Notice to non-developers: This post is about how some functionality in 4.2 will be implemented in code and in the database, with very minor changes to anything visible through a browser. If you're not a developer, it probably won't interest you.

I recently completed a conversion of about 8 years of history from a 5 year old Blackbaud Kintera site to a Drupal CiviCRM solution. Confused yet? Don't worry, all we be revealed in time. As a way of giving back, I am planning to share my experiences good and bad, what worked, what did not, what I learned and what I will and won't do next time.

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.

A couple of issues have begun to sting us repeatedly and I see others raising same issue.

#1

Getting a Default Header/Footer used in the SysTplMsgs

SysTplMsgs (System Template Messages) are found here /civicrm/admin/messageTemplates?reset=1)

To avoid repeated copying of the desired header/footer in to the upto 22 SysTplMsg, one option would be to add a checkbox to the CiviMail Footer/Headers (/civicrm/admin/component?reset=1)

Hi,

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

In May, Giant Rabbit relaunched CompassPoint Nonprofit Services’ website and CRM, transitioning them away from a proprietary CMS and CRM to a Drupal/CiviCRM solution.  We came across a lot of unique requirements and challenges throughout the transition process.  This post will focus on one feature that required significant customizations to CiviCRM:  A multiple event registration shopping cart.

Hi,

We conducted a research to see how often someone tweeted about a page powered by CiviCRM in the past month and a half. We analysed 858 tweets by 612 users about 163 sites, some big names like oxfam or the red cross, some for tiny organisations.

These sites cover an amazingly wide range of topics: homeless, food, transgender, environment, sport, political parties, pets, public health NGOs, independant movies, gender equality, education, cancer, anti weed prohibition...

Problem

A client approached us with a specific need; to allow for the concept of “teams” in event registration. In addition to tracking team groups, they wanted to automatically send the team captain an email notifying them of a new team member. Unfortunately at this time, Civi does not have a great mechanism to automatically track teams in the context of event registrations.

Note: You can see videos of these features in action on NS Web Solutions' case study page for this project.

Update: Some of the code for these features is available on GitHub. See my comment below.

CiviCRM offers an incredible set of features straight out of the box. At NS Web Solutions we're sometimes asked to provide a CRM system with some pretty unique features, and we've found that by relying on CiviCRM's wide array of hooks and customization features, there's a lot that can be done.

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: