I've just released the stable 2.0 version of the Drupal Webform CiviCRM Integration module and wanted to share some of the cool new things you can do with it.

Version 1, which I wrote earlier this year, was basically built for a single purpose: you could have a user fill out a webform, and their contact record (name, address, email, etc.) would be created/updated and an activity of the form submission would be logged. That alone is pretty darn useful, but suggestions from users, the advent of API v3, and a commission from the core team got me setting sights higher for the next release.

Hi,

Two weeks already since civicon, the dust has settled and Amy Dobbs and the team at skillmatters have filmed and uploaded the sessions.

One of the items we didn't get to at the code sprint was a quicksearch by id that bypasses search results pages and takes you directly to the page in question, e.g. a case id or a contribution/invoice id.

On a system with roughly 25,000 activities, running on a dedicated server, the case dashboard would take over a minute to load. Other orgs have reported similar problems, and in at least two cases the consultants simply removed the upcoming/recent sections from the dashboard since it was just too slow.

Taking for example the upcoming section, on the server above the query would take about 26 seconds. With some optimization, it now takes less than 1 second.

We had a good discussion that came up because we were discussing a change being made to lower the barriers that currently exist for evaluators of CiviCase. We thought it would be good to write down some things:

Given that there's an upcoming code sprint in the UK where rumor has it there will be some work done to improve CiviCase, I thought I would put my wishlist out there and get the community's response.  I'm a pretty frequent and detailed user of CiviCase, and although the majority of our actual service delivery is interactive, either on the phone or in person, we send and receive a lot of email correspondence, some of which ends up being relevant to one or more cases.  So one category of improvements I'd like to see involve the email processor and its functions.

I wish the email processor would:

• allow me to select multiple activities at once to be filed on a case (perhaps with a checkbox interface similar to what appears in a contact search);
• allow me to delete activities that have been attached automatically to a contact, sometimes by mistake;
• allow me to see a reference in a user's activity stream after an activity has been filed on a case: something like "activity filed on case 25098";
• allow me to configure an organization contact with an email domain, so that all emails from that domain are filed on that organization's contact, rather than on individual contact records. There are some organizations with which we have very loose associations, and we don't want to bother maintaining individual contacts - we just want to see all of the email from that organization in a single stream.

I have been leveraging the CiviCase component of CiviCRM to help a crisis response organization transition to a paperless process.  I was originally tasked with "fixing" a Microsoft implementation of a custom web application written in VBScript and MS SQL Server but after fighting with the former developers horrible code I finally decided to migrate the system over to an open source LAMP implementation leveraging J! 1.5 and CiviCRM 3.1.

CiviCRM is a really nice product for the developer in me because it allows you to create the exact solution as requested by a customer. I have been learning the ins and outs of the system the best I can over the past three weeks so when my customer requested the ability to click a button on the main navigation to see pending and active cases I figured it would be easy.

Eli Beckerman is the second winner of a copy of Using CiviCRM from Packt Publishing. Eli is excited about the potential of CiviCRM to organize bottom-up transformations to deal collaboratively with the many crises facing the world today.

Packt has also selected a runner-up in its contest: an experienced CiviCRM user from the City Bible Forum, ken, will get a downloadable eBook copy of the book.

Here's some background on Using CiviCRM from Packt's site:

What you will learn from this book:

Sheila Burkett is the first winner of a copy of Using CiviCRM from Packt Publishing. Packt is running a promotional contest where you just have to post into the forum or email them to qualify to win a copy of the book.

Here's some more information about the book from the Press Release:

Using CiviCRM is the first commercially published book on CiviCRM, and came out in February 2011. It will teach readers to build a CRM that conforms to their needs and to integrate it with Drupal or Joomla!. Written by Brian Shaughnessy and Joseph Murray, this book will assist readers in developing an integrated online system that handles contacts, donations, event registration, bulk e-mailing, case management, and other functions such as activity tracking, grants, reporting and analytics.