CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

I just started looking over the book and of course the first place that caught my eye was the section on "Real World Examples."   Great bunch of groups mentioned here about how they're using CiviCRM.  It would be even better if there were some quotes from a staff person or even a member of the organization as to what they learned, how it changed how they do their work, etc.  It would really take the message home especially for new groups who are thinking about jumping on to CiviCRM (like the grassroots community organizing groups in our PowerBase project).

I'll keep looking it over and give more feedback... but wanted to give kudos to the folks who were all part of putting this book together. 

Alice Aguilar, Progressive Technology Project

Hi Johnny -

One suggestion I have is to create a distribution of CiviCRM with some sample data and then construct exercises for demonstrating the simple functions of mail outs, or management of members, and so on.

There is an option to install sample data when you use the automated installer (drupal and standalone modes). Sample data includes a bunch of contact records, as well as online contribution pages, some sample events and more. There are also some tutorials on exploring the sample data and screencasts covering various tasks linked from this page:

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Getting+Started

1) Can one installation of CiviCRM create more than one instance? I've heard this is true with Drupal - would it work with CiviCRM installed with it?

You can run multiple instances of CiviCRM (separate DBs for separate organizations) from one installed codebase. There is also work in progress for the next release to provide better support for multi-organization / hierarchical organization segmentation in a single DB (national, state, local chapater etc.).

2) CiviCRM is geared to non-profits - but it has payment modules. Does that mean it could be adapted to certain types of business use? We're interested in helping SMEs in developing countries in the media sector raise revenues (which is a great contributor to their independence).

Some folks are using it for commercial ventures. CiviCRM "payment" functionality is pretty much focused on contributions, memberships and events - but you there is a module which integrates CiviCRM  / Drupal with UberCart for shopping cart functionality.