Blogs

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January 16, 2009
By cap10morgan Filed under CiviCRM

One of the new features in version 2.2 of CiviCRM (in alpha release as of this posting) is a new contact import system. I'll delve into the technical details in a bit, but at a conceptual level, this new design should allow more flexibility in the import system down the road. The first hint of this in the 2.2 release is the new SQL Query data source option.

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January 15, 2009
By lobo Filed under Drupal

Some personal info to set the background: I have two kids who started kindergarden and pre-k earlier this year. We've also been involved with the KidZone Museum (in truckee, ca). Small schools and museums have a large part of their annual budget come in via live auctions. I did a bit of digging around and could not find any open source software that addresses this sort of fund raiser auctions.

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January 12, 2009
By MalucoMarinero Filed under Drupal

I've started working with CiviCRM as I've been looking to build a new website for a NPO I work for, which does Youth Development onboard a Sail Training ship. One of the problems we face is the information we have being in multiple locations, so to get any critical information for our operations onboard (such as Passenger Manifests, Crew Transfers and other details) we have to go through the office. On top of this, alot of these things are STILL put together by hand via spreadsheets and what not, which can make for a slow process.

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January 12, 2009
By Dave Greenberg Filed under CiviContribute
Starting with CiviCRM 2.2, your organization can take advantage of an online fundraising strategy that was previously available only to users of one of the large, proprietary (and expensive) online fundraising solutions. I've spent the last few days working with our new Personal Campaign pages feature - and I'm quite excited about the potential it has to help our users take their online fundraising to the next level.
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January 12, 2009
By Dave Greenberg Filed under CiviCase, CiviContribute, CiviMail, CiviCRM, Drupal, Joomla

We are excited to announce that the initial Alpha release of 2.2 is now available for download, AND to try out on our sandbox site. This release includes several major new features: CiviCase - case management component with configurable workflows (learn more...). Personal Campaign Pages - Allow constituents to create and promote their own personal fundraising pages in order to drive traffic to your organization's online contribution pages (learn more...). Simplified CiviMail Requirements - PHP-based option to handle return channel (bounces, replies ...) - replaces AMAVIS and simplifies installation and server access requirements. ... and scores of improvements. Check out the 2.2 Roadmap for a good overview. Or you can review a complete listing of new features, improvements and bug fixes on the issue tracker.

We strongly encourage folks to download and test the alpha release and help improve the final product. You can contribute significantly to the project by testing the upgrade process against a copy of your 2.1 data, as well as running your regular tasks on an upgraded site.

 
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January 6, 2009
By Dave Greenberg Filed under CiviCRM, Joomla, Training

Joomla! Day UK is scheduled for March 13 and 14, 2009 in Kent. The organizers would like to include one or more CiviCRM-related sessions, depending on interest and availability of presenters.

If you are interested in or planning on attending OR if you are interested in helping to organize / present at a CiviCRM or NGO / Non-profit session - please post back to the forum topic.

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January 3, 2009
By loboFiled under

The team has been focused on doing a pretty extensive QA cycle for the CiviCRM 2.2 release. We have approx 10 issues to resolve and another 10 issues to verify. 2.2 seems to be looking quite good so far :). The list of features, improvements and schedule is on the 2.2 wiki page

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December 22, 2008
By shot Filed under Architecture

As the various localisations of CiviCRM get traction, the first localised versions of documentation pages begin to show up – and this brings us to the issue of how to internationalise these of the CiviCRM strings (texts) that contain links to documentation pages so that when a given string is translated to, say, German, it also refers to the German version of the documentation page (if such is present).

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December 19, 2008
By Dave Greenberg Filed under CiviCRM
The team has released version 2.1.4 with approximately 25 minor bug fixes. You can see a listing of the issues included in this release on the issue tracker. Download You can download CiviCRM 2.1.4 from our download page. Select from the civicrm-stable section. The filenames include the 2.1.4 label: civicrm-2.1.4…. Be sure and download the correct version for your CMS (Drupal / Joomla!). Select the Drupal download for Standalone upgrades.   Upgrading You can upgrade directly to 2.1.4 from 2.1.0, 2.1.1 or 2.1.2. We've also made a few changes to simplify the upgrade process a bit. Upgrade instructions are available on the wiki for Drupal, Joomla and Standalone. If you're still running CiviCRM 2.0 - "making the move to 2.1" has gotten a bit easier as well (we've eliminated a few steps in the upgrade). Of course you'll still need to upgrade from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 or Joomla! 1.0 to Joomla! 1.5. This could be a good time to look at requirements and support for any other components / modules you're using. Complete upgrade instructions for 2.0 sites are on the wiki for Drupal and Joomla!.
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December 9, 2008
By Dave Greenberg Filed under CiviCase, CiviCRM
Coding has been completed for the phase 1 features of CiviCase - our new case management component, and we're deep into a quality assurance cycle as I type this. (If you haven't been following the evolution of this project, you can check out earlier posts here.) One of the cool things about CiviCase is that it allows organizations to configure workflows for the different types of cases they handle. We're implementing these work-flows for "physicians' health" cases in collaboration with our sponsor for the project - Physician Health Program of British Columbia. I'd also like to include sample configurations for several other case management settings when we release CiviCase as part of v2.2. For example, workflows for organizations who provide housing assistance, or family services or .... In order to accomplish this (in more than a half-***** way) - I'd like to hook up with folks who have some experience in one or more of these areas. If you work with an organization that could use a tool like CiviCase to help with their work - and is up for acting as a beta site - that would be even better. If you have questions about whether CiviCase is a "good fit" your organization - please post them to the CiviCase forum board with as much detail as possible about your requirements. If you can help out with constructing sample configurations, please ping me at dave at civicrm dot org.
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