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CiviCRM Cookbook
CiviCRM Cookbook

CiviCRM Cookbook: Improve your CiviCRM capabilities with this clever cookbook. Packed with recipes and screenshots, it's the natural way to dig deeper into the software and achieve more for your nonprofit or civic sector organization.

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CiviCRM Cookbook

Chapter 2. Organizing Data Efficiently

In this chapter we will cover:

  • Adding contact types
  • Adding a time-limited relationship
  • Using tag sets to quickly organize data
  • Using tags and groups to segment data
  • Changing option lists
  • Creating and updating a smart group
  • Using Google Refine to prepare data
  • Importing into CiviCRM using an import script
  • Using external identifier deduping rules to import contacts
  • Using Google Refine to create a unique ID
  • Importing relationship data
  • Exporting related data
  • Batch updating using profiles

Introduction

Organizing data is a critical planning step in your transition to CiviCRM. What sort of contacts will you be managing and what are your data needs? How will your contacts be grouped and tagged? What relationships will they have between each other and you? What information will you want to get out of CiviCRM? Once you have a plan in place, you will want to get your existing data into CiviCRM the way you want. This often exposes the poor quality of your data, and the effort required to clean it up and get it into shape. This can sometimes take longer than the data planning stage. This chapter shows you some recipes that don't even use CiviCRM but will help get your data in shape. In other recipes we'll explore some of the techniques of organizing your data once you get it into CiviCRM.

Adding contact types

Imagine you are managing a soccer club using CiviCRM. For some contacts—players—you would want to record the goals scored, attendance, age, playing position, injuries, and other data. For other contacts such as coaches, you would want to collect different data: first aid qualifications, coaching qualifications, and so on. Having both these sets of data showing up on every contact summary screen does not make sense. What you need is to have two different sorts of contacts; contacts who are players and contacts who are coaches so that they both hold separate data. CiviCRM makes this easy to accomplish.

How to do it…

CiviCRM comes with three main contact types: individuals , households , and organizations. As we are dealing with individuals, we will create two subtypes of the the individual contact type, teachers and students. These subtypes inherit all the information you can collect from their parent contact type and can be extended to collect more...

Adding a time-limited relationship

Relationships are a central feature of CiviCRM. For example, you may run an organization that has contacts related to it because they are volunteers, or you may have individual contacts that are the children of other contacts who are their parents. Some relationships are time-limited. For example, the chair of an organization may have a one year fixed term of office.

How to do it…

In this recipe we will set up a time-limited relationship between two contacts using the following steps:

  1. Navigate to Administer | Customize Data and Screens | Relationship Types and click on Add relationship:
    How to do it…
  2. Set Relationship Label-A to B to Chair.
  3. Set Relationship Label-B to A to Chair is.
  4. Set Contact Type A to Individual.
  5. Set Contact Type B to Organization.
  6. Set a suitable description in the Description field.
  7. Check if the relationship is enabled.
  8. Save the relationship.
  9. Navigate to an individual contact, click on the Relationship tab, and add the relationship.
    How to do it…
  10. Select the relationship...

Using tag sets to quickly organize data

Tags are a way of organizing your contacts, activities, and cases within CiviCRM. You can regard a tag as a way of describing data and as a powerful way to segment your contacts. Any tags you create are visible on the contact edit screen so they are great with getting summary information about a contact quickly. You need to include tags in your data plan for CiviCRM, otherwise your screens can get overrun by redundant tags.

How to do it…

Tag sets allow you to add tags on the fly without going to the Manage Tags screen. Here are the following steps to do so:

  1. Navigate to Contacts | Manage tags and click on Add a Tag Set.
    How to do it…
  2. Enter the name and description for your tag set, and apply it to Contacts, Activities, Cases, or any combination of these.
  3. Navigate to a contact record and click on the Tags tab.
    How to do it…
  4. Now start typing in new tags into the Reasons for joining box on the edit screen.
  5. CiviCRM turns this into a tag option (in black). Click on the tag option...
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Key benefits

  • Take your CiviCRM skills to the next level and harness the power of CiviCRM
  • Covers a wide range of CiviCRM core and component topics
  • Practical, comprehensive, in‚Äìdepth and well‚Äìexplained recipes with the necessary screenshots

Description

CiviCRM is a web-based, open source, Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) software geared toward meeting the needs of non-profit and other civic-sector organizations.Organizations realize their mission via CiviCRM through contact management, fundraising, event management, member management, mass e-mail marketing, peer-to-peer campaigns, case management, and much more.CiviCRM is localized in over 20 languages including: Chinese (Taiwan, China), Dutch, English (Australia, Canada, U.S., UK), French (France, Canada), German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Swedish.CiviCRM Cookbook will enhance your CiviCRM skills. It has recipes to help you use CiviCRM more efficiently, integrate it with CMSs, and also develop CiviCRM.This book begins with recipes that help save time and effort with CiviCRM. This is followed by recipes for organizing data more efficiently and managing profiles.Then you will learn authentication and authorization and managing communication with contacts.Then you will be guided on using the searching feature and preparing reports. We will then talk about integrating Drupal and CiviCRM. You will also be taught to manage events effectively. Finally, learn about CiviCampaign, Civimember, and developing CiviCRM.

Who is this book for?

If you have basic CiviCRM skills and want to further enhance your CiviCRM skills, this book is for you.

What you will learn

  • Set up geocoding
  • Add custom data fields
  • Display a contact map
  • Create permissions for administartors
  • Create mail templates for CiviMail
  • Add the external identifier field to full text search
  • Create user accounts from contacts in Drupal
  • Move a site to a production server

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Jun 07, 2013
Length: 236 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781782160458
Vendor :
CiviCRM LLC
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Languages :
Concepts :
Tools :

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Product Details

Publication date : Jun 07, 2013
Length: 236 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781782160458
Vendor :
CiviCRM LLC
Category :
Languages :
Concepts :
Tools :

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Table of Contents

12 Chapters
1. Setting Up CiviCRM Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Organizing Data Efficiently Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Using the Power of Profiles Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Controlling Permissions Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Managing Communications Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Searching and Reporting Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Integrating CiviCRM with Drupal Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Managing Events Effectively Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. Using Campaigns, Surveys, and Petitions Effectively Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
10. Working with CiviMember Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
11. Developing for CiviCRM Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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(6 Ratings)
5 star 66.7%
4 star 33.3%
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D. Stuck Jul 18, 2013
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
A Plug for CiviCRM:If you've come here there's a chance that you're pondering the deployment of CiviCRM for your nonprofit, NGO, or what have you. For the record, CiviCRM would be one of the best choices you could make. It's open source. This means it won't be going away. You don't have to worry about your data being locked inside a barely functioning piece of software years from now because some company merged with another, or a bankruptcy occurred, or more money could be had going in "another direction". CiviCRM also doesn't carry licensing fees. You can use it on however many computers with as many users as you wish. And it's robust. It's in essence a database and you're free to mine all of the stuff inside to your heart's content. You won't be hamstrung into using the templates and forms that make you curse more than they ease your job.It's out of the box features do require you or a web savy tech to do some work setting things up. Some turn-key software out there will beat it in that regard. But in the end CiviCRM will grow and change to your needs rather than your staff having to adapt to the quirks of some turn-key software when you've outgrown it.About the Book:Do be aware that the book explores CiviCRM within a Drupal CMS. If you're thinking about running CiviCRM within WordPress or Joomla, this book will not offer you much help. It was just in the last year that CiviCRM was available for WordPress. It's hoped that many of the "Recipes" offered in this book might become plugins & recipes for WordPress soon.Like any cookbook you should familiarize yourself with the "recipe" before you begin to cook. Some things in here are suited for the beginner. Other recipes I'd say are more for an experienced chef. Not saying that you can't pull it off, but you need to have the courage to dig into some php code with a good text editor, like Bluefish.But as always, familiarize yourself with the recipe before you begin. Some of them are actually complimentary recipes to others in the cookbook. Such as a glaze would be to a ham. Again, read the full recipe before beginning.Pros:The book give clear instruction for the most part, but it is understood that you are somewhat familiar with Drupal.Excellent references. Need to discover more? The e-book has links to take you to more documentation at the CiviCRM wiki and other sites. And you've got to love copying & pasting code.If planning the deployment of CiviCRM, this would be a must have book. It goes beyond what you can find on the Internet. It will help you in deciding the features you need for your own unique situation. Plus it helps to support the fellows behind CiviCRM.Cons:My only fault with the book is that I'd loved to have seen a work flow described in an appendix section. Or give it it's own chapter(s). Give two or more common needs found at most nonprofits and take me through some of the decisions and options I would have in implementing them within CiviCRM. Fundraising banquet, donor requests, volunteer management, etc. Anyone of them could have jump started me on my own projects.Tl;drCiviCRM is a great piece of open source software. This cookbook is a must have if you'll be implementing it. It will save you time.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
L DANZIG Jul 24, 2013
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
I have found this book a great help, with lots of practical recipes. It is easy to find what you want to know, and the topics are covered in a concise, accessible way so you can get on with trying out what you want to do.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Mari May 18, 2015
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Great reference book.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Allan B. Jun 19, 2013
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
The CiviCRM Cookbook is a collection of so called "recipes". Each recipe deals about a specific subject or problem in CiviCRM, and has a fixed structure:- 1 or 2 paragraphs to explain the topic or problem- a section "How to do it", with the actual steps to achieve the goal of the recipe- a section "How it works", with some background information- a section "See also", with links to online resources or other recipes in the bookThe book is well-written, and the provided examples in the recipes make sense.What I less liked is this cookbook format. I find this format too restrictive, because it leaves less room for background information. I prefer a regular book with a mix of explanations, examples and howto's.That said, I found the CiviCRM Cookbook an excellent supplement to the CiviCRM guides (see http://book.civicrm.org/). From a practical perspective you learn about a specific topic, and the "See also" section of the recipe provides pointers to the CiviCRM User and Administrator guide or other online resource. Besides CiviCRM, you'll also learn about Drupal modules, OpenRefine, geocoding, cron, jQuery, LAMP... That's why I gave the book 5 stars.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Zelda1925 Sep 14, 2013
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
I want to learn this software. I bought the hardcopy, installed CiviCRM 4.3.5 on Drupal 7.23 on a cheap shared server.I know some Drupal, but new to CiviCRM. I have tried about 50% of the recipes, almost all of these work correctly (for me)Pros.The monkey-see/monkey-do format. A good way for me to learn.Mini-Screenshots are very informative.Does not use valuable page space with installation instructions.I found the Drupal and Views integration stuff very informative.Right up to date, Sept 2013Cons.As expected, there are some typos/errors in the book. However, they tend to be minor (eg menu links, directory paths, slightly incorrect) and I could figure out the correct instruction, so these didn't prevent me from completing the recipe.Would be nice to have all code downloadable from Packt website. Not yet there, Sept 2013.A newbie complaint. Need to add 'Save' where appropriate.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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