I am ready to start the rebuild of the CRM. It will take a new course of action. The first thing we will be doing is to change the way the user element of WordPress works. That’s to say we will be adding features.

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.