3 ways to shield staff from complexity in CiviCRM

Yesterday I talked about shielding staff users from some of the CiviCRM's complexity, and I mentioned a client of mine who made a point of doing that before even launching the CRM for her staff.

How did she do it? She used a collection of features in CivCRM and her CMS (WordPress):

• Limit access to features with CMS permissions and roles:
  If a user hasn't been trained on a certain feature or workflows, she just doesn't give them access to it.

• Limit access to data with CiviCRM ACLs:
  If there's sensitive data that only certain staff should see, of if there's a collection of data that would just be confusing to some staff, she shields them from it using ACLs.

• Simplify data entry with CiviCRM profiles:
  Users who just need to enter data (record contributions, register event participants, enter new contacts) don't always need full access to all of CiviCRM's back-office features. For these users she's created a few simple profiles (remember, in CivCRM a profile is just "a collection of fields") that serve as freestanding data entry forms. It's much easier to train staff on these streamlined forms than it is to train them on all of CiviCRM.

To paraphrase a comment from my conversation with my client:

Without this training and shielding, the system is so complicated that staff will either be unwilling to use it regularly, or they'll be overwhelmed by complexity and frustration, which then makes the whole thing an uphill battle.

Here's the thing:

CiviCRM is a powerful and complex system. You can do a lot with it — which unfortunately includes creating a lot of headaches for your staff. Data has to be recorded correctly. Complex relationships need to be created, between individuals, organizations, events, mailings, activities, payments, and other entities.

But it also provides great features to streamline that complexity into workflows that are manageable for your staff, based on your organization's unique needs.

The more you invest time — and careful goal-driven planning — to get that right, the easier your staff's lives can be, and the more value you’ll get from your system.

All the best,
A.