GROWING AND SUSTAINING RELATIONSHIPS

GROWING AND SUSTAINING RELATIONSHIPS
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Franck Sinimalé

Integrator

l'AtelierWeb.Org

http://www.atelierweb.org

I chose to learn to use CiviCRM to learn how to help NPOs :) And because it seems to be a meeting point and a continuity of my values, my skills, and what I think we should develop for the next step of our humanity.
GROWING AND SUSTAINING RELATIONSHIPS
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Rachel Daniell

end-user, implementor

consulting/multi

CiviCRM provides a vital tool whereby nonprofits and other social projects can implement strong contact-relationship management capabilities without high monthly fees. It also provides the integration and customization capabilities necessary to make such software useful in the complex, lived reality of doing social engagement work. Plus it continues to build the open source toolset made available to the Commons and grow the common good.
GROWING AND SUSTAINING RELATIONSHIPS
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Coleman Watts

End-user and Developer

Woolman Sierra Friends Center

http://woolman.org

If it weren't for CiviCRM we'd be using at least 5 different
systems for Woolman: one for donor management, another for email newsletters, a third for our school enrollment, a fourth for our summer camp registration, and then a whole bunch of spreadsheets for keeping track of things like event attendance, prospective students, CSA memberships, etc. And of course none of those systems would talk to each other or make it possible to get a whole picture of the many ways one person might participate in our education center's activities. Migrating all of our scattered data and disparate systems to CiviCRM was a long and challenging process, but the results have been more than worth it. Our ability to track and report on our programs has improved dramatically, while the burden on staff to do data entry has been greatly reduced, and our participants are happy that they can now register/enroll online rather than mailing or faxing paper forms.
GROWING AND SUSTAINING RELATIONSHIPS
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Allen Gunn

Ally, FanBoy

Aspiration

http://aspirationtech.org/

By giving the nonprofit sector a values-driven, free/open source solution for CRM needs!
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Oliver Gibson

Consultant, Implementor, Trainer

Northbridge Digital

http://www.northbridgedigital.co.uk/

The community provides excellent forum support, new ideas and feedback on suggestions. The CiviCRM software suits many use cases and allows us to support a large number of diverse UK voluntary sector organisations.
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Alejandro Salgado

Implementor, Consultant

iXiam

http://www.ixiam.com/en

We help organizations with their CiviCRM Projects. From Business consultancy to custom CiviCRM development.
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Margaret Thom

User, Administrator

Biodynamic Farming & Gardening Association

http://www.biodynamics.com

Online and offline membership sign-up and renewal,donations and event registration, integrated with our Drupal website. Directory for members, group and bulk emails, renewal reminder emails. Exciting to have complex conference registration within our CRM. Impressed with the Civi community and ongoing development of new features and improvements.
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Jon Goldberg

Implementor

Palante Technology Cooperative

http://palantetech.com

Palante Tech works with social justice organizations on a tight budget to be more effective through technology. CiviCRM allows us to provide a high-quality low-cost database for community organizing, donor and membership management.
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Michal Mach

Core Team Member, Developer, Implementor

CiviCRM, Caltha

http://civicrm.org

I've always been passionate about what non-profits and advocacy groups can achieve using technology. For me, CiviCRM shows an essential example of how non-profit and technology worlds can come together to provide real change - working as community, creating value for yourself, but also for others in non-profit sector.
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Ken West

End-user, Administrator

City Bible Forum

http://citybibleforum.org

City Bible Forum is an Australian not-for-profit Christian organisation. We need to communicate effectively with our constituents, and CiviCRM gives us a comprehensive set of tools for managing relationships. Interestingly, we often find that new features are being added just as our need for those features is becoming apparent. It's the right fit for us.
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Robin Tombs

Supporter

Zing

http://www.zing.uk.com

Zing is a user of Civi software.
Zing wants to see more NFPs use Civi software.
Zing is helping fund further Civi software development and outreach.
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Brylie Oxley

End-user and Developer

Woolman Sierra Friends Center

http://woolman.org

Working with CiviCRM enriches our commonwealth. Any investment in CiviCRM is
shared by the community as a whole. Community organizations naturally complement the spirit of Free/Libre Software.

You are here

Home

Documentation

This page gives an overview of CiviCRM's documentation. It is a starting point for people that want to know where to find documentation and how to improve documentation.

For more details on what is happening right now with documentation efforts, and for detailed information on how to get involved, read the documentation pages on the wiki.

The books and the wiki

The majority of CiviCRM's documentation can be found in either the books or the wiki. So what is the difference between the two?

Our vision for documentation is...

  • The books provide a definitive and stable guide to CiviCRM, both for end users and developers. They are the place to go for authoritative answers to CiviCRM questions. A significant amount of effort goes in to making the books comprehensive and accurate. Because of this, they may not contain up to the minute information on new features, etc.
  • The documentation wiki (CRMDOC) is the place to go to find documentation on new stuff and features that aren't stable yet. It is also the place to put content that is constantly changing (e.g. installation instructions) and things that don't fit nicely into a book (for example large comparison tables).  There is also another wiki (CRM) which serves as CiviCRM's 'notebook'. It has lots of information on past and present CiviCRM projects and includes things like requirements and specifications documents, road maps, and so on.

A lot of documentation starts of its life in the Wiki and then moves to the books as it becomes more stable.

Books

The books are available at: http://book.civicrm.org. There are currently two books:

The books are versioned. You can see versioning information in the top left hand corner and you can browse older versions in the archive for each book, e.g. http://book.civicrm.org/user/archive.

The wikis

The wikis are available at: http://wiki.civicrm.org/. There are currently two wikis:

Improving documentation

Anyone can edit the book and the wiki! Reviewing and improving documentation is a great way for non technical people to contribute to CiviCRM and is also a great way to improve your understanding of CiviCRM.

Editing the wiki

Editing the Wiki is simple and your edits will be visible immediatley. Sign up for an account here http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/signup.action and start editing.

Writing the books

To ensure the quality of the books, we have a slightly more involved publishing workflow (a bit like a software release) in which any edits that people make are not immediately visible in the published version. Instead all contributions are reviewed before being released.  This helps is ensure high quality docuementation, which is especially important for new and inexperienced users.

The ‘source code’ of our books is here:

User and administrator guide - http://booki.flossmanuals.net/civicrm/_edit/.

Developer guide - http://booki.flossmanuals.net/civicrm-developer-guide/_edit/

If you want to edit a book, you can sign up for an account here http://booki.flossmanuals.net/accounts/signin/ and start editing.

Until now, we have done a lot of our book writing at book sprints. These are typically 3-6 day events where we get together in person to work on a major improvements to the book. At the the end of the sprint, we review our work and hit the publish button. We’ve had at least one book sprint a year since 2009 and try and tie in sprints with versions of the software.

Aside from booksprints, we don’t currently have a formalised process for making new releases of the books. If you have capacity to help in the release process, let us know.

If you are planning on making significant improvements or additions to our documentation (either remotely or by organising a book/documentation sprint) let us know about your ideas.

The documentation team are a very friendly bunch and are always on the look out for more contributors. We have a book and documentation forum http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/board,11.0.html and a low volume discuss list http://lists.civicrm.org/lists/info/civicrm-book which are great places to introduce yourself and get more involved. Also check http://civicrm.org/category/civicrm-blog-categories/documentation for blog posts on how we are improving documentation.

 

For more detailed information on what is happening right now with documentation efforts, and how to get involved, read the documentation pages on the wiki.

Other places to get help

Aside from the wiki and the books, there are plently of other places you can go to for help, including