The various methods to customise your CiviCRM installation to meet your needs and requirements. From Melbourne CiviCRM, Oct 29th 2012

1. CUSTOMISING
CIVICRM
Melbourne CiviCRM meetup, 29th October
Chris Ward
@chrischinch

2. Almost too customisable!
• Default options
• Custom Data
• Profiles
• CSS / Javascript
• Template Overrides
• PHP Overrides
• CMS modules
• Extensions

3. Default options
• Customise default:
• Tags
• Activity Types
• Suffixes/Prefixes
• Locations
• And many more…

4. Custom Data
Custom field sets for
collecting specific
information in specific
situations.

5. Custom Data
• Create a set
• Assign it to component
• Set other options

6. Custom Data
• Add fields
• Wide variety of data
types and display
styles
• Hard to change, so
plan!

7. Custom Data
• Shows on:
• forms
• front end
• searches (searchable)
• Reports
• Watch your ACL

8. Custom Data demo…

9. Profiles
Methods of collecting
data from users in a
variety of places

10. Profiles
• A variety of options
depending where and
how you want to
collect data

11. Profiles
• Add fields from most
sources
• Configure settings

12. Profiles
• Use as a form link or
HTML snippet

13. Profiles demo…

14. CSS/JavaScript
• Use CMS theme
• Custom folder beyond
this
• JavaScript… It
depends

15. Template Overrides
• Override most aspects
of look and feel
• Separate from CMS
theme
• Override folder
location must be set
• Smarty

16. Template Overrides
• Find relevant file from
URL path
• A little hit and miss
• Mentioned somewhere
in page code
• Duplicate exact
structure from
templates folder
• Go crazy!

17. Template Overrides
• ‘Extra’ files
• Especially JavaScript
• Same process
• ‘template_to_append_to.
extra.tpl’

18. Template Overrides demo…

19. PHP Overrides
Pretty much the same
as Templates but logic
Be careful…

20. CMS modules
• If you need your CMS
to react to CiviCRM
actions or work better
with it
• Many existing
• Webform integration a
standout
• Best support in Drupal

21. CMS Modules
• Utilises ‘Hooks’
triggered during
CiviCRM program flow
• Write code to be
processed when those
hooks are triggered
• Drupal module
• Joomla! plugin
• Wordpress custom php

22. CMS Modules demo…

23. Extensions
• New CMS agnostic
‘modules’
• Downloadable tool to
get you started
• Extension can show to
all CiviCRM (4.2) users

24. Extensions Demo…