Customization vs Configuration

One of the great things about CiviCRM is the possibility of tweaking it to match your organization's needs exactly. The possibilities are nearly limitless.

But what does that "tweaking" really look like?
How easy is it to do, and how easy is it to maintain?

Broadly speaking we can divide this into two types of modifications, which I'll call...

1. Configuration: Using in-application point-and-click workflows (or, changes to settings files like CiviCRM settings.php) to get a desired outcome.

2. Customization: Creating or modifying computer code (such as PHP and JavaScript files) to add or alter functionality.

Put another way:

Configuration is stuff your non-programmer staff can do, while customization needs software development skills.

CiviCRM, like any other open-source software package, can be customized in literally any way you can imagine — as long as:

• It's logically sound (i.e. it can be explained in plain English with a set of rules that don't contradict each other), and

• You have access to (and a budget for) the programming skills to do it.

And one more thing: If you're customizing the software, you're on the hook for keeping those customizations working properly into the future.

In other words:

When you upgrade CiviCRM, who will make sure your customizations continue working properly? Nobody but you (and whomever you can get to help you).

Here's the thing:

When you get an idea to make your CRM behave differently, customization (through software programming) is definitely an option.

But if you don't have a business case that justifies ongoing bug-fix support for those customizations, you're probably better off sticking with whatever changes you can achieve through configuration.

All the best,
A.

How to sharpen a pencil

What's the best way to sharpen a pencil?

Don't bother thinking about it too much. It's a trick question, because I've intentionally left out a ton of important detail.

For example:

• Do you just need to scribble some notes, or are you creating a fine work of art?

• Are you sharpening one pencil every 6 months, or 100,000 pencils every day?

• Do you even need to sharpen a pencil? What about mechanical pencils? What about pens?

Truth is, there are probably a thousand different ways to get this done.

And none of them is "right."

Because the method itself doesn't matter.

What matters is the result, and (sometimes) the efficiency.

Here’s the thing:

Sharpening a pencil, or even 100,000 pencils, is a relatively simple matter compared to managing your CRM systems.

But the principles of "prioritize the outcomes" and "no perfect solutions" apply to both.

More important than asking, "What's the best way to X," is to ask:

• Why would I want X in the first place?

• What would that outcome be worth?

• What's any reasonable way to move toward that outcome without spending more time / effort / money / good will than it's worth?

Because a sharp pencil will just make marks on paper.

And chances are, that's not all you're really hoping to achieve.

All the best,
A.

Turning expenses into investments

Distinguishing investments from expenses can make the difference between hitting your goals and running out of resources.

Here's what I mean:

A good investment helps you build momentum.
A good expense just helps you survive.

Naturally, I assume you'd rather thrive than merely survive.

But some expenses are unavoidable. Some examples my clients have faced recently:

• Duplicate contacts in your CRM need to be cleaned out.

• Financial data needs to be replicated and reconciled with your bookkeeping software.

• If a staff member is out sick, someone needs to do extra work to cover for them.

You can’t avoid that stuff when it comes up.

But, what if you could turn an expense into an investment?

What if you could use all the time and effort you spend staying afloat to help you accelerate forward?

Often, you can.

The trick is to look for the opportunity to build momentum, at times when you could get away with just surviving.

Look again at those examples, with actual steps I've seen people take to turn a problem into an improvement:

• Have a big problem with duplicate contacts? Don't just spend time slogging through the deduping process. Use it as a chance to improve your deduping systems.

• Struggling to keep up with accounting integration? Don't just throw more tedious hours at it. Grab the opportunity to analyze the problem (and the business requirements) so you can automate the integration.

• Staff member out sick? You could just scramble to cover for them, or you could take the chance to start documenting their workflows and cross-training your team members.

"But Allen, all of that is more work!"

Sure it is.

It's also a lot more rewarding, and in the end, a lot less work.

All the best,
A.

Cybersecurity Awareness Month

Yesterday I learned that October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and has been since 2004.

That's 20 years, and I'm just hearing about it now.

Maybe we need a “Cybersecurity Awareness Month” Awareness Month.

But hey, it's a good excuse to talk about some easy things that you can do to tighten up your security. Here's a quick list:

• Make sure your site has the latest CiviCRM security release, which came out this week.

• Take a minute to review the list of user accounts that have access to your CRM data, and close any accounts that are no longer used.

• Remind staff of your password policy (or good heavens, create one if you don't have it). That should include things like: not using the same password on multiple accounts; using a long random string instead of "password123"; being just as careful with email passwords as you are with your login password (extra points if you can guess why that matters).

• Document the meaning of each user permission role (and keep that documentation up to date), so you can easily adjust user roles as your staff come to need different levels of access.

• Severely limit the number of users who have administrator access to modify other user accounts. (This is like the genii who insists “no wishing for extra wishes.”)

• Review your data breach response plan, or create one if you haven't already. If something should go wrong, that's not the best time to start thinking about how you'll handle it.

Naturally, the list could go on. Just as it is for the physical security of your office and your home, maintaining tight security on your CRM data is an ongoing effort, not a one-and-done affair.

Chances are, you'll never have to deal with a security breach. But though the chance of one is low, the potential impact is enormous.

October is as good a time as any to pause and make sure you're giving this topic the attention it deserves.

All the best,
A.

Quantity? Quality?

[A] ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups.

All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity.

It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

- Ted Orland, in Art & Fear

It’s a story shared a while back on the blog of “writer who draws” Austin Kleon (which is itself worth a read).

So what’s the lesson here for us?

Could it be that putting all your effort into one big campaign is — in the long run — less effective than running a bunch of small campaigns?

Could it be that frequent (even daily) practice in identifying, communicating with, and inspiring your people is — in the long run — more effective than planning “the perfect outreach”?

Could it be that starting with small “test-launch programs” and learning from the results is — in the long run —more effective than waiting until you “know everything there is to know” before launching?

Maybe. What does your experience tell you?

All the best,
A.

What is success?

My local newspaper seems to run a lot of stories on what the local schools are doing.

In almost every article, a school administrator will comment on how important it is to help these young people “be successful."

Funny thing is, they never seem to say what that means.

So what is success?

Put simply, success is reaching a goal.

If you don't have a goal, there's nothing to succeed at.

Of course, if you don't have a goal, you also can't fail.

What this means is:

You cannot have success without the risk of failure.

At the beginning of this week I sat down and wrote out some goals for the week. Mostly small things, but they were all things that I wanted to achieve.

Here's how I've done on a few of them:

• CiviCon North America 2025: Ensure our planning committee has the information it needs to commit to a city and dates in our meeting this week. SUCCEEDED.

• Jiu-jitsu: Record two sparring sessions, rewatch them, and note some things I could improve. SUCCEEDED.

• Personal health: Hit the gym for a good workout, 5 days this week. FAILED.

• Kids’ homeschooling: Catch up on my backlog of unreviewed kids' homework: FAILED.

You'll notice some of those are outcomes and some are just actions. But they're all things I wanted to achieve, and either achieved or did not, unambiguously.

Now nearing the end of the week, it's time to review and improve.

Where I succeeded, I'll:

• Celebrate. This is great.

• Examine my plan and how it worked well (or could have been even better).

• Consider whether (and how much) this success is based on good luck, and improve future plans to anticipate bad luck.

• Consider whether (and how much) to adjust this goal next time.

Where I failed, I'll:

• Lament. It's not the end of the world, but it sucks, at least a little.

• Examine my plan and where it fell short.

• Consider whether (and how much) this failure is based on bad luck, and improve future plans to better anticipate that bad luck.

• Consider whether (and how much) to adjust this goal next time.

Win or lose, the process is fairly similar: because I had unambiguous goals, I can see clearly where I succeeded and where I failed.

Here’s the thing:

Setting goals means risking failure, and that’s a little scary.

But aiming at success, and iterating on a process to improve my success rate, makes it totally worth the risk.

All the best,
A.

Flawless execution…

... is a myth.

If your goals for the quarter, or even for the day, depend on flawless execution of a perfect plan, you've got troubles.

Even the most perfect plan will need adaptation as soon as it comes into contact with reality.

People are imperfect.
The future is unpredictable.
The National Weather Service was founded over 150 years ago, but with all the latest technology and predictive algorithms, your local meteorologist still can't guarantee tomorrow’s forecast.

So instead of betting on flawless execution in the face of unpredictable reality, try this:

• Make your best plan according to your best knowledge and experience.

• Expect surprises.

• Execute that plan as best you can to hit your targets.

• Frequently review, assess, learn, and adapt.

• Repeat until you die.

Here's the thing:

Reality is unpredictable. No plan is perfect.

But continual assessment and improvement is within your reach. And it's the only way you can predictably get better at reaching your goals.

All the best,
A.

A cause worth championing

How does it feel to be a leader in a cause that matters?

You're doing it now. Does it make you proud? A little tired? A little energized? A little frustrated? A little hopeful?

If you're like me, it's all of those things. And in the end, absolutely worth it.

Within the larger world, your organization is a champion for some specific goodness.

No doubt, this makes the world a better place.

So let me ask:

Within your organization, who is championing the goodness that makes your organization a better place?

Because there are things that matter there. Think about just a few:

• Relationship development

• Constituent engagement

• Constituent retention

• Data integrity

• Data privacy

• Data security

• Usability

• Team morale

Is someone passionately and attentively advocating to improve these areas in your team?

Could it be someone who hasn't been asked to do it, but just cares enough to try?

Is it you? Could it be you?

If those things aren't valuable within your organization, what is?

And who's going to champion that cause?

All the best,
A.

Decisions that can’t be made

"Hey, there. I need Mary to enter a few contributions we got over the weekend. Can you upgrade her permissions temporarily? She hasn't really been trained, but I'll walk her through what she needs to know for this."

Sounds like a pretty simple request, right?

But is it really? Of course not.

• How long is “temporarily”?

• What are all the permissions Mary will need?

• How will that affect other staff members who have the same role as Mary?

• What are the security and privacy implications?

• If something goes wrong, how will we handle it — or even know about it?

• Who’s really thinking about all these questions and has the understanding to answer them? ‘

Sometimes even the simplest requests can be surprisingly hard to deal with.

In a very small team, you can afford to make such decisions ad hoc. You might even have to.

But in a larger team, where several departments have varying levels of access, the potential risks become substantial.

If you have clear lines of communication, clear policies that everyone understands, and a clearly designated administrator for those policies, this can all go very smoothly.

But without those things, you can find yourself in a position where nobody is able to make an effective decision.

That's a formula for delay, frustration, and error.

Putting those things in place takes time and effort, but they are essential. The time and effort is absolutely justified.

Here's the thing:

If your organization is growing and struggling with questions like these, take a moment to think about where the bottleneck is.

Do you have the policies? Do you have the clear lines of communication? Has someone been designated to answer these questions?

If yes, then you should be good to go. If no, then it's probably worth thinking about.

All the best,
A.

CiviCRM Security Release: Oct 16, 2024

Get ready for an upgrade to CiviCRM. The announcement is below.

Here’s how you can prepare for this important security release:

• Understand the importance of security updates. This is not the kind of thing you want to skip.

• Test your backups. You’ll want to perform a full site backup before upgrading, and have confidence that you can revert to that backup in case of any surprises during the upgrade.

• Get a preview of any extra steps that may be needed. CiviCRM upgrades can require some additional manual steps, and you typically won’t know what those are until you read the on-screen instructions during the upgrade, which is not the most convenient time to learn about them.
  You can prepare ahead of time by previewing those messages in my CiviCRM Upgrade Messages Previewer.

This update will be released on October 16. Don’t wait until then to start preparing!

All the best,
A.

P.S. Here’s the original announcement from the CiviCRM Core Team:

There will be a security release for CiviCRM on Wednesday, October 16 (US/Pacific Time). Updates will be provided for the following versions:

CiviCRM v5.78 (https://civicrm.org/download)

CiviCRM v5.75 (current ESR; see https://civicrm.org/esr)

We expect the release to become available near the end of the day (TZ conversions).

Slow website problems

This week I got a question from a client who's struggling with performance issues on her Drupal/CiviCRM site.

The public-facing side runs fine, but for logged-in staff users, many of the admin pages are excruciatingly slow.

I had them reach out to their hosting service, who of course wants to be able to see it happening in order to diagnose it.

Unfortunately, things seem to be running fine now.

Yes, “unfortunately” — because it's pretty hard to debug a problem if you can't see it happening, and recreating a performance issue is a lot like trying to recreate a traffic jam: everybody knows what one looks like, but it's not so easy to make it happen on command..

So what to do? Well, she has a few options:

1. Record the problem happening.

She could wait until it's happening again, and record a screencast showing that the front end operates normally, and that certain admin pages are very slow.

She could at least show this to the hosting support team as evidence that the problem actually exists.

If she tells them exactly when it was happening, and the IP address from which she was accessing the site, they may even be able to find something in the logs that will help identify the problem.

2. Just be persistent.

Even without such a video, she can continue describing the problem to the hosting support team and hope that persistence persuades them to at least propose some solution.

3. Experiment with other hosting.

She could try hosting the site somewhere else: a larger server with the current hosting provider, or a server at a different provider. This might even be a temporary experiment, in which she could decide to go back to the original hosting service.

If the problem never appears there, she could assume it must have been something with the current hosting setup and then decide whether to go back to that or continue with the new service.

If it does appear under the new hosting, that's an indication that something is amiss in the site itself, and we could dig in further to identify what that is.

4. Quantify the problem in order to budget for a solution.

Any given problem has some quantifiable cost. It may not be easy to identify that quantity, but there's probably some way to put a number on it.

If she can do that, then she can make a rational decision about how much to invest in a solution, and when to just live with it because it's not worth the cost of fixing it.

Here's the thing:

Performance issues can be hard to debug. And any sporadic problem can be really hard to debug.

It's usually worth considering a few different options and then making a rational plan.

It definitely sucks, but deciding how much it sucks can help a lot to determine how hard you're willing to work to fix it.

All the best,
A.

Content that helps

Something more on reciprocity:

What do we mean when we say, “content that helps the folks who are reading it?”

This morning I received an email newsletter from one of my local organizations, an org that provides low-to-no-cost mental health services to families facing trauma and crisis.

This newsletter goes out to hundreds of folks each month; some are clients or potential service recipients; others are just interested in the organization’s work.

There are 5 content items in this newsletter:

1. “Trick-or-Treat” (link to a calendar of local Fall festivities and events)

2. “DIY Costume Ideas!” (link to a great article on easy costumes — including Bob Ross, WTH!)

3. “National Bullying Prevention Month” (link to the “Parents” page at stompoutbullying.org)

4. “Salvation Army: Angel Tree” (link to the “Apply Now to Be a Recipient of Angel Tree” page at the local Salvation Army website)

5. “New Service Available” (in-email announcement of a dedicated computer kiosk at the local library where the organization’s client’s can apply to various agencies for help with housing, employment, etc.)

It looks to me like maybe 100% of the content here is mean to be immediately helpful to the reader or someone they know. Perhaps #3 is a call to action, but it’s definitely not a call to help this organization.

What does this do for the organization?

• It directly furthers their mission, which is to support families dealing with trauma and crisis.

• It demonstrates that the organization (more specifically, the people at this organization) actually care about these families.

• It reminds both potential clients (service recipients) and potential donors of the good work this organization continually does in the community.

All of that while almost completely avoiding words like “we,” “our,” and “us.”

In other words, this newsletter is about you. The only “we” here is the fact that it came from us.

That’s content that helps the reader.

And that’s a way to do the mission — and build support for the mission — while increasing good will among the people who make the mission possible.

All the best,
A.

Reciprocity

Think for a moment of someone who's gladly done you a favor.

Gave you a ride to work when you had a flat.
Helped you prep for a difficult interview.
Loaned you a book you really loved.

Whatever it was, they did it gladly, as if they really wanted to help you.

How'd that feel?

I'll bet that, for a while at least, you might have looked for some way to pay them back.

Not because they expected it. Just because you wanted to.

Now think a moment about someone who frequently asks you for help.

I'm sure you do your best, but I bet you're not trying very hard to think of new ways to help them.

What's going on here?

It's a simple human behavior called reciprocity:

Someone helps me, I somehow want to help them. Someone keeps asking me for help, I somehow kinda don't feel so motivated.

This may be something to consider as you shape your communications strategy.

Of course your newsletters and emails are meant to support your mission.

But what if you could also find a way to let them help the people who are reading them?

Wouldn't they be even more motivated to help you in return?

Yeah. Yeah they would.

All the best,
A.

Coaching session extras: message templates

Last week I had a coaching session with a client, in which there were a couple of technical questions that we didn’t have time to cover.

On a hunch that others might like to have the answers, I’ve worked up a couple of quick videos to answer these questions, and share them with you here:

1. Why can’t I see contribution-related tokens when editing the message templates for my thank-you letters?
   Video: CiviCRM: accessing contribution-related tokens in Thank-You message templates (5 min, 9 sec)

2. How can I create conditional logic in message templates? For example, if a given field has value “A”, I’d like to display a certain block of text, and otherwise omit that text entirely.
   Video: CiviCRM: conditional logic in message templates, via Smarty templating engine (17 min, 13 sec)

The real value of my coaching sessions is in exploring strategies toward specific priorities and goals, but these little technical tips can be useful too.

All the best,
A.

What needle are you trying to move?

There's that nagging feeling that something needs to change — but you don't quite know where to act.

Do you feel it?

Many of my clients do.

The ones who get past it, who take action and get results, have one thing in common:

They start by defining what they want to achieve, and why it would be valuable to achieve it. Only after that do they think about what steps they might take to achieve it, and how effective — or how difficult — those steps might be.

If you're trying to "move the needle" on something, don't waste time guessing about how you can do it, until you've first identified, very clearly, exactly which needle you're trying to move.

Once you've got that, it's a lot easier to separate good ideas from bad ones regarding how you can actually make it happen.

All the best,
A.

Scanning for duplicate contacts — in your sleep

Do you make a regular practice of scanning for duplicate contacts in your CRM?

Rather like flossing your teeth, this is both not-exactly fun, and a valuable practice that will save you a lot of headaches.

But if you have more than a few hundred contacts, you may find that the scanning itself can be a bit of trouble:

• Scanning across all contacts takes forever, and it can even lock up or crash your site.

• You can of course set the scan to compare only a portion of your contacts, but breaking them up into small chunks is a tedious process.

• The scanning itself is rather tedious; it's a bit of chore to sit there waiting for the scan results to load in your browser — and if you can't process them all in one sitting, you'll have to repeat that scan again later.

I know several organizations where staff, facing these challenges, have just avoided scanning for duplicates, or put it off as long as possible. Meanwhile the number of duplicate contacts just keeps growing, which will make future scans take even longer.

If that's your situation, you might want to have a look at the Dedupe Monitor extension. It scans for duplicates while you sleep, is careful not to crash your site while doing it, and then alerts you to any duplicate candidates that the scans have identified.

Your staff can then review those duplicate candidates, and use CiviCRM's standard duplicate-merge features to either merge them or mark them as "not a dulicate."

It's been in use by several organizations for over a year now, and they're reporting great results, trimming down litterally thousands of duplicate contacts out of their systems.

You can learn more about it in this blog post on civicrm.org: Dedupe Monitor: Easy Dedupe Scanning Across All Contacts

All the best,
A.

Data quality: does your team know why?

You've probably learned by now that your CRM is only as good as the quality of its data.

That means constantly ensuring your data is accurate, up to date, and consistent.

And that's not easy to do. It's not always fun. It competes for attention with phone calls, meetings, and deadlines.

And since you're relying on your team, if you have one, to keep up that data quality, you'll want to be sure they understand why it's important.

Explain to them that good data quality is critical for:

1. Making staff tasks more efficient and enjoyable.

2. Avoiding errors in communication that can embarrass and frustrate your constituents, staff, and sponsors.

3. Allowing the organization to allocate resources wisely and plan effectively to further your mission goals.

Your staff are good people, but their time and attention are limited (just like every valuable resource you have).

You can help them by reminding them not only how to keep your CRM data in good order, but also why it's important to do so.

All the best,
A.

Fixing it with paint

The Summersal Cottages in Derbyshire, England were built between 1862 and 1864.

Once a working farm, these beautifully renovated buildings are now a thriving retreat center, currently the home of a 5-day working retreat where I and about 20 other volunteers are working to further improve CiviCRM and its many extensions.

Enjoying a hot cup of coffee after breakfast this morning, I came across this little detail in the framing around the front porch of the farmhouse.

What I see here is well-crafted woodwork, rotting after years of service, and repaired several times — with paint.

Paint. Over rotting wood.

Now, you can probably guess that paint is not a cure for rotting wood. And that paint doesn't even hold well on rotting wood.

But the keepers of this fine little country estate have decided more than once to paint it and leave it, as is.

Some people would shake their heads. Say it's poor maintenance. Say it's a shame.

But it's none of that. It's just a choice.

Time and money are limited resources. The owners are choosing to focus on certain areas of maintenance, and to leave others for later.

Is it a moral failing? Is it a travesty?

Nope, it's just a cost-benefit decision, based on their priorities and their resources, as they understand them.

Considering that this place is usually booked up months in advance, their approach seems to be working just fine.

Here's the thing:

We all have choices to make.

We have our ideals, our desires, our wish to make every little thing just exactly right.

And we have priorities, and goals, and a concept of what we really want to accomplish, and what really matters.

Finally, we have our resources. The time, and funding, and connections, and good will, which we can use to achieve those goals.

Almost always, our resource limitations will force us to make a choice.

We can choose to spend our resources on making every little thing perfect (however unlikely that may be).

Or we can choose to invest in what matters most, as we see it, and to leave some of the little things for later.

My hope is that you can see your priorities clearly, and remember to put your resources there.

There's nothing wrong with painting over a little rotten wood, if it means you can keep the house standing long enough to serve the people you care about.

All the best,
A.

Easily find a custom field

Having over 100 custom fields in CiviCRM is not terribly unusual.

But then, how do you find the one you're looking for, when it might be scattered across 30 or 40 custom field groups?

The administration UI for custom fields begins with the list of all your custom field groups, but you still have to open each group to see what fields are in it. So it’s not always easy to find any given custom field.

What if you could make it easier?

Here’s how it looks by default:

And here’s how it could look, with one small change to your CiviCRM config:

You can get these benefits simply by enabling the “AdminUI” extension in CiviCRM. It’s disabled by default, but you should see it in the list of available extensions.

Then you can easily find whatever custom fields you’re looking for. (You’ll also get similar improvements in some other admin pages within CiviCRM.)

All the best,
A.

100 priorities?

Can you have a hundred priorities for your CRM systems?

Obviously not. That's a contradiction in terms.

Sure, you may have a hundred demands being placed on you.

But if you want to start making better progress in your work, you've got to have one or two items you can focus on, ranked by the priority you actually place upon them.

If you've got that, congratulations. You're in a good spot.

If you don't, what's stopping you?

All the best,
- A.