Is CiviCRM right for me?

[vogelap]

I am working as Associate Director of Graduate Admissions of the University of Cincinnati College of Business. Part of my job is to focus on recruitment & "courting" of prospective students into our many programs (full-time & part-time Masters of Business Administration (MBA), and full-time & part-time Masters of Science in four areas (Accounting, Marketing, Information Systems, and Quantitative Analysis). At this time, the College does not have a solution for managing customer relations, and I am evaluating CiviCRM to see if it might be appropriate for our needs given the following set of guidelines.

Our prospective students come to us via a variety of routes... from contact cards students fill out in-person, student info we purchase from testing agencies, and through email/postal mail. Generally, we know the student's interest area as well, so we can slot them into various campaigns, though we would like a general (non-specified interest) campaign as well. Each of these campaigns would draw from a set of "standard" pieces (that would be in each campaign) -- information about Cincinnati, the University, and educational outcomes, for example. In addition, each campaign would have highly-targeted information about the specific program in which the student is interested. So, for example, our Full-Time MBA campaign might be 6 pieces, 2 of which are "general" and 4 of which are specific to the full-time MBA.

We envision our CRM solution handling automated (as automated as possible) email/print drip campaigns (mostly electronic) to prospective students, leading them toward applying for our program, at which time the student is removed from the CRM's campaigns (or marked inactive). The email pieces could be anything from plain text, html emails, PDFs, PowerPoint or other attachments, and even podcasts. Does CiviCRM support drip campaigns?

It would ideally function also as a contact-manager. We got lots of telephone calls, both directly to our phones and to voicemail. I'd like our CRM solution to be a place where I can record these calls (noting name, phone number, a place for notes from the student's incoming voicemail message, and a place for notes on our conversation that also records time/datestamp).

We'd also like our CRM to track event attendance and registration, so CiviCRM's CiviEvent is a very attractive module.

A big plus would be if CiviCRM worked with WordPress. Another GIANT plus would be an all-in-one installer that installed WAMP/LAMP, Drupal/Joomla (user's choice), _and_ CiviCRM. Is there such a thing?

My ignorance of CRMs in general leads me to this question... Is CiviCRM the right/best tool to help us with what we're trying to accomplish (ie: am I barking up the correct tree)? If not, could someone guide me toward an appropriate solution, please?

If I learn that CiviCRM is the best solution, I will begin earnestly reviewing the documentation, learning the program in order to get it deployed!

I am happy to answer any additional questions that might further illuminate our needs. Thanks for your time!

[Dave Greenberg]

On the "surface" I think CiviCRM handles the bulk of your requirements out of the box. The core functionality allows you to segment your contacts by combining any number of standard and custom fields / properties into saved searches ("Smart Groups"). The CiviMail component allows you to blast emails to these segments and supports personalization via tokens.

Some aspects of assembling message / mailing content from "pieces" based on a contact's properties may not be available out of the box - but there are some tools which you can use to combine Drupal's content management features with CiviCRM's data store which could meet your needs.

The Activities functionality supports all the "contact-manager" features you've described - and gives a consolidated view of all interactions with each contact.

CiviCRM does not have integration with WordPress. Nor is there an integrated (CMS + CiviCRM) installer available at this time.

You might want to check the Showcase section of this forum as well as the Case Studies and Presentations pages on the wiki:
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Case+Studies
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Presentations
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/download/attachments/8069/CiviCRM+In+Action+%28site+examples%29.pdf?version=1

[vogelap]

Thanks for your reply.

As I work to grasp the conceptual model of CiviCRM and CRMs in general, can you help me understand how I would implement certain things in CiviCRM?

I would like to have a webform on our website that prospective students could use to register themselves in CiviCRM -- a way for them to request additional information, for example. That webform should also have a drop-down menu that allows the student to select one specific area of interest (full-time MBA, part-time MBA, MS-QA, MS-Accounting, MS-Marketing, PhD, undecided, etc).

Ideally, the CRM will be able to assign students to categories automatically based on their interest and begin to drip related emails to them, again, automatically.

Students should also be able to view & register (without my intervention, ideally) for events that we host, and CiviCRM should be able to notify us of which students are attending which events, and to keep track of who signed up but did not attend an event and those that did attend.

Am I correct in understanding that new prospective students would be recorded in CiviCRM as an Individual. CiviCRM would then be able to assign them automatically to a Group (is that correct?) based on the area of interest they indicated. Those Groups would then be emailed from CiviMail on a periodic basis... Is there some utility for Households or Memberships in my usage model?

I really like the quick-entry block available in CiviCRM (to enable me to quickly enter an Individual from the front page). How would I modify that block to include FirstName, LastName, phone, email, and a drop-down list from which I could select an area of interest?

[xavier]

I would like to have a webform on our website that prospective students could use to register themselves in CiviCRM -- a way for them to request additional information, for example. That webform should also have a drop-down menu that allows the student to select one specific area of interest (full-time MBA, part-time MBA, MS-QA, MS-Accounting, MS-Marketing, PhD, undecided, etc).

You can use profiles and let them register directly.

Ideally, the CRM will be able to assign students to categories automatically based on their interest and begin to drip related emails to them, again, automatically.

Yes for the smart groups,  you can send an automatic email at the end of the registration, but it won't be customised as much as you want. You can run custom search 'all the guys that have registered last week and XYZ' and run a mailing for them

Students should also be able to view & register (without my intervention, ideally) for events that we host, and CiviCRM should be able to notify us of which students are attending which events, and to keep track of who signed up but did not attend an event and those that did attend.

Have a look at civievent, looks like it's what you want.

Am I correct in understanding that new prospective students would be recorded in CiviCRM as an Individual. CiviCRM would then be able to assign them automatically to a Group (is that correct?) based on the area of interest they indicated. Those Groups would then be emailed from CiviMail on a periodic basis... Is there some utility for Households or Memberships in my usage model?

Neither organisation, probably.

I really like the quick-entry block available in CiviCRM (to enable me to quickly enter an Individual from the front page). How would I modify that block to include FirstName, LastName, phone, email, and a drop-down list from which I could select an area of interest?

You can create a profile with exactly the fields you want and use them for a quick entry form.

X+

[vogelap]

Thanks for your time and energy in replying! I am impressed by the open nature of the community here, and continue to be impressed with CiviCRM!

I would like to have a webform on our website that prospective students could use to register themselves in CiviCRM -- a way for them to request additional information, for example. That webform should also have a drop-down menu that allows the student to select one specific area of interest (full-time MBA, part-time MBA, MS-QA, MS-Accounting, MS-Marketing, PhD, undecided, etc).

You can use profiles and let them register directly.

Can you tell me (as specifically as you can, please!) how to accomplish that?

I really like the quick-entry block available in CiviCRM (to enable me to quickly enter an Individual from the front page). How would I modify that block to include FirstName, LastName, phone, email, and a drop-down list from which I could select an area of interest?

You can create a profile with exactly the fields you want and use them for a quick entry form.

Please see attached screenshot for the block I'm talking about (just to be sure we're on the same page).

Any specifics on how to accomplish that would be most appreciated -- I am brand-new to CRMs, Drupal, and CiviCRM! I would like to have the "quick entry" block include FirstName, LastName, phone (and phone type selector (mobile, fax, etc)), email, interest (drop-down list from which I specify MBA, MS-QA, MS-IS, MS-Mktg, Undecided, etc), and Notes.

[Dave Greenberg]

You can create (and style) this block by building a CiviCRM Profile with the fields you want to include and grabbing the "standalone" code for the Profile. Profiles are a tool to build customized input and edit forms (or form snippets) as well as searchable listings of contacts. You can read about them here:

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Profiles+Admin

... and try them out on the public sandbox (or by downloading and installing your own copy of CiviCRM :-) ).

[vogelap]

You can create (and style) this block by building a CiviCRM Profile with the fields you want to include and grabbing the "standalone" code for the Profile. Profiles are a tool to build customized input and edit forms (or form snippets) as well as searchable listings of contacts. You can read about them here:

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Profiles+Admin

... and try them out on the public sandbox (or by downloading and installing your own copy of CiviCRM :-) ).

Thanks for your message, Dave. I've installed CiviCRM 2.0.5 under Drupal 5.8 on my local machine. Spent some time reading about Profiles (thanks for the nudge!) and implemented a new profile in my local Civi. When I click for "Standalone Form" or "Preview", I get the following error:

Sorry. A non-recoverable error has occurred.

Fontfile not found or not readable.

Return to home page.

Any ideas? I have not tried this on the Sandbox, but will to see if it behaves differently.

[vogelap]

Also, can someone describe for me how CiviCRM handles (or IF it handles) email "drip" campaigns? I'd like to configure CiviCRM to send out emails to selected individuals on a timeframe/interval I define... Does it do that? How would I accomplish it?

[Dave Greenberg]

Thanks for your message, Dave. I've installed CiviCRM 2.0.5 under Drupal 5.8 on my local machine. Spent some time reading about Profiles (thanks for the nudge!) and implemented a new profile in my local Civi. When I click for "Standalone Form" or "Preview", I get the following error:

Sorry. A non-recoverable error has occurred.

Fontfile not found or not readable.

Return to home page.

Any ideas? I have not tried this on the Sandbox, but will to see if it behaves differently.

Going forward - it's good practice to use the forum "Search" to see if the problem or error your getting has a solution posted. Searching on "fontfile" gives you: http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,158.msg590.html#msg590

* The fontfile not found... fatal error is due to the fact that you've enabled the Capthca feature for this profile (in the Profile's Advanced Settings)... AND your Captcha Font and/or Captcha Font Path settings are invalid (Administer CiviCRM >> Global Settings >> Miscellaneous). You can verify that this is the problem by turning off Captcha for the Profile and reloading that Profile's URL. Then you'll need to figure out where your true-type font library is located (if you have one).

[Dave Greenberg]

Also, can someone describe for me how CiviCRM handles (or IF it handles) email "drip" campaigns? I'd like to configure CiviCRM to send out emails to selected individuals on a timeframe/interval I define... Does it do that? How would I accomplish it?

I don't know exactly how these are supposed to work - although it sounds like a potentially complex process where you need to connect changes in contact properties to specific content and trigger mail outputs. Pretty sure there isn't a complete solution for this in CiviCRM. However, using a combination of smart groups and CiviMail group targeting / mail scheduling and cron jobs - I think you could piece together a semi-automated solution. But it would definitely take some thinking / work-arounds etc.

[vogelap]

Going forward - it's good practice to use the forum "Search" to see if the problem or error your getting has a solution posted. Searching on "fontfile" gives you: http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,158.msg590.html#msg590

Newbie mistake. And I am not a newbie. Sorry for that... I won't do it again!

* The fontfile not found... fatal error is due to the fact that you've enabled the Capthca feature for this profile (in the Profile's Advanced Settings)... AND your Captcha Font and/or Captcha Font Path settings are invalid (Administer CiviCRM >> Global Settings >> Miscellaneous). You can verify that this is the problem by turning off Captcha for the Profile and reloading that Profile's URL. Then you'll need to figure out where your true-type font library is located (if you have one).

Diagnosed and fixed (by disabling the CAPTCHA for the profile). Now can see the form as expected. Next step is to make a block in Drupal that shows that form... Progress is being made! Curiously and unexpectedly, pointing to a known-TTF font (tahoma.ttf) in "C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\" still doesn't seem to work... I get the same CAPTCHA error when Previewing. Still, disabling the CAPTCHA for the profile gets around the issue.

Also, can someone describe for me how CiviCRM handles (or IF it handles) email "drip" campaigns? I'd like to configure CiviCRM to send out emails to selected individuals on a timeframe/interval I define... Does it do that? How would I accomplish it?

I don't know exactly how these are supposed to work - although it sounds like a potentially complex process where you need to connect changes in contact properties to specific content and trigger mail outputs. Pretty sure there isn't a complete solution for this in CiviCRM. However, using a combination of smart groups and CiviMail group targeting / mail scheduling and cron jobs - I think you could piece together a semi-automated solution. But it would definitely take some thinking / work-arounds etc.

I need only a basic drip campaign... If students sign up, say, on the website, and specify their area of interest (even if that area is "undecided"), I want to automatically send them:
* 12 hours later: a "thanks for registering" email
* 1 day after that: general information about our University
* 2 days after that: general information about our college
* 1 day after that: specific information about the program in which they expressed an interest (this would be the first "specific" email based on program of interest)
* 2 days after that: specific info #2
etc...

If a student attends an on-campus event, or comes for a visit, or has some other type of beyond-prospect interaction with us, we would add an additional drip-campaign with different messages, and they would get messages from both drip campaigns.

It would be acceptable for me to have to run, say, a daily query in CiviCRM (since I am anticipating that I'll be in CiviCRM frequently anyway) if full automation isn't possible.

[vogelap]

Thanks to all reviewing this thread. I welcome any comments about my questions!

[Dave Greenberg]

Drew - I think most of the pieces are there for what you want to do w/ the drip campaign(s):
- "hooks" which can fire custom module code when a contact record is created or updated in a particular way
- message templates with "tokens" (i.e. mail-merge functionality)
- db storage of basic contact info and easy to create custom fields to track interests and "prospect state"

... however, I'm pretty sure you would have to stitch these together by creating a separate module which looks for student "state changes" and triggers the mailing action with the corresponding message template. You can read a bit about CiviCRM "hooks" here if you want to explore this path:

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/CiviCRM+hook+specification