In this closing chapter, we want to tie up some loose ends and point you forward in your implementation of CiviCRM. We will learn about the following:
- Future versions and project roadmap
- Customizing and extending
- Community and cooperation
When we began writing this book, the current stable version of CiviCRM was 3.1.4 and 3.2 alpha was just being released to the community. Since then, v3.2 stable has been released and gone through several revisions, and 3.3 is now a stable release. By the time book production is finished, v3.4 will be nearing an alpha release. Needless to say, the CiviCRM development cycle typically follows the open source mantra of "Release early, release often".
This book is based on the v3.2 series. At times, we've provided comments where new v3.3 functionality impacts or expands the existing v3.2 toolset. However, for the most part we've focused on functionality present in the v3.2 release.
If you are new to CiviCRM and are introduced to a more recent version than v3.2, this book will still be of value to you, as the vast bulk of functionality is the same. The following represents key new features in v3.3 that we've not covered in this book:
- CiviCampaign is introduced as a new component in a somewhat beta version. The functionality is geared toward advocacy organizations and political campaigns, providing tools for canvassing, petitions, and surveys.
- Advanced Search can now be used to retrieve related records (not just contact records). Recall that when we reviewed search tools, we distinguished the different "lenses" through which records could be searched and retrieved. Basic Search and Advanced Search retrieve contacts (no duplicates) and component searches retrieve the related records (such as contributions). In v3.3, Advanced Search can now be used to retrieve these related records. For example, you can specify search criteria across contributions, memberships, and events, and retrieve contribution records.
- The dedupe/merge engine has been significantly reworked to improve performance. In previous versions, this tool could take significant time or would timeout if run across a large database. It will now scale quite well for large datasets.
- CiviMail has also received some scalability improvements and now supports multi-threaded sending. While dependent on the capabilities of your SMTP service, this can significantly increase throughput for large mailings. Several new reports have also been created to provide tools for searching across multiple mailings.
- A number of new reports for CiviCase and CiviGrant have been added, expanding the types of data that can be retrieved from these components.
- CiviEvent price sets now support a maximum value for field options. This was primarily intended to restrict the number of attendees signing up for breakout sessions. Many conferences have concurrent breakout sessions with a maximum number of attendees based on the size of the room. Each set of sessions will be a price set field, and each concurrent session an option value displayed as radio buttons with associated prices (if applicable) and maximum number of attendees.
- Do you recall the ability to share a household address with individuals discussed earlier in this book? In v3.3, this structure is extended to any contact type. For example, an individual could have their work address set to share the address of their employer.
- One existing weakness in CiviCRM is the limited change tracking mechanism. While v3.2 and prior do a good job of tracking who made the most recent change and when, they offer little information about the nature of the change. V3.3 introduces a first effort at a full audit trail in which any and every change made to the database is logged and can be accessed. The tools for reviewing, interacting with, and restoring from those changes are initially limited. However, the raw data will be there, protecting you from unintended deletions. At some point, we may see quality assurance and moderation functionality allowing supervisors to monitor and approve self-service and front-line staff changes.
- On more of the developer side of the discussion, v3.3 includes upgraded versions of jQuery and jQuery UI, as well as a new mechanism for installing CiviCRM extensions for reports, custom searches, payment processors, and other tools. The CiviCRM community is rapidly broadening, bringing with it many new audiences who are involved in developing and extending the software to meet their organizational needs. This extension framework provides more flexibility for packaging and disseminating tools for specific needs. It enables specialized functionality to be developed and supported by the community without requiring it to be included in the core download.
As with every release, there are numerous minor improvements throughout the software seeking to increase performance, create more efficient workflows, and expand functionality.
It's not possible to accurately identify exactly what will be part of the next release. However, there are a few key pieces which are clearly on the radar screen.
Chief among those will be compatibility with the latest CMS releases: Drupal 7 and Joomla! 1.6.
The timeline for those releases is likely to dictate the version numbering used. CiviCRM v4.0 will most likely be reserved for a version fully (and exclusively) compatible with the new CMS releases.
Apart from the CMS compatibility issue, these versions are likely to include some degree of code restructuring with the goal of improving performance and upgrading core libraries to new offerings that will provide a better toolset moving forward. For a more detailed and current list of features planned for upcoming releases, visit http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/CiviCRM+Roadmap.
Be sure to monitor the CiviCRM blog (http://blog.civicrm.org) to learn more about these new releases and how to be engaged in the process.