ModelAdmin
SilverStripe’s great new tool for building CRMs
(and other things)
Monday, March 2, 2009

We develop a CMS
Monday, March 2, 2009

We do other stu
too!
• Most of our sites include a CMS
• But also: CRM, event management,
e-commerce, internal business
systems
• The CMS paradigm doesn’t fit all of
these
Monday, March 2, 2009

Let’s build a CRM!
• We’ve made CRMs for SilverStripe
... several, in fact
• Each time we had a “CRM”
customer, it seemed that they
wanted something dierent
Monday, March 2, 2009

Flexible Data, Fixed
UI
• Clients are very specific about data
and business logic
• But not about user interface - as
long as it’s good, they’re happy
• SilverStripe CMS exploits this by
making it easy to create new Page
Types with custom fields
Monday, March 2, 2009

From CMS to DMS
• Can we apply this concept to CRM?
• Don’t just manage Content
• Manage any kind of Data
Monday, March 2, 2009

ModelAdmin
• Data Management built into
SilverStripe
• ModelAdmin gives you a CRUD
interface around any data: Search,
Results, Detail
• Same building blocks as CMS
interface
Monday, March 2, 2009

ModelAdmin
• Search on fields linked by relations
• Detail record gives you a scaolded
interface for editing all relations
Monday, March 2, 2009

Monday, March 2, 2009

Monday, March 2, 2009

Monday, March 2, 2009

Code Demo
Monday, March 2, 2009

Random example: A small webhosting company
with products, customers and contracts
* Web2.0ified by http://
creatr.cc
Monday, March 2, 2009

Our Datamodel
HostingContrac
Customer HostingType
t
has_many has_one
Monday, March 2, 2009

HostingType
<?php
class HostingType extends DataObject {
static $db = array(
'Title' => 'Text',
'Description' => 'Text',
'Price' => 'Float',
);
static $has_many = array(
'HostingContracts' => 'HostingContract',
);
}
?>
mysite/code/HostingType.php
Monday, March 2, 2009

HostingType
Monday, March 2, 2009

HostingContract
<?php
class HostingContract extends DataObject {
static $db = array(
'ContractNumber' => 'Varchar',
'StartDate' => 'Date',
'EndDate' => 'Date'
);
static $has_one = array(
'Customer' => 'Customer',
'HostingType' => 'HostingType',
);
}
?>
mysite/code/HostingContract.php
Monday, March 2, 2009

HostingContract
Monday, March 2, 2009

Customer
<?php
class Customer extends Member {
static $db = array(
'CustomerType' => \"Enum('Private,Business','Private')\"
);
static $has_one = array(
'Avatar' => 'Image',
);
static $has_many = array(
'HostingContracts' => 'HostingContract'
);
}
?>
mysite/code/Customer.php
Monday, March 2, 2009

Monday, March 2, 2009

MyCRMAdmin
<?php
class MyCRMAdmin extends ModelAdmin {
protected static $managed_models = array(
'Customer',
'HostingContract',
'HostingType'
);
static $url_segment = 'mycrm'; // will be linked as /admin/mycrm
static $menu_title = 'My CRM';
}
?>
mysite/code/MyCRMAdmin.php
Monday, March 2, 2009

Some tweaking...
Monday, March 2, 2009

Summary Fields
<?php
class Customer extends Member {
// ...
static $summary_fields = array(
'FirstName',
'Surname',
'CustomerType'
);
}
?>
Monday, March 2, 2009

Searchable Fields
<?php
class Customer extends Member {
// ...
static $searchable_fields = array(
'FirstName',
'Surname',
'HostingContracts.ContractNumber'
);
}
?>
Monday, March 2, 2009

getCMSFields()
<?php
class Customer extends Member {
// ...
function getCMSFields() {
$fields = parent::getCMSFields();
$fields->removeByName('Locale');
return $fields;
}
}
?>
Monday, March 2, 2009

Using Data on
Monday, March 2, 2009

SilverStripe 2.4 and
beyond
• New data mapper
• Thinner, reusable
controllers
• “Intelligent data”
Monday, March 2, 2009

Thank you
Download this talk at:
http://www.slideshare.net/chillu/modeladmin-in-silverstripe-23
Code (requires SilverStripe 2.3+)
http://silverstripe.org/assets/presentations/2009-02-28-
modeladminpresentationmysite.zip
Ingo Schommer, SilverStripe Ltd., ingo@silverstripe.com
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/nz/
Monday, March 2, 2009