Just one thing though, as Chris is so blatantly anti the GPL, why should I respect any licence he chooses to adopt?

We will shortly need beta testers. I am hoping that the beta will be ready by the middle of next week. If you are interested then please email me and I will add you to the list.

By the way the first 50 that reply to this email will get the plugin free. The next 50 will get the plugin at half price, everyone after that will have to pay full price. So get your emails to me.

For those that want to know the cost of the new plugin will be £0!

When the plugin is activated it will create new fields:
Company Name
Address Field 1
Address Field 2
Town
County
Post Code
Country (Could be a drop down select)
Telephone Number
Mobile Number

It will also create a new category called CRM. And new tags Telephone, Email, Visit. And finally a link in the sidebar called CRM.

When creating a new user the plugin will add certain fields when the new user is created. For example if the new user is Richard Brown whose firm is Cregy, a new sub-category under the main category of CRM will be created. This sub-cat will be called Cregy. The plugin will also create a new tag called cregy_richardbrown.

The plugin will now work like this. I make a new post and add it to the category Cregy and tag it richardbrown. I also add the tag Telephone. In the content box, I write something like, Phoned Rich and spoke about the new website. When I press publish certain things need to happen.

1. The post is not visible from the front end if not logged in.
2. When clicking the CRM link in the sidebar we now get a client list. The first name in the list will simply be Cregy. Sub links under Cregy will be: Edit, Posts, Tags. If I click on Edit, it takes me to the edit user information. If I click on Posts it will lists all the posts I have made under Cregy. And if I click on tags it will list all the tags beginning cregy.

This means I can quickly view any contacts I have made with the firm Cregy or with Richard Brown.

So if I now add a second contact called Claire Stoner who also works at Cregy. I end up with the tag cregy_clairestoner. So if I look under the crm link and click on Cregy I now have all posts created for everyone who works at Cregy. If I click tags, I can quickly see the posts sorted by the tag lists. So I can view the contacts made with Claire or Rich.

Under the Edit link I will now find 2 options…. edit Richard Brown or edit Claire Stoner.

I am not sure how long it will take but I will update this post to let all know. If you have any comments please add them in the usual place. If you would like to contribute towards the plugin please use the contribute link I have added.

In the course of the building the plugin I am going to add various elements. The first will be whether you require a contact to be visible in the front-end as a business card. The second will be whether you want to allow the clients to access their information. This could take the form of a new tag that allows certain user levels to view. i.e. The client logs in and doesn’t see the dashboard but sees all the posts with this tag listed. In this way you could pass on information. They could also be allowed to edit their contact information.

Additionally I will add an invoice feature.

And finally, I think the Church directory is a brilliant idea and I will be turning this into a membership CRM as well. All the features will be available to everyone but just how you use it will be different. For instance, adding a list of users feature will enable it to become a membership plugin. Any user logging in will be able to see all users and search for a user.

Unfortunately, I do have a limited budget and also limited time, so if you want to add elements then contributing will speed up the development. Thanks.

Inspired by you
Striving to create good
Nothing is perfect. *

WordPress.Com
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Imagine better comments

Intrigued I duly signed up. But for the minute that is as far as I got. I contacted tech support because I couldn’t get the plugin to work – I received an email the same day offering some solutions to try. (I wish I could get tech support like that from all the other companies I use). Anyway, none of the solutions seem to be correct so I am posting some screenshots to see whether it is possible to fix the problem. I’m loading it up here in case someone else runs into a similar problem.

The problem is that when installed the plugin takes you offer to the settings page to configure the plugin. First step is to login which I do with no problems, the second step is to import your comments and this is where things go belly up. It starts to import and then logs me out and asks me to log back in again. A never ending loop!

Here are the screenshots:

It is towards the top and defines what version you are using. Simply change it to whatever beta version you require.
$wp_version = '2.8.1-dev';

See Nightly Builds for more information.

I have added a new function to the CRM plugin – a contact form. This is probably the last update I will do for a time because of the cost of developing this further. I am hoping to find a client who will sponsor taking the project forward. As soon as I can I will endeavour to advance further with some of the ideas that have been floated.

In the meantime, please download the contact form and tell me what you think.

== Installation ==
1. Upload to your plugins folder, usually `wp-content/plugins/`
2. Activate the plugin on the plugin screen.
3. Configure the plugin on it’s settings screen. Settings … Contact Form
4. This plugin will work after activate “CRM” plugin.

== Frequently Asked Questions ==
= How do I add the contact form to a post/page? =
You will need to add to the body of the post/page in the editors HTML mode. Enclose the code in triangular brackets:

!–add-contact–

You can see the contact form in action on this page.
The fields are all configurable using css. My css looks like this:

fieldset { border: 1px solid #ccc; margin: 0; padding: 0 1em; background: #f8f8f8; }
legend { font-weight: bold; }
input: focus, textarea: focus { background: #ffc; }
input { width: 300px; }
form { width: 480px; }
form dt { float:left; width:150px; }
form dd { margin-bottom:6px; }

And if anyone is willing to sponsor further development please don’t hesitate to contact me. Thanks.

<?php query_posts('p=1'); if(have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php the_content(); ?>
<?php endif; ?>

Couldn’t be simpler!

More simply, WordPress is what you use when you want to work with your blogging software, not fight it. However, WordPress is more than just blogging software. It can also become a full content management system (cms). Through the addition of plugins you can extend WordPress to include a shop, customer management, contact forms, forums, the list is endless.

A web content management system has features to ease the tasks required to publish web content to web sites.

Web content management systems are often used for storing, controlling, versioning, and publishing ecommerce, news sites, blogging, photo galleries, sales guides, and marketing brochures. A content management system may support the following features:

• Import and creation of documents and multimedia material
• Identification of all key users and their content management roles
• The ability to assign roles and responsibilities to different content categories or types.
• Management of shop stock and sales information

If you want to get started with WordPress, contact us and we can arrange to set you up with a site.