Schools

This goes out to CiviCRM users (yes YOU too!), admins and developers.

A key productivity tool in my day to day life is a set of Q&A websites called Stack Exchange. They have different sites for all sorts, from programming through to parenting(!). Typically, I'm on the programming ones usually, but stay with me, this isn't about to get technical.

There is a new native extension available for allowing parents to register their children for events within CiviEvent.  Tired of using custom data fields on a child to collect information about their parents and emergency contacts?    Would you like the information collected during the event registration to create ( or update ) the various contact records needed in the back-office?  Then this is the extension for you.

Lisa presented this work at the SF Meetup in March. Her presentation slides are here

Three years ago I set up a Drupal-based community site for our children’s K-8 public charter school. As the school’s needs grew, I integrated CiviCRM to enable online enrollment, tour registration, ticket sales, volunteer hour tracking, and other functionality that had previously been accomplished through unwieldy paper forms.

As I began to work more closely with a local arts education non-profit, I realized the lessons I had learned from working on the school site were directly applicable to the organization’s needs. SFArtsED runs a summer camp program for children. Till this year, all registrations were completed  on a paper form that was sent, along with a check, via snail mail. The Registrar mailed back four forms to the parent, who filled them out and mailed them back to SFArtsEd, along with a receipt for payment. Last month I set out modernize their camp enrollment process using Drupal, CiviCRM, Ubercart and Webform Integration.

I blogged a while ago about "Putting the R back in CRM" about the limits on relationships in the self-service areas.   Well I am happy to have an update.  I  (Pogstone Inc) have sponsored the creation of a new extension ( along with JMA Consulting).  This extension is taking advantage of the CiviCRM extension framework for modules, so it should work under Drupal, Joomla or Word Press.