Tristan
Hegart Dmishiv
Apr 21, 2016, 2:03:35 PM4/21/16
to tiddl...@googlegroups.com
Hi all,
I just wanted to do a quick "show and tell" of our latest
success in building TiddlyCRM on TiddlyWiki. We're quite proud of what
we've achieved, and wanted to share our ideas and code back to the
TiddlyWiki user community.
We've been heavily customising the
default TiddlyWiki user interface, and making it toggle-able, so that
our users will see the stripped-down, sleek interface we're building on
top of TiddlyWiki instead of the default TW5 interface. But they can
still bring up elements of the default interface at will, using radio
buttons in our configuration system. Here's a screenshot to
demonstrate...
To hide and show the tiddler titles, subtitles and tags, we're simply toggling the $:/tags/ViewTemplate tag from the $:/core/ui/ViewTemplate/title, .../subtitle, and .../tags system tiddlers respectively. This is achieved using the <$radio> widget, as in the example below...
<$radio tiddler="$:/core/ui/ViewTemplate/title" field="tags" value="">Hide</$radio> <$radio tiddler="$:/core/ui/ViewTemplate/title" field="tags" value="$:/tags/ViewTemplate">Show</$radio>Hiding and showing the SideBar search was a little more complex. We found that the basic search functionality in the default TW5 SideBar seems to come from the $:/core/ui/SideBarLists shadow tiddler. We excised lines 3 through 40 of that tiddler into another tiddler, calling it $:/core/ui/SideBarLists/search. We then transcluded it back into $:/core/ui/SideBarLists, wrapped in a <$reveal> widget, like so...
<$reveal type="match" state="$:/_Data/globaloptions!!show-default-sidebar-search" text="Show">
{{$:/core/ui/SideBarLists/search}}
</$reveal>We then toggle the value of the show-default-sidebar-search field of our $:/_Data/globaloptions tiddler to hide or show the SideBar Search. Eventually, the idea is to replace the default TW5 search feature in TiddlyCRM with our own search system based on Eric Shulman's <<combobox>> macro. It will only allow searching of the entities we've defined within the system, such as those tagged as Person or Organisation , etc.
I hope you found this useful. As always, feel free to make use of our code, and any feedback, suggestions, dire warnings of our ineptitude, or even compliments, would be most welcome.
Hegart.
Mat
Apr 21, 2016, 3:34:58 PM4/21/16
to TiddlyWiki
Congrats Hegart - it looks cool!
<:-)
Hegart Dmishiv
Apr 21, 2016, 3:44:13 PM4/21/16
to TiddlyWiki
Thanks Mat, that's high praise coming from you. We've been inspired a lot by your Twaddle. You even get a mention in our Attribution tiddler.
Hegart.
Hegart.
Tristan Kohl
Apr 21, 2016, 4:11:57 PM4/21/16
to tiddl...@googlegroups.com
Hi Hegard,
your progress looks very promising and neat. I check out your SampleDataPlayground and your trello board every few days to follow your progress. I like how you managed to create all those sample data for testing and by playing around with the Playground, I get a pretty good impression of where TiddlyCRM is heading to.
I did however not manage to add a new contact via the interface. I figure you did not yet implement this functionality? And I got another problem, which is not TiddlyCRM-only (contact management in TW is tricky here) as I know a hand full of people, that have exactly the same names. Maybe some sort of UUID would be good for person or organisation tiddlers to avoid collisions? I think Tobi has a plugin or macro which creates UUIDs.
Then you could store the name in another field and use the UUID for linking etc.
Cheers
Tristan
your progress looks very promising and neat. I check out your SampleDataPlayground and your trello board every few days to follow your progress. I like how you managed to create all those sample data for testing and by playing around with the Playground, I get a pretty good impression of where TiddlyCRM is heading to.
I did however not manage to add a new contact via the interface. I figure you did not yet implement this functionality? And I got another problem, which is not TiddlyCRM-only (contact management in TW is tricky here) as I know a hand full of people, that have exactly the same names. Maybe some sort of UUID would be good for person or organisation tiddlers to avoid collisions? I think Tobi has a plugin or macro which creates UUIDs.
Then you could store the name in another field and use the UUID for linking etc.
Cheers
Tristan
Hegart Dmishiv
Apr 21, 2016, 5:01:38 PM4/21/16
to TiddlyWiki, Andrew Myers
Hi Tristan,
Thanks for your continued support and encouragement of this project. We're reaching the end of the Alpha Phase of development, as the {{DesignWrite}} MOOC course comes to an end for this current semester in a few weeks. Once our semester project (TiddlyCRM v0.0.1-alpha) has been submitted and assessed as part of the course, we'll be beginning the Beta Phase of development of TiddlyCRM. At that time we'll be inviting wider contribution from the TiddlyWiki user community.
My co-conspirator on the semester project, Andrew Myers, has developed that awesome new collaboration method, as a hybrid between Dropbox and GitHub. We'll probably open that up so more collaborators can participate in the project once we reach Beta Phase.
Thanks for your continued support and encouragement of this project. We're reaching the end of the Alpha Phase of development, as the {{DesignWrite}} MOOC course comes to an end for this current semester in a few weeks. Once our semester project (TiddlyCRM v0.0.1-alpha) has been submitted and assessed as part of the course, we'll be beginning the Beta Phase of development of TiddlyCRM. At that time we'll be inviting wider contribution from the TiddlyWiki user community.
My co-conspirator on the semester project, Andrew Myers, has developed that awesome new collaboration method, as a hybrid between Dropbox and GitHub. We'll probably open that up so more collaborators can participate in the project once we reach Beta Phase.
I like how you managed to create all those sample data for testing
Thanks, I was quite proud of how that turned out, particularly when a certain member of the TW user community accused me of breaching privacy and confidentiality. That gave me a real sense of achievement, that the random SampleData clearly looks very realistic!
and by playing around with the Playground, I get a pretty good impression of where TiddlyCRM is heading to.
Thanks, my own observation is that it seems fairly straightforward at this point. I hope it stays that way! Haha.
I did however not manage to add a new contact via the interface. I figure you did not yet implement this functionality?
There is much that isn't properly working yet. Take a look at our other playground, and you'll see where we're playing with Eric Shulman's <<combobox>> macro to help us design the Add and Edit functionality.
And I got another problem, which is not TiddlyCRM-only (contact management in TW is tricky here) as I know a hand full of people, that have exactly the same names. Maybe some sort of UUID would be good for person or organisation tiddlers to avoid collisions? I think Tobi has a plugin or macro which creates UUIDs.
Then you could store the name in another field and use the UUID for linking etc.
Interesting that you should mention this. We've had a big discussion internally about this very issue over the last couple of weeks. We've settled on avoiding UUIDs for now, but I do agree with you that there are huge benefits in using that approach. I have the feeling that we may have to revise our decision on this matter in the future.
Kind regards,
Hegart.
Tristan Kohl
Apr 22, 2016, 1:56:38 PM4/22/16
to TiddlyWiki, mye...@sunyit.edu
Hi Hegard,
Thanks for your continued support and encouragement of this project. We're reaching the end of the Alpha Phase of development, as the {{DesignWrite}} MOOC course comes to an end for this current semester in a few weeks. Once our semester project (TiddlyCRM v0.0.1-alpha) has been submitted and assessed as part of the course, we'll be beginning the Beta Phase of development of TiddlyCRM. At that time we'll be inviting wider contribution from the TiddlyWiki user community.
I did not know that you actually planned to make the development open. I always thought you guys had to do this as a "complete" thing for your semester project.
This sounds great and I am looking forward for when I can actively help you guys with this. Until then I will improve my JavaScript skills with my own projects.
My co-conspirator on the semester project, Andrew Myers, has developed that awesome new collaboration method, as a hybrid between Dropbox and GitHub. We'll probably open that up so more collaborators can participate in the project once we reach Beta Phase.
I did read about his approach in the DesignWrite group but did not quite get the point of the benefits of this approach in comparison to the "good old" way of pushing and pulling from remote repositories (maybe this is because of my years as a hobby developer :) ).
Cheers,
Tristan
Andrew Myers
Apr 22, 2016, 7:50:04 PM4/22/16
to TiddlyWiki
Hi Tristan,
Regarding javascript. Neither Hegart nor myself have much experience with it. Any such background is beneficial down the line I am sure.
Currently we have been dealing with html with light ineraction of CSS. There is still much to decide on what needs to be done in Beta.
If you would like, you can catch one of us on Hangouts to chat about joining the main dev team. Let me know and I will set it up.
Tristan Kohl
Apr 24, 2016, 5:46:20 AM4/24/16
to TiddlyWiki
Hi Andrew,
that sounds awesome and I look forward to help you with the JS part as far as I am capable of. As I am from Germany neither you nor Hegart are close to my timezone so what would be a good time to contact one of you to talk about details?
Cheers
Tristan
that sounds awesome and I look forward to help you with the JS part as far as I am capable of. As I am from Germany neither you nor Hegart are close to my timezone so what would be a good time to contact one of you to talk about details?
Cheers
Tristan
Hegart Dmishiv
Apr 24, 2016, 1:57:55 PM4/24/16
to TiddlyWiki
Hi Tristan,
It seems as though both Andrew and I spend a lot of time outside our own natural timezones, haha. If you suggest a time, I'm sure either or both of us could accommodate. If you could provide a timezone conversion link, such as by using The Time Zone Converter, that makes it even easier for us.
I'm looking forward to getting more people involved in this project. It's something I've been thinking about for many years now. I even rediscovered recently a blog post I wrote back in 2010 about the subject. If you read that, I think you'll understand more of the mentality behind TiddlyCRM, and why it is focused on the home user, as opposed to the traditional target audience of CRM packages. I'm using New Zealand as a test case for this, and I already have a potential distribution point in mind here for getting the end product into the hands of a large number of users within the ideal target audience. However, I realise that this will all have interest for other audiences, and work will need to be done to internationalise TiddlyCRM eventually. For instance, the strict Street Number > Street Name > Suburb > City > Postcode flow of a physical / postal address may not be the same in Germany as it is in New Zealand, so the address field names will probably eventually need to become more dynamic than static.
Andrew and I have also been discussing ways to take discussion of TiddlyCRM beyond just this single discussion thread, in an organised fashion. We'll announce here any decisions made on that.
Kind regards,
Hegart.
It seems as though both Andrew and I spend a lot of time outside our own natural timezones, haha. If you suggest a time, I'm sure either or both of us could accommodate. If you could provide a timezone conversion link, such as by using The Time Zone Converter, that makes it even easier for us.
I'm looking forward to getting more people involved in this project. It's something I've been thinking about for many years now. I even rediscovered recently a blog post I wrote back in 2010 about the subject. If you read that, I think you'll understand more of the mentality behind TiddlyCRM, and why it is focused on the home user, as opposed to the traditional target audience of CRM packages. I'm using New Zealand as a test case for this, and I already have a potential distribution point in mind here for getting the end product into the hands of a large number of users within the ideal target audience. However, I realise that this will all have interest for other audiences, and work will need to be done to internationalise TiddlyCRM eventually. For instance, the strict Street Number > Street Name > Suburb > City > Postcode flow of a physical / postal address may not be the same in Germany as it is in New Zealand, so the address field names will probably eventually need to become more dynamic than static.
Andrew and I have also been discussing ways to take discussion of TiddlyCRM beyond just this single discussion thread, in an organised fashion. We'll announce here any decisions made on that.
Kind regards,
Hegart.
Tristan Kohl
May 2, 2016, 3:03:07 AM5/2/16
to TiddlyWiki
Hi Hegart,
sorry for my late respnse, that was hell of a week here :D
I would be available tomorrow at 10:00 UTC or on Wednesday between 12:00 UTC and 15:00 UTC. Until then I have to figure out, how to setup Hangouts on my machine ;).
I second your concerns about the hard coded postal code as in Germany we do have a complete different system, but I am sure we can figure out a solution for this.
Cheers
Tristan
sorry for my late respnse, that was hell of a week here :D
I would be available tomorrow at 10:00 UTC or on Wednesday between 12:00 UTC and 15:00 UTC. Until then I have to figure out, how to setup Hangouts on my machine ;).
I second your concerns about the hard coded postal code as in Germany we do have a complete different system, but I am sure we can figure out a solution for this.
Cheers
Tristan
Hegart Dmishiv
May 3, 2016, 9:22:59 PM5/3/16
to TiddlyWiki
Hi Tristan,
Sorry I missed this opportunity to connect. Can we try again some other day later in the week?
Thanks,
Hegart.
Sorry I missed this opportunity to connect. Can we try again some other day later in the week?
Thanks,
Hegart.
Andrew Myers
May 3, 2016, 9:34:30 PM5/3/16
to TiddlyWiki
Tristan,
If you use email, you can contact us at tidd...@gmail.com. I know the push notifications would help me, at least, with prompt response times.
If you use email, you can contact us at tidd...@gmail.com. I know the push notifications would help me, at least, with prompt response times.
Tristan Kohl
May 4, 2016, 3:58:36 AM5/4/16
to TiddlyWiki
Hi guys,
I will do that.
Cheers
Tristan
I will do that.
Cheers
Tristan
Tristan Kohl
Jun 13, 2016, 6:13:17 AM6/13/16
to TiddlyWiki
Hey guys,
since I did not hear from you for quite some time I figure the project is dead? If so that would be a real bummer for me I was quite excited about the idea.
Cheers
Tristan
since I did not hear from you for quite some time I figure the project is dead? If so that would be a real bummer for me I was quite excited about the idea.
Cheers
Tristan
Hegart Dmishiv
Jun 15, 2016, 2:53:15 AM6/15/16
to TiddlyWiki
Hi Tristan,
Sorry, my health isn't the greatest, and I ended up in hospital for a while just at the end of the {{DesignWrite}} course. I haven't heard from Andrew at all since the course ended, and I haven't had much time to work on the project since then, but it definitely isn't dead. I still plan to get this finished and distributed, and I'm keen to work on it collaboratively, to internationalise it.
Keep an eye on this thread, and I'll let you know when I'm back working on TiddlyCRM. Hopefully Andrew may resurface by then as well. In the meantime, if you want to fork what we've done so far and work on it yourself, you're most welcome. The TiddlyCRM code is freely available, and licensed under a Modified BSD License, the same as TiddlyWiki itself is.
Sorry that I can't give you a more precise date at present when I'll begin working on it again, I'm still taking things quiet after my previous health scare.
Hegart.
Sorry, my health isn't the greatest, and I ended up in hospital for a while just at the end of the {{DesignWrite}} course. I haven't heard from Andrew at all since the course ended, and I haven't had much time to work on the project since then, but it definitely isn't dead. I still plan to get this finished and distributed, and I'm keen to work on it collaboratively, to internationalise it.
Keep an eye on this thread, and I'll let you know when I'm back working on TiddlyCRM. Hopefully Andrew may resurface by then as well. In the meantime, if you want to fork what we've done so far and work on it yourself, you're most welcome. The TiddlyCRM code is freely available, and licensed under a Modified BSD License, the same as TiddlyWiki itself is.
Sorry that I can't give you a more precise date at present when I'll begin working on it again, I'm still taking things quiet after my previous health scare.
Hegart.
Jeremy Ruston
Jun 15, 2016, 3:19:30 AM6/15/16
to tiddl...@googlegroups.com
Hi Hegart,
Very sorry to hear that you've been unwell, and hope your recovery continues well,
Best wishes
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TiddlyWiki" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to tiddlywiki+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to tiddl...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/tiddlywiki.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tiddlywiki/11a4622c-a3b5-47de-a17f-6817bd920a7e%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
Tristan Kohl
Jun 15, 2016, 6:37:54 AM6/15/16
to TiddlyWiki
Hi Hegart,
sorry to hear you had health issues. For sure I will wait until you fully recovered from that and hopefully see you soon on track again.
In the mean time I will poke around in TiddlyCRM and try to get the hang how you guys did intend the things to work.
Cheers
Tristan
sorry to hear you had health issues. For sure I will wait until you fully recovered from that and hopefully see you soon on track again.
In the mean time I will poke around in TiddlyCRM and try to get the hang how you guys did intend the things to work.
Cheers
Tristan
AmericanNinja
Jan 16, 2017, 12:39:21 AM1/16/17
to TiddlyWiki
Hi Everyone,
Sorry to hear of the health troubles...hope you are all okay. I came across this page during a google search for such a solution. Just curious if any further progress has been made and if a production ready solution was ever released. This is a great idea and I'm sure many would find it useful for them.
Thanks
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages