CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

Chris:

Any specific suggestions on how we go about combating this perception. Kinda hard to do it on a individual level (which we have done quite successfully), but this needs to be addressed at a broader level. I think the fact that both the drupal and joomla association use CiviCRM now should be a big step forward in addressing some concerns

lobo

Below is a reply that was posted by Wes.  I'm not on this mailing list so, I'm not going to track any more of this discussion.

Hmm, some specific suggestions:

- Refine communication strategies for these audiences:
a) developers who are not familiar with CiviCRM but are looking for a CRM solution for a client   
b) non-technical staff of organizations who are looking for CRM solutions. 
since you're already doing well with this group:
c) active CiviCRM developers

- Stories are powerful.  Visible case studies describing how a range of types of organizations implemented and are using CiviCRM to meet their business goals successfully would be great.  Stories should answer questions for both audiences a) and b).
 
- The CiviCRM homepage is fairly targeted to the CiviCRM developer audience (Issue Tracker & Forum in the top nav bar, and forum posts on the side bar), but could be improved for audiences a) and b).  For example, to find some user quotes you have to click 'About' and then the easy to miss "People are saying". To better help audience b) there could be a single link from the front page to case studies.  Put another way, the home page is organized somewhat like a computer scientist would logically organize things, rather than designed around the actions that each of those audiences are immediately looking for when they come to the site.  Note that the Blog right now is also targetted to audience c).  It might be helpful to have some front page blog posts that are targetted to audiences a) and b).  Possibly clean up the front page by having a second level Developer page, where you can get all of the specific links that you'd want as a developer.  Right now the Participate page is geared to all of the audiences which is not helpful.  I just found that there is a Developer page which has duplicate content to the Participate page, but I bet that hits on that page are very low because it's not intuitive to find (Help -> Developers).

Those are just some website thoughts.  Other strategies such as holding workshops (which have been happening), giving presentations, and having a visible profile in Drupal related events also seem high value.

Chris

From: YYY
Date: 4 Mar 2008 16:56:35 -0000
To: <Discuss@progressiveexchange.org>
Subject: [progressiveexchange] Re: CiviCRM/Drupal Implementations?

This review of CiviCRM is a bit one-sided and misleading.

I'm currently working on deploying CiviCRM to a network of ~70 organizations all over the country. It has some warts and some shortcomings, as all software does. But it's also got some very distinct strengths. The 2.0 version, which is being released in a few days, is definitely worth a look. Two of the most interesting new features, in my opinion, are these:

1. Much more scalable -- the database schema was re-designed to support many more records and custom fields with better performance all around

2. Standalone capability -- works with any CMS or no CMS at all--not as interesting to you, Bill, since you plan to use Drupal, but should increase adoption of CiviCRM; full disclosure: My team and i wrote this feature.

At the end of the day, the thing that really matters is what you need from the software. If CiviCRM can do what you need, then it can be a very inexpensive and straightforward option. Especially now that there are folks out there providing CiviSMTP service, which makes the once-trickiest part of CiviCRM setup (the e-mail return path stuff) a no-brainer for a fairly reasonable service fee.

The trouble with solutions like SugarCRM and Salesforce is that they are not geared towards non-profits and advocacy work. They're geared toward corporate sales work, and it shows. Square peg, round hole. SugarCRM is only open source in its most basic components, you have to pay for the upper echelons. And Salesforce is only free for some non-profits. I work with a bunch of c4's, so we don't qualify.

CiviCRM is a very capable solution that is being actively developed and improved at a fast pace. Drupal was once a primitive solution, but people started using it when and where they could and now it's pretty great because of their involvement. CiviCRM is on the same path. The only mistake would be to dismiss it out of hand.

Edit: Removed the names and email address

Here was my response to the first person's email to the list:


Can you be more specific with regard to some of CiviCRM's shortcomings. We do realize we have a fair number of weaknesses (along with quite a few strenghts) and being specific will help us improve, get better and more useful to the community

With regard to your request for case studies, some instances that come to mind immediately include: (the below was done by volunteers / in-house staff with no paid consultants)

Drupal Association
Open Source Matters Foundation (Joomla Association)
Manhattan Country School
Community Partners

Some sites that were built with consulting help (and most of the money was spent on customizing the CMS / workflow and NOT civicrm) include:

Amnesty International
Wikimedia foundation
Democrats Abroad
Conservation Fund
Bioneers

You can find more case studies here: http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Case+Studies

You can find a child thread based on this here: http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,2609.0.html

You might also want to check the NTEN CRM Survey and see how people compare us with the other commercial and open source CRM packages here: http://www.nten.org/blog/2007/12/11/2007-crm-satisfaction-survey (you need to pay for the report). A summary from our viewpoint is here: http://civicrm.org/node/271

I've implemented CiviCRM on six member-based not-for-profits, and have two more  projects in the works, with a couple more in the pipeline. It took me a while to really "understand" the software. But once I did, I fell in love with it, and feel it addresses an important niche that is not addressed by business/sales-driven CRMs -- namely member-based not for profits.

If I were to identify one area where I think CiviCRM struggles, it would be with the user interface from a non-developer standpoint. Having implemented the software a number of times, I'm very comfortable getting around, and when faced with a problem, can *think* in CiviCRM language and structure. But when I turn a site over to organization staff and begin training with them, I find the scariness or overwhelming factor to kick in a bit. Part of that is inevitable -- there's always a learning curve and hurdles to overcome when non-techies are adopting new software. But I think there's room for growth within the user interface to improve the user experience.

On a sidenote -- has the core team used any non-open-source CRMs built for similar markets as a model? I used to work for an association management company, and we were exposed to a lot of CRMs for member management. iMIS is the big one, but most people who use it will do nothing but complain, and it costs a fortune. A product similar to CiviCRM that is web-based is Computility. I'm still doing work for the company I used to work for, and we're moving away from that software, primarily because it's proprietary and they lock you out of it to a degree that you're handcuffed if you need to do any customization (#1 reason open source ROCKS). Anyway, I think the user interface of Computility is MUCH better, more intuitive, and easier to navigate, than CiviCRM, particularly from a non-developer's standpoint. If CiviCRM could learn from them, it would do a lot to quell the "scariness" concerns. If you want particulars, contact me separately.

I also agree with some of the other comments about marketing. I don't think the Civi website and presentation of the project is as effective as it could be in really communicating WHO could and should be using the software. Again, coming from a member-based organization background, I think this is your key niche that salesforce, vtiger, and other CRMs just don't have the structure to address, and thus is the market you need to communicate to.

Lastly, on the issue of integrating with a CMS -- please, please, please, reconsider heading in an exclusively Drupal direction. If my memory serves me correctly, based on downloads and forum involvement, the Joomla community for CiviCRM is actually larger. And the earlier observation that Drupal seems to have a stronger business market is insightful -- in contrast, I think you'll find that the Joomla community has a much stronger presence in the not-for-profit world, which is where CiviCRM is squarely placed.

-Brian

One other thing that likely discourages adoption --

To be effective, I really think some work needs to be invested in making CiviMail more accessible on a shared hosting environment. The reality is that a lot of not-for-profits that are looking at CiviCRM need to be able to implement the broadcast email functionality, and due to limited budgets (and limited server needs), are using shared hosting.

-Brian

I think this is a very valid point, the CiviMail component it a little too platform-dependent and IMO could be rewritten to have an internal mail processor that will play nicely with PHPmail and direct SMTP connections.  I have a hunch that the root access and postfix/amavis requirements could be serious dealbreakers for a lot of small to mid sized NFPs.

I have seen the Joomla community do some really great things with bridging of external applications into the J! framework, Coppermine and phpBB come to mind initially.  However, a bridge is (to me) the weakest form of integration, and is a one-way street in practice as far as Joomla is concerned.

IMO the largest problems with Joomla in its current release are the serious lack of an ACL system and two-way API hooks for third party software that wishes to access core functions.  Hopefully these will be resolved shortly, the J! team seems to be receptive to community input.

There are many companies that provide 'email-blast' services for a fee, companies that I have worked for have used them regularly.

If organizing a usability test is too big of a project right now, an alternative might be to post a quick user survey somewhere on the site or forum that focuses on problem interactions. For example, the survey could have the question, "What part of CiviCRM are you having difficulty with right now?"

Julia - We don't have the resources right now to pull together a formal usability test. However, I've taken your suggestion of posting a new forum topic where people can give feedback on "what's difficult to do"...

http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,2622.0.html

Hopefully folks will chime in there with specific issues and potential solutions - and we can make some good progress.