WP-CRM: a basic CRM built with WordPress

WP-CRM: a basic CRM built with WordPress

WP-CRM is a WordPress system for creating a basic Contact Manager / CRM.  The system requires a combination of plugins and a theme.  It was inspired by the great work David Yeiser did with WP-Contact Manager, and by 37signals Highrise.

Features:

  • Add contacts from the front end of WordPress - no need to go to the admin screen. 
  • Associate an image with each contact.
  • Assign each contact to a company… or don’t.
  • Create a note history for each contact.
  • Clickable email and website links.
  • Google map contacts address.
  • Dial a phone number (works on cell phones with internet browsers).
  • Fully hcard / vcard compatible.
    • To check out this feature, install Tails for Firefox; it will show you the hcard data and allow you to export a contact to Outlook.
  • Written with BluePrint CSS.

>>Click here to see the demo<<

(Contact creation has been disabled in the demo, but you can add notes.)


WP-CRM was built rather quickly using existing plugins and some creativity. Imagine what would happen if a few plugin developers got together and focused on making a full-featured CRM built on WordPress.

Well… stop imagining, and start coding!

SlipFire is looking for a few good plugin developers to help build the world’s best (some may say, first):
Open-source, stable, secure, themable, pluggable CRM.


If you’re interested please
contact us here.

 


Installation Instructions

Setup is a little bit of work, but once it’s done you have a cool , customizable CRM.  Remember, if it were easy… everybody would be doing it!

For WP-CRM to work properly, you need a fresh install of WordPress 2.3, the theme and a few plugins:

  1. Upload and activate the theme and plugins (did I really need to tell you that?).
  2. Though you will be creating contacts on the front end, you still need to create your companies on the back end. Go to MANAGE - CATEGORIES, and create a category called “none” (without the apostrophes). This will be for contacts that have no company associated with them.  If you like,  you can also create a few companies here as well… or you can do it later.  Each company is just a standard category.
  3. Click on the tab “TDO Mini Forms”.  Now we’re going to create the add contact form.  You will immediately see “Error: No default author set!” Click on “Create dummy user for default author automatically”.
  4. Click on “Form 1″, these are the general options for your form.
    • Change form name to “Add Contact”.
    • Change default category to “none”.
    • Since this is your CRM and you’re not going to let just anybody create a contact, you can check “enable moderation”.
    • Change widget instances to “25″.  This is the amount of custom fields you can have on this form.  We’re only going to use 15 of these, so you can use the remaining 10 for other fields if you like.  But you’re going to have to edit the theme to show them.
    • Click “Save”
  5. Now let’s create the form!
    1. Click on “Form Widgets” from the submenu.  You may recognize this layout. This plugin was created so that it uses the familiar widget layout… very slick!
    2. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen, and where it says “Custom Field Widgets”, select 25 from the dropdown menu and click “save”
    3. Now scroll back up and drag “Custom Fields 1″ to the widget.  And then place “Custom Fields 2″ underneath it.  Now, pay attention here; place “Categories 1″ next.  Continue until your layout looks like this:
      customfieldslayout.jpg
    4. Now we need to set the values for each field.  Click on the icon to the right of “Custom Fields 1″ and the options screen should pop up.  Fill in the values per the table below.  When you’re done with each field, click the “X” at the top of the options screen to close the screen, and then click “Save Changes” after you adjust each field, just to make sure you don’t lose your work.VERY IMPORTANT:
      • The Custom Field Key must be typed exactly as shown, or it won’t work.
      • You must set First Name and Last Name as Required fields.
      Custom Field # Title Custom Field Key Type Size Select button choice Other
      Custom Field 1 First Name first_name text field 30 text (no option)
      Custom Field 2 Last Name last_name text field 30 text (no option)
      Categories 1 Company (no option) (no option) (no option) (no option)
      • “overwrite default categories:check
      • “list of categories to exclude”: 1
      Custom Field 3 Title title text field 30 text (no option)
      Custom Field 4 Address Line 1 address1 text field 30 text (no option)
      Custom Field 5 Address Line 2 address2 text field 30 text (no option)
      Custom Field 6 City city text field 30 text (no option)
      Custom Field 7 State state text field 2 text (no option)
      Custom Field 8 Postal Code postal_code text field 10 text (no option)
      Custom Field 9 Mobile mobile_phone text field 30 text (no option)
      Custom Field 10 Home home_phone text field 30 text (no option)
      Custom Field 11 Work work_phone text field 30 text (no option)
      Custom Field 12 Fax fax text field 30 text (no option)
      Custom Field 13 Other other text field 30 text (no option)
      Custom Field 14 (leave blank) email text field 30 email (no option)
      Custom Field 15 Website website text field 30 text
      • “default value”:http://
      • choose “url”
      Content (no option) (no option) (no option) (no option) (no option)
      • “Title of Post”: uncheck “show
      • “Content of Post”: uncheck “required”
      Tags No configuration neccessary
      Upload Files (no option) (no option) (no option) (no option) (no option)
      • “Allow File Types:” .jpg .gif .png
      • Check: “Use filename as post title”
      • “Max File Size:” 100000
      • “Add download link to post content:” uncheck
      • “Add download link as custom value:” uncheck
      • Url of Uploaded area:”http://[your domain name]/wp-content/uploads/
    5. We need to create a WordPress page to put the cool form you just setup:
      • WRITE - PAGES
      • Page Title: Add Contact 
      • Page Slug: add-contact (must be exact, in lowercase and hyphen)
      • In the body of the page, type:  [tdomf_form1]  (with the brackets)
    6. Now let’s make some changes to your WordPress setup:
      • WRITING: Default Post Category: none
      • PRIVACY: I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors
      • PERMALINKS:
        • Custom Structure: /people/id-%post_id%
        • Category Base: /list
      • MISCELLANEOUS:
        • Store uploads in this folder: wp-content/uploads
    7. Let’s update the other Plugin options:
      • ADMIN POST LISTING:
        • Hide ‘Title’ column: check
        • In the area under “Custom Fields to Add”, enter:
          • last_name =>
          • first_name =>
      • SEARCH EVERYTHING: Check off what ever options work best for you.

 

Done!  Your CRM is now ready.


So, how do  you use it?  Here’s a quick tutorial:

  • Adding Contacts: Click the “Add Contacts” button and fill out the form.  When you create a contact a few things happen.  If you add an image to the contact, then the post title becomes the image name.  If you don’t, then the post title becomes the date and time it was created.  You probably didn’t need to know that much, because the post title has been hidden!
  • Adding Companies: Click the “Add Companies” button, and you will be taken to the back-end of WordPress.  Just create a category for every company you want to add.
  • Managing your Contacts: This is also done from the back-end.  But thanks to the ”Custom Admin Post Listing” plugin, when you click MANAGE - POSTS, you won’t see ugly post titles, you’ll see your contacts names.

That’s it!  Enjoy!

Please let me know your thoughts and suggestions, as well as any bugs you find.

10 Responses to “WP-CRM: a basic CRM built with WordPress”

  1. John Says:

    This is so awesome! Can’t wait to install it.

  2. Tim W Says:

    How do I see the vcard data?

  3. sbruner Says:

    You need an hCard/vCard reader to view the data. If you’re using Firefox, download Tails: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2240

    and then go to any contact page in the theme. An icon at the bottom of your Firefox browser will turn orange. Click on it, and that contacts hCard data will appear. You can also export it to Outlook.

    If you have Tails installed, you can visit the demo site to see it work: http://crmdemo.slipfire.com/people/id-69

  4. Andrew Angus Says:

    Looks great… will this set-up work with WP2.5

  5. sbruner Says:

    The theme will work with 2.5, but I’m not sure about the plugins. I only tested them with 2.3

  6. Mark Says:

    TDO Mini Forms will certainly work in Wordpress 2.5! :)

  7. Bob Says:

    I don’t see how to edit or delete an entry.
    And I needed to hardcode the src for images.
    Otherwise, all is well on my Localhost test installation.
    Thanks for work!

  8. Bob Says:

    I should explain: I am unable to edit a post in order to edit/delete contact information.
    Using WP2.51, when I attempt to edit a post, nothing happens.
    I’m going to install on another server to see whether the problem is server related.

  9. Bob Says:

    If I deactivate the Custom Admin Post Listing plugin, then I am able to edit the posts/contact information.
    This behavior found on both XAMP Localhost and a 1and1.com Linux hosted account, using WP2.51, MySql 5.

  10. Gilles Says:

    Bob,

    You can keep the Custom Admin Post Listing plugin activated *but* you need to uncheck again the “Hide ‘Title’ column?”.

    This way, you can click on the title to edit the post (i.e. the contact).

    Hope this helps!

6 Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Skylog » Blog Archive » links for 2008-05-13 Says:

    […] WP-CRM: a basic CRM built with WordPress (tags: wordpress plugin) […]

  2. 8 maneiras diferentes de usar o wordpress. | WebVicio.com Says:

    […] adicionar, gerir e pesquisar contactos através do menu de administração. Podemos também usar o WP-CRM um sistema para wordpress para criar un gestor de […]

  3. XeroBlog - Consejos y Recursos para Bloggers » Blog Archive » 7 Diferentes Formas de usar WordPress Says:

    […] Manager y GT-CRM plugins demuestran que realmente no hay ninguna limitación de la versatilidad de […]

  4. 10 zakon Wordpress plugina, treci dio Says:

    […] WP-CRM - napravite od Wordpressa CRM sustav […]

  5. WordPress ? 7 ????? | ???? Says:

    […] ? WP-Contact Manager ? Slipfire ? WP-CRM???? WordPress […]

  6. Software: TDO Mini Forms Wordpress Plugin (v0.12.2) [ thedeadone.net ] Says:

    […] TDO Mini Forms has been used to turn Wordpress into a Forum and a Contact Manager! […]

Leave a Reply