The constituents of NGOs and nonprofits regularly leave the workplace to work with the local communities or vulnerable groups. As a result, members of organisations often lack an access to the CRM system and cannot find the necessary information on their cases during the fieldwork. Agiliway has developed a mobile application for CiviCRM – CiviMobile – that allows organisations’ members to reach their CiviCRM databases anywhere and anytime .
The first basic version of CiviMobile allows users to establish a secure connection to the CiviCRM databases and search for the necessary information. In particular, the current version of the mobile application has the following features:
- Contacts. The mobile application allows secure connection to user’s contacts and their profiles.
- Search. Users can search for contacts available in the database and dial them in one click.
- Calendar. Users can view the planned events and activities in a graphical calendar.
- Events. The mobile app allows to view all the planned events in the system and filter them by type, date or title. Users can view the details of the planned event, register for an event and receive a registration confirmation, view all of their past events, and share the events in one click.
- Activities and Cases. Users can view their planned activities and cases, access their details, see what other members are engaged in them.
- Offline Work. The application can operate offline due to cache retention on the mobile devices. The event registration made when there is no internet connection is placed on hold and executed once the internet connection is resumed.
More information about the current features of CiviMobile can be found on the CiviMobile website.
In about two months, Agiliway team will present a second version of CiviMobile application, which will allow not only viewing, but also adding and editing the information in CiviCRM database. In particular, users will be able to add new contacts, events, cases or activities, comment on them and change their statuses. Other features, which will be implemented for the full version, include the ability to renew passwords, view all the members of the branch organisations, share the events in the social media and view the events on the map.
It should be noted that Agiliway is eager to develop the mobile application even further. We are working on the roadmap for future iterations of CiviMobile, which will incorporate feedback and needs of its users. As for now, we see the following opportunities to enhance user’s experience with the product:
- Push notifications. We would like to use the advantage of a mobile device over a desktop – being readily available – to notify the users of their planned activities and events with push notifications displayed on dashboards of their mobiles. It can be done with the help of Apple Push Notification service (APNs) and Google Cloud Messaging (GCM). A custom CiviCRM extension will allow to retain the mobile devices identification and send notifications to the right people at the right time or display organisation’s news on the mobile dashboards.
- Advanced security. We would like to develop double identification, which will assure the connection is established by an authorised person. In addition, we plan to add an anti-theft security system, which will allow users to block the application using the web version once they lose access to their devices.
To start using the mobile application, you need to deploy a CiviMobileAPI extension to your CiviCRM server and to install a CiviMobile application on your mobile device from AppStore for iOS or from Play Market for Android. More details about the installation process are given in the How To section of the CiviMobile website.
We are also looking forward to your feedbacks and ideas about how the product may address the needs of your organisation. Please contact our CiviCRM team on civicrm@agiliway.com or report your issues/suggestions directly to CiviMobile project in GitLab.
