Many people including me have no need for most of the functionality CRM’s like SugarCRM and vTiger CRM offer. These big CRM’s are slow to load, and difficult to understand how to use. That’s why for the past 2 years I have been in desperate for a lightweight, easy to use, true Open Source CRM application.
What If Wordpress Could Be a CRM?
Wordpress is one of the most ideal open source projects in the history of the web. It’s licensed under the GPL and it’s community is full of people truly dedicated to contributing code and advancing the app. It’s lightweight, easy to use, and simple to customize by adding additional functionality. What if this could be a CRM?
The Open Source WP-CRM Slick Theme for Wordpress
This theme is a free theme for Wordpress that turns a Wordpress CMS into a simple, easy to use CRM or customer relationship manager. It was developed by SlipFire and then re-skinned by me. I must say that most of the credit goes to SlipFire for putting this theme together, as well as the instructions for putting it together. I just made it look better. Here is a screenshot of what it looks like. Here is also a link to the demo.
The homepage lists your most recently added contacts. Just like your blog would list your most recent blog posts. Categories are “Companies†and your contacts are assigned to them. You can also add tags to each contact like “web designer†or “big jerkâ€Â.
The Add Contact page utilizes the TDO Mini Forms plugin for Wordpress which allows you to create the fields necessary for your contact. You can see in this screenshot a preview of what the Add Contact page looks like.
Once added, the contact’s page looks like this. The right sidebar lists all of his contact and other detailed information. Then the Comment Form in Wordpress is utilized to add “Notes†to the contacts history such as “had a meeting with Billy today…it went terrible! The guy is a complete jerk. He’s no longer my friendâ€Â
Get Your Wordpress CRM Started!
** Download the WP-CRM Slick theme here.
** Follow the detailed installation instructions from SlipFire here.
** Be sure to check the “Members Only?†option under Settings >> Members Only in your admin panel to password protect your entire Wordpress CRM.
I have released the WP-CRM Slick theme under the GPL so feel free to contribute to it. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated to help make this theme better. Enjoy!
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Hey Chase– great job with the theme. Thought you would want to know that we will be releasing a totally new version of a Contact Manager built on WordPress. Will be using the Parent/Child themes so it will be even easier for you to theme. You can learn more here: http://www.rolopress.com
Thanks for a great article and knowledge
Hello,
which Version of Wordpress did you use?
I have 2.8.4 and so much Problem withTDO mini-forms… Can´t Save Form1 and always the Error:
Warning: substr() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in C:\Programme\xampp\htdocs\wordpress\wp-content\plugins\tdo-mini-forms\admin\tdomf-form-options.php on line 128
Your Theme is very cool – great Job!
Thank u
Carol
@Carol I built and tested the theme in Wordpress 2.8.4. I didn’t have any problems with TDO mini-forms when I put it together. From your error it looks like you are running Wordpress locally using Xamp. I did this too and did not have any problems.
I wonder if there is a conflict problem with another plugin you may have installed?
Hello,
now, all is okay! I havo no problems and errors.
*juhu*
But,where can I edit my contacts????
E.g modify the Email or mobil number.
Bye bye
Caro
Alternatively, you can plug in a pretty economical online crm into Wordpress with a simple plugin!
http://www.thisispearl.com/support/contacts-crm-and-email/wordpress-plugin-c-276_403_406_415_677.html