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Number of posts in this thread: 8 (In chronological order)

From: Mike Osborne - AccEase
Date: Tue, Apr 03 2007 1:40AM
Subject: Accessible Open Source CRM
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Is anybody using or do you know of a (preferably) open source CRM system that is accessible?

Prefer open source so we can tailor it and prefer if it's PHP/MySQL as these are our usual tools.

I've had a look at Sugar CRM but it looks rather large and complicated for our needs and I'm not sure how acccessible it is.

We just need basic contacts, bring ups, and notes.

We are considering building but it feels like reinventing that round rolling thing - albeit an accessible one!

From: Tim Beadle
Date: Tue, Apr 03 2007 2:50AM
Subject: Re: Accessible Open Source CRM
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On 03/04/07, Mike Osborne - AccEase < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Is anybody using or do you know of a (preferably) open source CRM system that is
> accessible?
>
> Prefer open source so we can tailor it and prefer if it's PHP/MySQL as these are our
> usual tools.
>
> I've had a look at Sugar CRM but it looks rather large and complicated for our needs and
> I'm not sure how acccessible it is.
>
> We just need basic contacts, bring ups, and notes.
>
> We are considering building but it feels like reinventing that round rolling thing - albeit an
> accessible one!

If you can change your server's PHP memory settings, have a look at
CiviCRM ( http://civicrm.org/ ), which is built on top of Drupal.
Regular Drupal needs 8MB RAM assigned to PHP, whereas CivicCRM needs
24MB (!).

It's (obviously, given what I've already said) PHP/MySQL-based,
though, and open-source, so should fit the bill. Not certain as to its
accessibility but, as Drupal is themeable, you should be able to
modify it to suit.

An off-the-wall suggestion: have a look at Highrise, 37 Signals new
"CRM reimagined" product ( http://www.highrisehq.com/ ) it's a service
rather than a download, but you never know - give it a try.

Best regards,

Tim

From: John E. Brandt
Date: Tue, Apr 03 2007 9:10AM
Subject: Re: Accessible Open Source CRM
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Juicy Studio did a review recently on their blog ...
http://juicystudio.com/article/choosing-an-accessible-cms.php

...which confirmed some of the evidence I've been collecting for the past
three years on this same topic.

The three open source CMS apps that rise to the top in their review are
Drupal, Joomal! and Plone. On the non-open source side, they gave high marks
to Quick & Easy CMS.

I've been playing with Joomla and Drupal for several months and written
about my experiences on my own blog
http://www.jebswebs.net/blog/index.php?itemid=3. (BTW, I had more data on
another blog that crashed and I lost my wonderful words of wisdom)

I have avoided Plone since it uses Python which is apparently very demanding
on server resources and since I am on a hosted system, it's not for me.

But the biggest accessibility challenge with CMSs or any on-line app is not
the application, it's the people using them. You can have the most
accessible application that produces great standards-based and valid code,
but with all of these systems users can still manage to enter content in a
way that makes it inaccessible, or less accessible. The two biggies are:
cutting and pasting content from a word processor or another website (I see
this all the time with blog entries) and all kinds of "illegal" code comes
with it....and adding images with either no ALT text, incorrect ALT text, or
un-useful ALT text.

Bottom line, we still have to educate the masses!

~j


John E. Brandt
Augusta, Maine USA
www.jebswebs.com

From: Gareth Dart
Date: Tue, Apr 03 2007 9:20AM
Subject: Re: Accessible Open Source CRM
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I can second the Joomla! recommendation. I'm currently re-doing our
very large website from old static HTML to a Joomla CMS, and we have a
firm, non-negotiable commitment to accessibility. Although I would not
go as far as to say that Joomla is accessible out of the box (especially
the administrator's interface), it's been relatively straightforward to
make it output accessible markup to W3C priority 1 level. Priority 2 is
something we'll be looking at once phase 1 goes to production and I
start fine-tuning the site, but so far that hasn't been a problem
either.

Joomla's secure branch is currently at 1.0.12. Their 1.5 branch is
currently in beta, but this may have more accessible output by default:
I know they're trying to chop out a lot of table-based formatting that
currently blots their copybook and move toward a more 'divs-with-CSS'
oriented approach.

I've also heard good things about Drupal and Textpattern, although I
could not vouch for their accessibility. Many commercial CMSes have a
lot of proprietary features - one we trialled required IE6 and would
work on no other browser (and they wanted money for this - go figure) -
so I'd recommend that you go open source as this does not speak well of
their accessibility, to me.

G

From: Tim Beadle
Date: Tue, Apr 03 2007 1:30PM
Subject: Re: Accessible Open Source CRM
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On 03/04/07, Gareth Dart < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> I can second the Joomla! recommendation.

Just a quick heads-up: Mike was asking about CRM (Customer
Relationship Management), not CMSs (Content Management Systems). My
mention of the Drupal-based CiviCRM may have contributed to the
confusion - sorry.

Tim

From: John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility Program
Date: Tue, Apr 03 2007 1:50PM
Subject: Re: Accessible Open Source CRM
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Gareth Dart wrote:
> Joomla's secure branch is currently at 1.0.12. Their 1.5 branch is
> currently in beta, but this may have more accessible output by
> default: I know they're trying to chop out a lot of table-based
> formatting that currently blots their copybook and move toward a more
> 'divs-with-CSS' oriented approach.

Having attended the Open Source CMS conference Mar. 22/23, I had the
opportunity to see first-hand the new Beta version of Joomla! They also
have a template known as BEEZ which appeared to be quite good. They have
moved the system to the point that you can completely re-write your own
template, using ID'd divs, so from the brief look I had it seems to be
pretty good. I will be taking a closer look over the next few weeks.

>
> I've also heard good things about Drupal and Textpattern, although I
> could not vouch for their accessibility.

The latest version of Drupal also appears to be pretty good in terms of
functional accessibility. The new default install template - Garland -
seems pretty good out of the box, with few major issues.

In terms of "power", Drupal appears to be pulling ahead, with numerous
third-party plugins that extend the functionality of the core tool. With
this however comes a more complicated set-up and install, although the
Drupal folks have done a great job with their installer. Joomla! still
seemed to be slightly easier to set up, but with fewer extensions or
plugins.

At this point in time, it appears to me that the key difference between the
two is in overall sophistication (not that Joomla! is not sophisticated); if
you need a basic, quick and easy set-up CMS then look at Joomla! If you
need a powerful, highly configurable CMS then probably Drupal is your better
choice. Both seem to be taking accessibility very seriously, and while
there may still be some minor flaws, they both have come a long way.

HTH
JF
---
John Foliot
Academic Technology Consultant
Stanford Online Accessibility Program
http://soap.stanford.edu
Stanford University
560 Escondido Mall
Meyer Library 181
Stanford, CA 94305-3093
Tel: 650-862-4603

From: John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility Program
Date: Tue, Apr 03 2007 2:00PM
Subject: Re: Accessible Open Source CRM
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Tim Beadle wrote:
> On 03/04/07, Gareth Dart < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>> I can second the Joomla! recommendation.
>
> Just a quick heads-up: Mike was asking about CRM (Customer
> Relationship Management), not CMSs (Content Management Systems). My
> mention of the Drupal-based CiviCRM may have contributed to the
> confusion - sorry.

Oops... Oh well, the info re: Drupal/Joomla! still stands, FWIW...

JF

From: mike.osborne
Date: Tue, Apr 03 2007 2:10PM
Subject: Re: Accessible Open Source CRM
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Thanks for the information. Yes - I am looking for a CRM - but "accessible
anything" is always useful and there seem to be so few accessible CMS's
out there.

I've worked with Joomla quite a bit and found it pretty good - adapting
templates away from table driven layouts. The admin interface is no way
accessible - and that is an interesting challenge in itself "accessible
authoring" and "accessible content management".

One issue I've yet to resolve with Joomla is the "Read more..." issue
where the header/teaser ends with the "Read more..." link to the main
article which is useless for screen readers especially when there are many
of them on a page. Has anyone seen any "fixes/patches" for this - I guess
it could be done by referencing the article title and appending it to the
"read more" to become "Read more about title...".


> Tim Beadle wrote:
>> On 03/04/07, Gareth Dart < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
>>> I can second the Joomla! recommendation.
>>
>> Just a quick heads-up: Mike was asking about CRM (Customer
>> Relationship Management), not CMSs (Content Management Systems). My
>> mention of the Drupal-based CiviCRM may have contributed to the
>> confusion - sorry.
>
> Oops... Oh well, the info re: Drupal/Joomla! still stands, FWIW...
>
> JF
>
>