CiviCRM User Manual
This is documentation available from the CiviCRM development community. Here is a link to the most current version of the documentation. (You can read the document online as opposed to downloading or viewing the PDF below.)
CiviCRM Book: Using CiviCRM — Develop and implement a fully-functional, systematic CRM plan for your organization using CiviCRM by Joseph Murray and Brian P. Shaughnessy
Note: Jim Miller has licensed this Safari Online Book. There is content overlap between this and the CiviCRM User Manual. The last section of each Chapter is a Summary.
The "Download Chapter" links in the Table of Contents PDF are not operable, but you can use it to see the outline of each of the Chapter documents.
The focus of this chapter is to understand how an organization can take advantage of all of the benefits of a CRM system.
Contains information on “Determining your needs,” “Functional requirements,” and “Implementation plan.”
A technical chapter.
The heart of CRM; important basic concepts that will be implemented in the initial phase of the project.
Includes Tips for preparing your data:
“While CiviCRM may facilitate the actual import process, the hard work comes with preparing your data for import. You should begin by taking time to scrub your data. That will involve removing old records you don't want to clutter your new system with, ensuring valid values for fields such as e-mail and website, creating consistent values for any fields using option values, and generally reviewing your data to ensure it is as clean and well-ordered as possible.”
This has information about communication strategies as well as advice about implementing them with CiviCRM
This includes tips on non-profit fundraising approaches as well as information about how to use CiviCRM
The interactions described are primarily online.
Concert events will need to be created before ticket purchase history can be imported/stored.
There are several Case Types that I think we may want to implement eventually.
The focus of this is for organizations that give grants, but it also addresses the grant application process.
This is a more technical chapter. The more data we start storing within CiviCRM, the more reports we will want to design/use so that the information can be acted upon.
Mostly a technical chapter for developers.