CiviCRM

Our go-to for Associations and others

Commentaires : CiviCRM integrates CRM functions for associations, affiliation groups and others as an add-on for the top GPL content management systems WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. We have been installing and hosting CiviCRM for several years and it has become a standard part of our toolbox. It is especially strong on event registration and membership management. CiviMail does an excellent job with bounce and subscription management, but it's not as user friendly as a service like MailChimp or Constant Contact for HTML mail composition. CiviContribute handles payments for memberships, donations and events. CiviCase brings case management into to application and CiviVolunteer helps you keep track of the eager beavers who want to help your cause. We have used CiviCRM for projects ranging from an international arts group to our son's Boy Scout troop. We have used it for camping registrations and conference registrations for thousands of users. The real gem, as in any CRM tool are the reporting tools. You can pull membership, attendance or other reports in minutes. Think of a data related question and get an answer quickly and simply.

Avantages :

Excellent event registration and membership management at a price that can't be equaled. Best of all, it works in and with our client's websites.

Inconvénients :

It's not an intuitive tool. You need to learn the logic of CiviCRM to get things done. It's not hard, but I wouldn't give it to a client without a few explanations and probably training.

serves its purpose

Commentaires : Overall, it's done what we've needed it to do, reliably, for a long time.

Avantages :

We've used CiviCRM for years to handle all of our even registrations. While it may not be the slickest thing out there, it's been very capable of taking on this task.

Inconvénients :

This may or may not be a con for some, but it's been largely unchanged for years. The consistency makes it pretty easy to use, but it's probably aging a bit.

Decent open sourced CRM

Commentaires : This is a free software program that can for the most part, make it do what you want it to do as long as you are experienced enough. If you have database experience with a limited budget, this would be a good route to go.

Avantages :

CiviCRM is an open sourced database, so there are no fees or contracts associated with it, which is nice. If you have previous database experience, it can be pretty intuitive on how to use for donor management. Although there is no customer service as it is open sourced, there are several forums that are helpful.

Inconvénients :

The open source can be a double edged sword. While it is nice that you can build yourself, unless you have a developer/script writer on hand things can get complicated and messy quick. The reporting is alright, but does not do anything extravagant (unless again you have a developer on hand that can help you write more canned reports). The import feature works okay, but often times still creates duplicates.

Great potential and features

Avantages :

The flexibility of this platform is truly amazing. You can customise it to your exact needs and the range of features is unbeaten. Most powerful CRM I have come across.

Inconvénients :

The user interface is what lets this platform down. It is not responsive and although a developer has made a mobile app, it is too late to the game and does not properly give you the power of CiviCRM in your mobile. Considering most people now will want to access these platforms from phones, this is what makes CiviCRM unfortunately not really future proof.

High functionality at low costs

Commentaires : Very functional so long as you don't need something new

Avantages :

Cost -- our volunteer run organization could afford it (we pay for hosting which includes administrator and user coaching) Highly functional and generally very easy to use Very flexible with extensions that are much more advanced than found in cost-comparable products -- membership, events, etc. Very good API Ability to fully get all data out of it

Inconvénients :

Import of large quantities of data using supplied import procedures is painful at best. That said, a person who understands the database can bypass the worst of it -- however, we could do this, and the closest competing product priced itself out of our reach by an excessive import fee. While existing reports are easy to use, creating truly new ones is nearly impossible (need to create a new extension) Sadly lacking documentation on creating extensions