EspoCRM for associations?

[luckow]

Being involved in some associations, I know the problem of member workflows and management.
In the past I have had some experience with CiviCRM and odoo. Since I use Cloudron in the associations, I would like to use one of the apps from the app store. I have tried dolibarr. It is ok, but the UI is not. Is there anyone who has experience with EspoCRM as a tool for membership management? Maybe @marcusquinn ?

[timconsidine]

@luckow I am using EspoCRM as member database for an organisation
Fairly easy to customise data fields eg add something for 'supporter", "member" and "volunteer"
Currently using "Contacts" as Members, and "Leads" as prospective members
Haven't been brave enough to create a new entity to make this explicit.

What is your UI concern ?

[luckow]

@timconsidine

There is no easy way to hide or rearrange unwanted fields, and there is no way to add conditions to fields. There is no easy way to add additional list items to dropdowns.

It's cool to have a self-registration form for new members. But the ability to configure the public form independent of the internal view is hidden or not possible. Overall, dolibarr looks like this: good to have 70% of the workflow done. For the rest you need development knowhow.

I bought a plugin to have some additional functions for rearranging form fields. It's okay-ish now. But before I spend the next relevant amount of lifetime, I was interested in your EspoCRM experience.

[timconsidine]

@luckow When you say no easy way to rearrange or hide fields, is this referring to Dolibarr I guess ??
In EspoCRM, there is a "screen designer" of sorts.
I think they call it Layout Manager or similar.
There you can definitely remove fields from screens, and add your custom ones.
You can use the Entity Manager to define new fields for your Entity (Contacts or Leads).

I just haven't been brave to create a brand new entity yet.

If I understand you correctly, I think it's worth giving EspoCRM a quick trial. 5 min install in Cloudron, then check out Layout Manager and Entity Manager in Administration menu.
Shouldn't be more than 30 mins lost time if not what you are looking for.

[luckow]

I spent an hour getting an overview of espocrm entity manager. cool thing.
Is there a solution for billing memberships besides the addon sales pack? Unfortunately there is no "binding" in n8n to espocrm. Just to invoice ninja.

[timconsidine]

@luckow sorry, not sure about billing in EspoCRM on a free level
They do have SalesPack as a chargeable add-on but not sure what it gives.
We handle subscriptions in Stripe and am in process of building update process using Espo API.

[marcusquinn]

@luckow Yup, can 100% recommend EspoCRM, you could do what you describe in minutes and you won't look back.

Happy to share access to my epic ERP project repo for evolving it if you're interested. It is a work in progress and lots going on, but if you get software and you get business or organisations, I'm sure it will all speak to you.

I just need a GitLab.com handle from you and I'll add you for access.

[marcusquinn]

@luckow For membership websites, I highly recommend Ghost.

Ko-Fi.com is also worth a look from the SaaS world.

Espo you can base any business on with a bit of imagination. As I say, check out my GitLab repo on that and maybe you'll see what I see in it.

[luckow]

@marcusquinn cool. handle is @sluckow

[marcusquinn]

@luckow added you here: https://gitlab.com/brandlight/espocrm