Working Options is a charitable organisation that organises and host a series of various workshops for young people (14-18) to help prepare them for entering the workplace. This involves having regular (and recurring) events at schools and colleges, that they were currently managing with a series of spreadsheets, PowerPoint documents and numerous hours of manual calculation. To complicate matters even further all of their staff were home-based and therefore they had no office within which to place a more traditional solution (an access database that they had been offered elsewhere).

After a series of meetings with staff, we implemented the installation of SuiteCRM for them, with a number of bespoke modules to take away the pain of manual processing. Hosting it on our secure server network means that they can access the system from wherever they are. Based on this we configured and customised the software for our client to include:

• A central and bespoke database of Schools, Colleges and partners;
• A central database of contacts at the above institutions;
• Workflow process to remind staff of key tasks (due to schedule next event, tasks for in-progress events etc.);
• Expanded events details to track specific key tasks and indicators around the events;
• An additional module to store and process event feedback data;
• An additional module to auto-generate pre-event worksheets for attendees;
• An additional module to auto-generate post-event PowerPoint documents sent out to institutions and volunteers;
• Various reports built either in the standard reporting tool or as a custom dashlet;
• Implementation of Google Maps Integration to allow easy viewing of volunteers near to events.

SuiteCRM is an open-source and highly customisable Customer Relationship Management system. It allows you to create simple client records, up to workflow-driven custom database systems. It has a healthy community and client base with a series of commercial modules that allow you to integrate with the major online services that businesses require.

“Would highly recommend working with IceStar Media. Mark is reliable, friendly and professional and works with people with little IT knowledge and experience really well! Mark has been brilliant to work with on setting up and maintaining our CRM system.”

Lauren Monk: Working Options