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  • Offline mode for CiviCRM
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Author Topic: Offline mode for CiviCRM  (Read 4566 times)

bob_dee

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Offline mode for CiviCRM
May 12, 2009, 01:53:36 am
*** Sorry, I previously posted this in the development section but can see that this is a more appropriate section ***

Is there currently any way to use CiviCRM when not connected to the internet, through Google Gears, Adobe AIR or another way?

I can see this being a useful feature for NPO members who are working out in the field. They could update their data locally on a laptop then synchronise with the rest of the system when they are back on an internet connection.

Cheers,

Robin

Donald Lobo

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Re: Offline mode for CiviCRM
May 12, 2009, 06:21:33 am

currently no. but will make a good community contribution :) the problem is a bit more complex and will require a fair number of hours

lobo
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lucyp

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Re: Offline mode for CiviCRM
May 13, 2009, 01:01:33 am
hm, i was gonna do my own home-baked version of this by setting up a few remote office staff with LAMP on their respective machines, and their own local copies of the CIVICRM DB, set up as read-only, then periodically have them export the latest dataset from online version and import into local version

i just want remote staff to have read-access to the data, and for updating they'll need to be working online

anybody think this plan will/won't work?

Eileen

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Re: Offline mode for CiviCRM
May 13, 2009, 12:54:32 pm
I think that if you only want read only and you only need to update periodically that will work OK. Obviously you might be dealing with out of date data depending on how often you update that but I'm sure you can judge the implications of that.

I assume you'll write some sort of mysql script for it?
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ken

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Re: Offline mode for CiviCRM
May 13, 2009, 07:56:34 pm
I saw an article yesterday saying that Firefox 3.5 will support the HTML 5 feature of of offline web applications. My comment is that this idea could develop some momentum as technology support becomes more widely available.

jake

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Re: Offline mode for CiviCRM
October 17, 2009, 05:50:34 pm
I am currently implementing CiviCRM 3.0 for several nonprofit clients.

I am very interested in the possibility of an Offline Access mode more so personally than for my clients (though I think this would be a great selling point for them) - I'd love the ability to access my Cases (Projects) and Activities (Tasks) offline like I do my Calendar, Email, Documents, etc.

I'm not much of a programmer, but would be happy to sit on an exploratory committee/focus group when it comes time :)

Donald Lobo

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Re: Offline mode for CiviCRM
October 18, 2009, 03:03:08 pm

We do encourage folks in the community to help add new features by getting clients to pay for them and/or hiring a developer to do the needful.

Offline access is a fairly substantial project and will need to be community contributed / sponsored

lobo
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julianbrelsford

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Re: Offline mode for CiviCRM
November 02, 2009, 10:52:57 am
offline access becomes possible without any modifications to the current CiviCRM IF you are willing to do the following :
-give the user access a copy of all of the database (user could access 100% of the information in the database)
-install XAMPP or Apache/MySQL/PHP on the user's local machine
-make a backup of the database and then move the database to the user's local machine

ken

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Re: Offline mode for CiviCRM
November 04, 2009, 05:02:33 pm
Julian,

I don't think your proposal counts as 'offline access' until local changes are brought back 'online'. Consolidation of each individual's changes back into the Mother database requires replication technology and a process for resolving conflicting changes. Not simple.

Ken

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Re: Offline mode for CiviCRM
November 16, 2009, 11:01:38 am
Ken -I agree, the possibility i mentioned is unsatisfactory in several ways - besides doing nothing to allow the offline-DB user to make changes to the online database, it'd be a pain to "make a backup" and "restore from backup" every time you want the offline user to have access to new data.

EdP

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Re: Offline mode for CiviCRM
November 18, 2009, 03:51:34 am
Plus I'd suggest that any project that is planning this looks at their local data protection laws too. Carrying full copies of contact databases around is something of a legal/security risk, even if you are doing whole disk encryption etc etc.!

conductorchris

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Re: Offline mode for CiviCRM
November 23, 2009, 12:26:22 pm
I do export my whole database every so often and I (I'm a one man shop) and my board get copies that we do use for "offline access" in a simple sense.  We don't use the copies to make changes, just to have a reference for when we can't get on-line.  Truth is, it's quicker to look up someone's number by opening excel and doing a find in the csv export than it is to go to the on-line civiCRM and wait for it (maybe if I didn't have a shared host it would be faster?).
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  • CiviCRM Community Forums (archive) »
  • Old sections (read-only, deprecated) »
  • Discussion (deprecated) »
  • Feature Requests and Suggestions (Moderator: Dave Greenberg) »
  • Offline mode for CiviCRM

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