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I'm trying to build a CRM on top of Wordpress. I'm building it as a plugin but I'm trying to figure out the logistical aspect before I start hounding away. Can some of the Senior Wordpress developers chime in?

Users will come to our site, have the ability to sign up for an account. This account will allow them to place orders, add contact information of people in their company, see past orders, as well as some other things.

We have sales people at our company that will need to manage their accounts (add special pricing, get credit when they make an order, etc).

With the above scenario I'm thinking about giving Employees a contributor role, and making customers subscribers. Or would it be better to create a custom database of users and not let Wordpress handle these? Or is there a better way that I'm not considering?

EDIT

I'm getting feedback that Wordpress may not be the best option here. I have a lot invested into wordpress - it has a custom theme and I'm very familiar with the wordpress codex. That's why I prefer it. I have worked with Kohana in the past, I feel it quickly gets bloated, may just be my inexperience - but to me Wordpress just makes sense.

That said, I'm not sold on it being developed in Wordpress. What should it be developed in? The idea is that Sales people can manage customer information (a single place for CRM), customers can login and make orders, schedule video conferencing times, add their own employees so we know who to contact at different branches, add their billing information, and the list goes on.

I started compiling a few fields we'll need in the database, here's a few fields from a few tables just to give you an idea of what kind of application I'm attempting.

Employee Database - first, last, email, office, cell, job title, video

Customer Database -customer_id, first name, last name, phone number, email, physical address, account_mgr

Contact Database - first, last, phone number, position, email

Endpoint Information - contact information, phone, email, IP, city, state

bradenkeith
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  • This strikes me as being a bad fit for WordPress. (Quart in a pint pot, etc.) – John Parker Jan 14 '11 at 13:51
  • Would you suggest creating a separate application that has a wordpress plugin for integration instead? I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about this. I'm not sold on building off wordpress, but it needs to integrate at some point and I'm not sure how to make an API (maybe some resources if you suggest going this route...?) – bradenkeith Jan 14 '11 at 13:56
  • Why do you have to use WordPress at some point? What are the integration requirements? (You might want to update your question to reflect this.) I'd personally use a more appropriate "base" CMS/framework. I'd also be tempted to tweak your question a bit. (e.g.: Update the title to "Base CMS recommendations for CRM system", etc.) In essence, I don't see what Wordpress is giving you as a base platform that isn't mitigated by the fact that its primary focus is a blogging platform. – John Parker Jan 14 '11 at 14:01
  • In essence, it sounds a bit like you're skilled up on WordPress and you've fallen into the "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" trap. :-) – John Parker Jan 14 '11 at 14:09
  • Haha, exactly what I noted in the revised version of my question. – bradenkeith Jan 14 '11 at 14:11

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My first thought was...Wordpress += CRM? Wrong tool for the job.

Your approach should be initially to look at the database structure and design something that meets the projects needs. After that, look at a good MVC framework to build the app in. If you are unfamiliar with MVC frameworks, CodeIgniter is a good entry point. Learn the ropes with that then quickly move on to something more powerful like CakePHP, Zend or my favourite Yii (www.yiiframework.com).

Kevin
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