SUPPORTING COMMUNITY

As well as coming together to learn, there is also the need to support individual staff with particular issues. The first port of call is the collective knowledge base of “how to” information, developed in the community. The next source of support is your peers whom you met through the community of learning, but there may still be the need for help from a system expert at the end of the phone or on email.

Once you have implemented a CRM system, you will need to dedicate a certain amount of effort to keep it running smoothly. You are also likely to have a need for occasional small changes to the system to ensure that it remains a useful tool for the organization.   However, in most non-profit organisations, the job of administering the CRM system is just one role among many performed by the system administrator.   So you are likely to find yourself needing occasional assistance with system administration-related tasks, or for building some more complex reports.

The membership programme allows you to avail of occasional support as you need it. At present the main request mechanism is via email, though a phone line is available for urgent issues. The types of support request we receive range in complexity from simple queries on how to add a value to a pick list or set up a new user, to more complex queries on reporting, to trouble-shooting security-related issues if a user cannot see a record they are expected to have access to. We also assist where necessary with adding small configuration requirements such as adding new fields or setting up new workflow rules. More complex changes that require an analysis of system requirements are generally handled outside of the scope for membership.

The cost of membership is based on the estimated time we will spend supporting you, which is usually dependent on the complexity of your system. If the support time over a given year exceeds what was estimated, we may ask you to top up your support payment accordingly.