Drupal is well known to be very functional and customisable and the development started by the Dean campaign went onto form CivicSpace a customised version of Drupal which included many specialised Drupal modules that can help nonprofits, campaigns, plan and manage events. As is the open source way many of the modules were contributed back to Drupal. CiviCRM took a lot of these modules and has been improving it at a rapid pace ever since.

CiviCRM is constituent relationship management solution. CiviCRM is web-based, open source, internationalized, and designed specifically to meet the needs of advocacy, non-profit and non-governmental groups. CiviCRM gives you the tools to connect, communicate and activate your supporters and constituents.

CiviCRM is now an add on module for both Joomla and Drupal (both popular Content Management Systems) in addition to this from the latest version 2 there is also a stand alone version. CiviCRM is modular and covers many of the areas that important to many non profits whether they are Charities or Associations. The core system covers many of the areas you would expect from CRM systems but with functionality and descriptions which are tailored for organisations that engage in advocacy, community and political organizing, and non-profit work. Information can be stored about individuals, organisations and households and the interactions with them, Currently the modules available are:

CiviContribute – Online Fundraising and Donor Management.

CiviEvent - Online event registration and participant tracking.

CiviMember – Online signup and membership management.

CivilMail – personolised email blasts and newsletters.

There are also other components that are coming out in new releases:

CiviPledge – Component to handle offline and self service pledges.

CiviGrant – Simple control of money given to constituents for expenses etc.

CiviContribute

CiviContribute allows you to create unlimited web pages for collecting online contributions for different campaigns, projects etc. Financial information can be imported and exported from accounting software. CiviContribute can also produce widgets that can be embedded on any web page allowing any site or blog to collect money for a campaign. See the example below.

CiviEvent

CiviEvent allows you to create as many pages as required for online paid for and free events with registration confirmations and receipts automatically generated. Information and be imported and exported to other systems and also users can export events as ical files and subscribe to public events with online applications (e.g. google calendar) via ical feeds.

CiviMember

Civimember provides membership management allowing the creation of customised web pages for self service membership signup and renewal. CiviMember integrates to CiviContribute for payments and CiviMail for group mailings.

CiviMail

CiviMail is a fully functional mass mailing component allowing you to target recipients by group with personalised messages with the ability to track click throughs, manage bounces and control unsubscribe requests.

Sites using CiviCRM

Completed by volunteers/in house staff with no paid consultancy

Drupal Association- http://association.drupal.org/donate

Open Source Matters Foundation (Joomla Association) – http://www.joomla.org/about-joomla/the-project/make-a-donation.html

Manhattan Country School http://www.manhattancountryschool.org/

Community Partners http://www.compartners.org/

Completed with paid consultants

Amnesty International http://www.amnesty.org/en/donate

Wikimedia foundation http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

Democrats Abroad http://www.conservationfund.org/

Conservation Fund http://www.conservationfund.org/

Bioneers http://www.bioneers.org/

More case studies and lots more detail of implementation are available on CiviCRM’s case study page here.

Additional Links
CiviCRM comes out on top in NTEN Survey.

Install requirements for Latest Version CiviCRM 2.1

Drupal 6 or Joomla 1.5 if not installing Standalone

Apache 2.0

PHP 5.2.x

MySQL 5.x with INNODB enabled

Although Linux is often recommended all the components are cross platform and should work for Windows and Mac servers

OpenERP has a server and client install for Windows. Mac and Linux variations. The main Linux distributions have OpenERP in their repositories ready for an easy install. The latest version of Ubuntu (8.04) has version 4.2 still called TinyERP. For Windows there is client, server and all-in-one installers. Mac install is from source so may be a little more complicated see here.

OpenERP is a modular system and has modules for

Accounting and Financials
CRM
Human Resources
Inventory (Stock)
Manufacturing
Purchase and procurement
Sales and Marketing

As well as the standard client there is a web application which looks like this

As with many open source ERP software (OpenBravo and Compiere) OpenERP uses a PostgresQL database

Summary

Current Version
4.2.3
eTiny 1.0.1.1

Platform

Installation – Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris
Database PostgreSQL

License

GPL

Well known Users/Case Studies
see http://openerp.com/success-stories.html

Useful links
OpenERP Site
OpenERP Wiki
TinyERP Virtual Appliance Server

Christophe Simonis – OpenERP Developers Blog
Relevant Blog – BeezNest Open Source Specialists

Floss Weekly is an excellent podcast from The Twit Network and Leo Laporte. Originally co-hosted with Chris DiBona it is now hosted with Randal Shwartz. It covers many different projects from the world of Free Libre Open Source Software but not usually open source business applications for enterprises. Until this week when it had John Roberts the CEO of SugarCRM talking about the Open Source version of SugarCRM. Well worth a listen for anyone interested in SugarCRM or commercial open source business software in general. Link to the podcast here

Openbravo is ERP aimed at SME’s (Small to Medium Enterprises) and divides its functionality into the following areas:

Master Data Management
Procurement Management
Warehouse Management
Project and Service Management
Sales management and Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Financial Management
Business Intelligence (BI)

A virtual appliance is available here for the Vmware player and the Citrix owned open source xen hypervisor for Linux.

THe virtual appliance runs as a virtual server allowing you to connect your local browser to Openbravo and is very impressive.

Summary

Current Version
2.35

Platform
Server Installation – Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris
Database Oracle PostgreSQL
Client – Web based so Browsers – Firefox, SeaMonkey, epiphany and Internet Explorer

License
Openbravo Public License, based on the Mozilla Public License

Well known Users/Case Studies
Some case study details in the following presentation. Other presentations are available at slideshare.

| View | Upload your own

Open Source Alternatives
Compiere, TinyERP

Proprietary ERP Competitors
SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics

SugarCRM has just launched SugarExchange beta. Sugar Exchange is a market place for SugarCRM Extensions. This would appear a response to Salesforce.com’s Appexchange a marketplace of applications that integrate to Salesforce’s CRM.

Extensions range from themes to integration to other software (Jasper Reports, Alfresco) and functionality not included un the standard product. Extensions can be sorted by which SugarCRM version they are for both commercial and open source. Although the site can promote commercial extensions that you would need to pay for. the majority of the downloads appear free and open source.

Currently the offering is very similar to Sugarforge the open source community pages for SugarCRM. SugarCRM has so many different websites that they have another website describing each one, this can be found out SugarNET.

One of the most popular extensions is the integration with Jaspersoft’s Jasper Reports. Jasper Reports comes with a suite of reports that can be run against your SugarCRM data and allows users to write their own reports. Also according to the press release there will be a joint webcast :

JasperSoft and SugarCRM will be hosting a joint webcast, “Turning Data into Decisions,” at 10:00 a.m. PDT on June 29, 2006. Barry Klawans, JasperSoft CTO and Lars Nordwall, SugarCRM VP of Worldwide Sales, will present and demonstrate the JasperSoft for SugarCRM solution. Register for the event at https://jaspersoft.webex.com/ec0502l/eventcenter/frame/g.do?siteurl=jaspersoft &t=a&d=333195357.

Compiere is open source Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Compiere ERP includes all of the core elements that many small to medium size business and organisations require including:

• Accounting
• Point of Sale
• Distribution and Inventory/Stock
• E-commerce
• Workflow
• Partner Relations Management
• Supply Chain Management

Traditionally ERP includes Manufacturing or Material Requirements Planning (MRP). Manufacturing is not currently included in the core package and is planned for the future but a manufacturing module is available from an independent project CMPCS.

Compiere has two ways of using the software the traditional windows (fat client) interface (see below) and a web interface for a remote or hosted solution. Currently not all functionality is available through the web interface but both can be used in conjunction. Very few solutions have this functionality and it could deliver the best of both worlds.

Compiere is a Java solution (which installs with JBoss) and is designed to run on an Oracle database. There has been some complaints from the open source
community as the Oracle database is not open source and can be quite
expensive (it is included if you take a Compiere support contract). Compiere
has recently released a database kit so it can be ported across to
other databases, there are projects for both mySQL and PostgreSQL. Compiere
plan to add support for the Apache Derby database in July 2006 followed
sometime by Microsoft SQL Server and IBM’s DB2 support. Although not open source there are free versions (with some limitations) of Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2.

Installing Compiere can be quite difficult but there are other options available. Firstly there is a full virtual setup for VMware with Compiere installed and configured available from IKU a German Compiere partner. The image includes Ubuntu Linux and is in German but you can change the language. Also there is CODAF COmpiere and DAFodil database, a commercial setup which states a 5 minute install time. The first 30 days are free.

Compiere had a list of multi’s

* Multi-Language for Documents and User Interface

* Multi-Currency for transacting or reporting foreign currencies

* Multi-Tax supporting different tax systems (Sales, VAT, and combinations)

* Multi-Costing in parallel (e.g. Standard Costing, Average, Lifo, …)

* Multi-Accounting for your legal reporting using different accounting
principles (e.g. Cash/Accrual, International/US/German/.. GAAP)

* Multi-Organization for different branches/outlets and/or legal entities

Compiere is one of the most popular Open Source ERP systems and according to Jorg Janke, Compiere founder and president “Our software has been downloaded more than a million times”. It has also just raised $6 million of venture capital
allowing it to move from Portland, Oregon, to California’s Bay Area and
to further develop the software particularly its manufacturing and CRM
capabilities.

There are currently 43 projects on Sourceforge which are related to to Compiere
from integration into other software such as Jasper Reports (business
Intelligence) to additional modules including Human Resources and Fixed
Assets. There are also projects to use other databases including the open source databases PostgreSQL and mySQL.

Summary

Current Version
2.5.3b

Platform
Installation – Windows, Linux, Unix, Solaris and Mac OS

License
Compiere Public License (based on the Mozilla Public License)

Well known Users/Case Studies
Case Studies

Proprietary ERP Competitors
SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics

SugarCRM

As well as the free to download and use version SugarCRM provides the software as a commercial offering which can include additional features and support including an On Demand (hosted) version. SugarCRM is arguably the most well known and successful of all open source business software companies with over 600 paying customers with over 10,000 users (BDO Siedman have over 9000 users) of the commercial system. About 90,000 people are using the free version. SugarCRM is often supplied as an example of how an open source company can have a successful business model.

Getting a look at SugarCRM is relatively straight forward as there are full installers available as well as a whole virtual setup that you can run from a virtual environment player such as Vmware. Even more straight forward you can have a look at a demonstration online. As with a lot of open source products SugarCRM have regular worldwide Webcasts (presentations and demonstrations over the web) which can be viewed live or after the event.

SugarCRM has a very active community and information can be found at Sugarforge, there are many active projects integrating SugarCRM to Enterprise Document Management (e.g. Alfresco) and Content Management (e.g. Joomla) to name just two. SugarCRM is used all over the world and has been translated into 44 languages. Due to its success many CRM products today are found topo be based on a version of SugarCRM including vTiger, it is also included in many open source projects including the well known PBX (Private Branch Exhibition to run your own business telephone network) Asterisk@home now know as Trixbox.

Founded in 2003 SugarCRM is currently on Version 4.2. They currently have over 1,000,000 downloads of the open source version of their product. Sugar Open Source use is bound by the SugarCRM Public License, a derivation of the Mozilla Public License

Summary

Platform
Installation – Windows, Linux (Solaris and BSD should also work with Apache, MySQL and PHP)
Browsers – Firefox (all platforms Windows, Apple Mac and Linux), Microsoft Internet Explorer, on Apple Mac Camino has had some good reports  but Safari appears unreliable.

Hosted Service
Yes – Commercial

Well known Users/Case Studies
BDO Siedman, Case Studies

Proprietary CRM Competitors
salesforce.com, Netsuite

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