March 24 San Francisco Meet Up

If you were thinking of attending the CiviCRM meet up last Wednesday or wondering what exactly is shared, discussed, explained, who attends?… Also, no worries if you're a bit late, we leave a number at the door for you to call The meeting was attended by approximately 20 people who were new to CiviCRM, people who have decided to use CiviCRM and people who use and or develop it everyday and had specific questions. After short introductions, we split into 3 smaller groups. Group A talked about CiviSchool - http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/CiviSchool Group B were experienced users Group C were new users, everyday users wanting to learn more features, people thinking if CiviCRM will meet their needs Questions from group C: Q. What's the difference between Drupal and Joomla!? Which to choose? Drupal and Joomla! are both content management systems and CiviCRM can be installed in either system. http://civicrm.org/node/17 A: The choice your organization may choose may depend on what your IT person or consultant is familiar with. from CiviCRM's demo page - you are able to click either - Drupal or Joomla! http://civicrm.org/node/17 If your organization would like to use permissions: allowing some contacts to have more access than other contacts, then drupal allows for permissions Drupal and Joomla! have their own forum support so you should check that and see which forum supports you best Comment from the group: I have used Drupal for most of my sites, but now I'm starting to use Joomla! so that I can be familiar with both systems. Q: How does CiviCRM help find and merge duplicate contacts? A: read the links: http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Find+and+Merge+Duplicate+Contacts http://drupal.demo.civicrm.org/civicrm/admin/deduperules?reset=1 Q: What are some CiviEvent Features? A: You may allow people to register early for a discount, offer free give aways like a t-shirt, allow online payment, read more at the links below: http://drupal.demo.civicrm.org/civicrm/event/manage?reset=1&action=update&id=9&subPage=Fee http://drupal.demo.civicrm.org/civicrm/event/manage?action=update&id=9&reset=1 CiviMail allows "mail merge" functionality like in a word processor. http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC30/Mail-merge+Tokens+for+Contact+Data Shared from group: If you have contact information in more than one place and want to collect it all and have them all together check out - http://www.talend.com/index.php other things shared: drupal for facebook - http://drupal.org/project/fb Some people at the meeting were very interested in forming a group and keeping in touch. will send out info. regarding that soon cheers