Functional requirements
In this section, we're going to delve more deeply into the functional areas supported by CiviCRM. We'll be reviewing the kinds of questions to ask, often of a more technical nature that will help in planning your implementation. These topics and questions, in our view, are the top-level broad-stroke issues that should be sorted out before specific workflow matters are examined.
Contact record management
CiviCRM has three basic types of contacts: individuals, households, and organizations. The fields and kinds of relationships that can be created may vary by the type of contact. For example, individuals have first and last names, current employer and job title, while organizations have an organization name, a legal name, and employees. CiviCRM's rich model for storing address, phone, and e-mail information is shared by all three types of contacts.
Contact subtypes
In some cases, it is possible to identify unique constituent subtypes. Contact subtypes in...