One of the many cool new features in 2.1 is the ability to view annual and monthly contribution totals in a bar or pie chart format by clicking a link on the CiviContribute dashboard. The charts are rendered by passing the contribution totals to Google's Chart API.
We think this is a useful feature (at least for some folks). However, several folks on our team have noted that some organizations may not be comfortable with passing contribution totals to an external service over the internet. Given those concerns, we've added some help text which attempts to make things "transparent" - and including information about removing the link for folks who are concerned...
IMPORTANT: This feature uses Google's public chart-drawing service. Your monthly and annual contribution totals will be sent over the internet to Google's servers. No contributor data is sent - only totals. However, if you are concerned about the privacy of your contribution totals - you should NOT use this feature. You can remove the link by editing the template file at templates/CRM/Contribution/Page/Dashboard.tpl.
It would be helpful to get feedback from the community about how big a concern this is - and whether the explanation we've added to the help text (copied above) is clear.
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September 19, 2008
By lobo Filed under CiviCRM, Drupal, Joomla
Good news folks, we have a few folks interested in CiviCamp. So CiviCamp is confirmed for Oct 13-14, 2008 in San Francisco. CiviCamp is immediately after BADCamp. If you have not yet registered for BADCamp, please do so now (before it gets full!). We plan on restricting CiviCamp to 10 attendees (for space reasons). If you are interested please contact us soon (send me mail lobo at yahoo dot com, or leave a comment). There will be 6 CiviCRM core developers at CiviCamp! (Kurund, Deepak, Piotr, Yashodha, Dave, Lobo)
Agenda and Goals
The agenda and plans for CiviCamp is maintained here. If you are attending CiviCamp, please edit the agenda and include your goals. We hope to accomplish and add a few cool features and improvements to CiviCRM during CiviCamp.
This is not a training event. We expect participants to have some combination of php5 / mysql5 / javascript / CiviCRM / Drupal / Joomla skills.
Fees
We will split up total costs incurred with the group participants. The costs are primarily to cover food and location rental (if any).
Please post a comment to this post if you are interested and your availability on those dates. Also thoughts on what you'd like to get done in this camp would be appreciated :)
Location
CiviCamp will be held at the Yahoo! San Francisco location (downtown?). We will inform attendees of the address and directions.
September 18, 2008
By lobo Filed under CiviCRMSo the good folks at USPIRG our continuing their support of CiviCRM and are sponsoring quite a few cool features for CiviCRM v2.2. In case you were not aware, they also sponsored quite a few cool features for 2.1.
September 18, 2008
By Dave Greenberg Filed under CiviCRM, Training
The Nonprofit Technology Network - NTEN - is holding it's annual conference in San Francisco next April. This is the largest annual gathering of the non-profit tech community in the U.S - and it's a great opportunity for folks in our CiviCRM community to connect and share and help promote CiviCRM.
This year NTEN is using a new voting process to decide which sessions get included in the schedule. Three exciting CiviCRM-related sessions are on the "ballot" - thanks to David Geilhufe, Michelle Murrain (Non Profit Open Source Initiative), Sue Gardner (Wikimedia Foundation), Wes Morgan (Fund for the Public Interest), Rick Cohen (National Council of Nonprofit Associations), and Jeff Porter (Foundation for Prader-Willi Research).
Even if you're not sure about attending NTC - help get these sessions on the schedule by taking a few minutes to vote for them. All you need to do is go to the linked pages below and click on the "stars":
Anatomy of Open-source Fundraising - Wikimedia Foundation
Events Management: Tales from the Trenches
Selecting and Implementing Open Source Constituent Relationship Management: views from the trenches with CiviCRM, MPower & Sugar
The New Peacebuilding Paradigm: Women in Connection x the Internet = Exponential Change
Take a few minutes and VOTE NOW. It's a quick and easy way to "give back" and help CiviCRM grow and thrive.
September 18, 2008
By kurundFiled under It was an eventful period after beta 4. With excellent support from the community, we were able to identify and close quite a few trivial issues (and a few critical ones). The fifth 2.1 Beta distribution (probably last one before stable) is now available for download on SourceForge.
For all those eagerly waiting to being translation work on 2.1, we are now in "string freeze" - and the translation site has been updated with 2.1 files: http://translations.civicrm.org
If you are planning on using new 2.1 features AND / OR upgrading an existing site to 2.1 - NOW is the time to test the upgrade with YOUR DATA and identify any remaining issues with new or existing features. The development team will actively work with you resolve any upgrade issues during this phase of the release cycle. If you are unable to test the release by downloading it - then the next best thing is to try out the new features, bug fixes, as well as the workflows you use most often by logging in to the public demo.
September 15, 2008
By lobo Filed under CiviCRM, DrupalThe CiviCRM team will have pretty good representation at BADCamp in Berkeley on Oct 11/12. A few of our senior developers from India (Yashodha, Deepak and Kurund) will be in the Bay Area at that time. We are also hoping that either Michal or Piotr from Poland will join the party.
September 12, 2008
By mchapman2000 Filed under CiviCRM, Drupal, TrainingIf you're going to be in Los Angeles for DrupalCamp this weekend, stop by the Sunday 3:00pm (or possibly 4:15pm) session on the beginners track for an Intro to CiviCRM. We'll cover basic some basic set-up, usage, and have a brief discussion about what makes CiviCRM different from other Drupal modules. Appropriate for Advanced Drupal users who are new to CiviCRM, or total newbies.
**EDIT: Time corrected, but watch the posted schedules at the Convention center to be sure.
September 11, 2008
By haggan Filed under CiviMember, CiviCRM, DrupalIam using drupal 5.10 and civicrm 2.0 on a server that I maintain. The server is running Scientific Linux 5.2 and I have compiled Gammu version 1.20.0 on it. http://www.gammu.org is "Free tools and software for cellular devices and phones". I can use it for sending SMS via a old cellular phone in my case an Sony Ericsson T290i connected with the usb cable DCU-11. I have set up Gammu to use an mysql db for reciving and sending sms.
September 9, 2008
By Dave Greenberg Filed under CiviCRMNTEN's 2009 annual conference is being held in San Francisco April 26-28. The deadline for submitting session proposals is September 12th (yes - really soon).
David Geilhufe is going to submit several session proposals - and needs a few more folks who are planning on being at the conference AND who are willing to discuss any or all of the following topics as part of a panel:
September 9, 2008
By Dave GreenbergFiled under The fourth (and probably final) 2.1 Beta distribution is now available for download on SourceForge. If you are planning on using new 2.1 features AND / OR upgrading an existing site to 2.1 - NOW is the time to test the upgrade with YOUR DATA and identify any remaining issues with new or existing features. The development team will actively work with you resolve any upgrade issues during this phase of the release cycle. If you are unable to test the release by downloading it - then the next best thing is to try out the new features, bug fixes, as well as the workflows you use most often by logging in to the public demo.
