Book Image

Using CiviCRM - Second Edition

By : Hommel, Murray, P Shaughnessy
Book Image

Using CiviCRM - Second Edition

By: Hommel, Murray, P Shaughnessy

Overview of this book

CiviCRM provides a powerful toolbox of resources to help organizations manage relationships with constituents. It is free, open source, web-based, and geared specifically to meet the constituent relationship management needs of the not-for-profit sector. Beginning with broader questions about how your organization is structured, which existing workflows are critical to your operations, and the overarching purpose of a centralized CRM, the book proceeds step by step through configuring CiviCRM, understanding the choices when setting up the system, importing data, and exploring the breadth of tools available throughout the system. You will see how to best use this software to handle event registrations, accept and track contributions, manage paid and free memberships and subscriptions, segment contacts, send bulk e-mails with open and click-through tracking, manage outreach campaigns, and set up case management workflows that match your organization’s roles and rules. With specific emphasis on helping implementers ask the right questions, consider key principals when setting up the system, and understand usage through case studies and examples, the book comprehensively reviews the functionality of CiviCRM and the opportunities it provides. With this book, you can help your organization better achieve its mission as a charity, industry association, professional society, political advocacy group, community group, government agency, or other similar organization and position yourself to become a power user who efficiently and effectively navigates the system.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
15
Index

Development environment and best practices

We discussed some considerations regarding your server environment and required resource levels. Closely related to that topic is the matter of determining the development environment and code management practices.

In almost every situation, you will want to create a development environment where you can safely implement and test your CiviCRM implementation without impacting your production site. Even if you are not planning to customize CiviCRM in any way, it is still worth creating that development environment where features can be tested, data imports can be reviewed, and you can safely explore different configuration options without risking disruptions to your production site.

Larger organizations, especially those that have planned a phased rollout of their CiviCRM implementation, will likely want three environments:

  • Development: This is where all active code development takes place and where new features are first implemented and tested
  • Testing...