[Odb-help] Adding power to ODB: feedback wanted

[odb-help at lists.democracygroups.org]

Dear ODB Users:

This Friday, we will begin an online poll to help us choose which new
features we should add to ODB.  This will be an online survey using
Surveymonkey.

Before we post the link to the survey, please take a moment to look
at the list below of possible new features we can include in our poll.
Then email us back to nominate additional new features that we
will list on the Surveymonkey online survey.  We want to end up with
about 10-15 choices and then we will have y'all vote for the top 5 or 6.

Thanks.  Please respond within 24 hours and then you will have 5 days
to complete the polished survey.

-Rich Cowan
 for the ODB Development Team




**** draft of options for SurveyMonkey survey ****

1. Web Form Integration.

Many nonprofits are adopting content management (CMS) systems to
handle their web sites.  Some of the CMS systems like Drupal or Plone
or Mambo (or even raw PHP) make it easy to set up forms on your web
site for user signups.  Proposed: Add to ODB the capability to more
easily retrieve data that your web visitors submit into the CMS.

2. Email Now integration.

The Groundspring "Email Now" feature makes it pretty easy to send
mass emails that include the recipients first and last name if you put
your list into the proper format.  ODB does not yet generate a list of
emails in this format.  Proposed:  Add to ODB the capability to directly
generate email lists that tap the full power of EmailNow using the "copy
emails" button.

3. Donate Now integration.

The Groundspring "Donate Now" service has the capability (though
it is not always used) to include a "key" in the donation link to indicate
the page that a donation comes from, as well as the ID of a donor. 
Proposed:  Add to ODB the capability to include the donor ID in data
exports for mass email.  Also extend ODB's capabilities when importing
Groundspring donations to recognize a donor ID, so as to
automatically match up an online donation with the correct donor.

4. Tracking Code export.

ODB can now import tracking codes, but it can be difficult to easily
export them.  Proposed: We could extend the export features of ODB
to make it easier to export SRC, Activity, Issue, Constituency codes.

5. Email List Integration.

Third party services for managing email lists can make it much easier for
your constituents to go to a single web page and modify which emails
they receive.  However, when you enter someone's sign up form in ODB,
there is no way to easily update their email list preferences.  Proposed:
that OC investigate an email list vendor and figure out a way to allow

6.  Smart Event Codes.

ODB can be used to track event attendance, using the Activity or
SRC codes.  However, these codes do not let you keep track of
a person's overall status, i.e. whether they have expressed interest,
whether they registered, whether they have paid, and whether they
came.  Proposed:  Extend event codes to offer multiple checkboxes
per code to do with 1 event code what used to require four separate
SRC codes.

7. More Hooks for External Reports

It is possible to have an external software program directly access
the ODB tables for reporting purposes.  Proposed: we implement a
starter group of reports and setup instructions for accessing ODB data
using external software such as Access, PHP, or Open Office.


Please suggest other items for the survey by emailing
odb2004 at organizenow.net


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