Which CiviCRM version to chose? / is there a standalone version?

[Fred20016]

Hello,

I am currently evaluating CRM solutions. After some research, the 2 solutions that might fit our needs are VTiger and Civicrm. between the two, CiviCRM seems to be more open and looking at the forum, the community seems to be more active.

Here is our environment:

We are a small foreign Governemental Office in the US (French Office for Science & Technology) and our activities includes keeping in touch with our scientifc diaspora.

- We are already using Mailchimp to send out our newsletters, so I need the CRM to be able to sync contacts/lists with MailChimp

- We are using Google Apps accounts, so I need to sync Civicrm contacts with the Google Apps shared contacts directory

And our need would be to

- Build a database of shared contacts amongst our organization

- Build on top of that database, a map of collaborations between individuals and organization (for example: individual_1 working in organization_1 is collaborating with individual_2 in Organization_2, or organization_1 is collaborating with organization_2). Here is an example of such a map: http://ambascience.co.uk/coop/

From what I understood, Civicrm would allow me to do all that (although I am not sure about the organization to organization relationship).

Our current website is built on SPIP CMS (http://france-science.org), and we do not plan to move away from spip anytime soon. Since there is no Civicrm module available for this CMS, what version of CiviCRM would you recommend for a standalone use?

I don't want our users to be confused, so ideally, I want the access of the tool to be as simple as possible. I briefly tested the 3 versions with the demo account. The interface on the Joomla version is cluttered with the Joomla admin menu, the Wordpress version is a little bit better, but still, when I logged on, I ended up on the Wordpress user profile, and the version that seemed to be the more seemless was the Drupal version.

Any advice is welcome  !

[nicolas]

Fred,

We need to talk:
- we are offering a Standalone version of CiviCRM that is not integrated with Drupal, Joomla or WordPress. The user interface is therefore a lot less cluttered as only CiviCRM elements are presented on screen
- we have integrated this Standalone version with Google Apps. This goes for the authentication (SSO: your Google account grants you access to the CRM) as well as contacts synchronization (CRM contacts are synch'ed to the Directory in Google Contacts)
- we also can offer synchronization with Mailchimp so all your CRM lists are available from within Mailchimp
- the Standalone version could be integrated with SIPS so that the public CRM pages (donation, event registration, membership registration or renewal, newsletter subscription, etc) can be seamlessly displayed on your SIPS website
- and ... we are French, have offices both in the US and in France, and can provide all our services in French or English!

You can reach me at nicolas@cividesk.com. Tomorrow is CiviDay, and we will be hosting a large event in Denver, but I will get back to you on Thursday.

Thanks,
--Nicolas.

[Hershel]

Fred20016, the standard editions of CiviCRM which are supported by the community require a CMS. If you have no preference, I recommend Drupal as it has the best integration and is the most flexible, in my opinion. You can easily configure it to take users to their CiviCRM home page after they login.

Mailchimp integration is available.

I am not aware of a publicly-available tool to "sync Civicrm contacts with the Google Apps shared contacts directory." nicolas, can you let us know more about this tool and if you plan to publish it so others can also use it?

I think all of your other requirements are in core CiviCRM, Fred20016.

[Fred20016]

Hello Nicolas and Hershel,

Thank you both for your answer!

I am not aware of a publicly-available tool to "sync Civicrm contacts with the Google Apps shared contacts directory."

This extension seems to be able to to that : https://civicrm.org/extensions/google-apps-sync

I recommend Drupal as it has the best integration and is the most flexible

Thank you, this confirms my first impression.

We are offering a Standalone version of CiviCRM that is not integrated with Drupal, Joomla or WordPress. The user interface is therefore a lot less cluttered as only CiviCRM elements are presented on screen

This sounds interesting, but I read that the standalone version of CiviCRM was dropped in 2010. Does this mean that your version is a fork of Civicrm ? I am curious of how difficult it is to follow the updates of the official Civicrm.

[Hershel]

I am not aware of a publicly-available tool to "sync Civicrm contacts with the Google Apps shared contacts directory."

This extension seems to be able to to that : https://civicrm.org/extensions/google-apps-sync

You are correct--I didn't know about that. Thank you.

This sounds interesting, but I read that the standalone version of CiviCRM was dropped in 2010.

That is correct.

I am curious of how difficult it is to follow the updates of the official Civicrm.

Not at all. Just follow the blog and join the newsletter. Blog is https://civicrm.org/blog and at the top left there is a way to join the newsletter.

[nicolas]

This extension seems to be able to to that : https://civicrm.org/extensions/google-apps-sync

Yes Fred, I have developed this extension and released it roughly a year ago for CiviCON SF 2013.

This sounds interesting, but I read that the standalone version of CiviCRM was dropped in 2010.

I have forward-ported and enhanced the Standalone version of CiviCRM for my customers. It has been tightly linked to the LTS version so far (4.2), and just made the port to 4.4.4. I would welcome anybody helping me maintain the code.

I am curious of how difficult it is to follow the updates of the official Civicrm.

Porting the Standalone version to new releases of CiviCRM is a few hours of work - mostly testing and forward-porting the occasional 'new way' of doing things.

Please get back to me directly at nicolas@cividesk.com if you want to pursue this as I am not often trolling the forums. Thanks.

[Hershel]

I'm interested to hear why people want a stand-alone version of CiviCRM.

[nicolas]

I'm interested to hear why people want a stand-alone version of CiviCRM.

I have encountered a number of reasons, including (more or less in order):
- they already have a website programmed in another technology than D/WP/J!, and do not want to bother with the complexity of setting-up a CMS just for using CiviCRM (see the post at the top of this thread ...),
- they do not want to or cannot host the CRM database on their website (data privacy issues, separation of roles between webmaster and staff),
- they are doing major work or redesign on the website and do not want to tie-in the CRM in this project - think major version upgrade or technology change. In this case the move to Standalone is temporary until the new website is fully operational,
- they want to test/benchmark CiviCRM in a pilot without impacting their main website, and integrate later if successful,
- they have multiple independent websites, but need to share a single database without forwarding to a main websites (local chapters or sub-organizations),
- the CiviCRM experience when integrated is not optimal - due to skins, modules/extensions, WP integration lacks the left bar, ...
- they like the simplicity and speed of the Standalone, including Single Sign-On with their existing environment.

Now, from a provider's perspective there are also lots of advantages to Standalone - give me a shout at CiviCON so we can discuss these offline.

[TriStar]

@Nicolas - CiviDesk

Do you have any plans to update Google Apps Sync to CiviCRM 4.4? 


Thanks,
TriStar

[CWSJoseph]

Hello,

I am looking into the same question.

I build stand alone html/css websites for clients and need to integrate features such as those available in CiviCRM into these sites as such a stand alone version that I could "plugin" to these sites I build would be great.

I would love to see any examples of stand alone websites using CiviCRM in this way.

I may also be building Wordpress sites for clients and so would like to explore what the process is of installing CiviCRM for Wordpress. Is there a link you all can point me to for getting started with Wordpress CiviCRM?

@CiviDesk Nicolas I sent you an email I hope that's okay.

Thank you!
Joseph

[Hershel]

Hello, Is there a link you all can point me to for getting started with Wordpress CiviCRM?

https://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/WordPress+Installation+Guide+for+CiviCRM+4.4

[CiviTeacher.com]

If you wish to use a CMS, Drupal is the most flexible, but WordPress is the most easily maintained.  As of WordPress version 3.8 it updates itself and requires next to no maintenance other than creating and managing your users' logins.

[zorgalina]

I am interested to hear why a standalone version of CiviCRM was dropped in 2010- it seems like the Civi community would like an agnostic approach that is less tightly-coupled to Drupal, Joomla or WP CMS, for reasons Nicolas G. pointed out, as well as performance/resource requirements of those CMSs.  If your application can use, say, just Google Apps or whatever, why have a Drupal install, which is 62 MB, 9,884 files just for core install?

[Hershel]

it seems like the Civi community would like an agnostic approach that is less tightly-coupled to Drupal, Joomla or WP CMS

A handful of people within a community of thousands is not significant in my opinion, actually.

  , for reasons Nicolas G. pointed out, as well as performance/resource requirements of those CMSs. 

Some of his points are valid, while others are quite arguable. I didn't see any reason to discuss each in detail before.

Supporting yet another version of CiviCRM involves a lot of work from the developers, and their resources are limited. That is the main reason I think.

[Donald Lobo]

would be great for you and nicolas (and others) to collaborate with each other and help support and maintain the standalone release. Folks who want it, need to help make it happen

It was dropped since the main org maintaining it did not want to continue doing so

lobo