C5 can do it, but I think you'll find that the end result (unless you do a lot of hacking and package-writing) will be pretty kludgy.

It sounds like what you want is a customer relationship manager (CRM). That's what these things do -- record customers and your interactions with them (whether in sales, support, etc). Granted, you'll probably be repurposing some stuff (support incident tracking becomes appointment tracking), but otherwise it sounds like a pretty good fit.

Of course, you won't get a lot of the design and control benefits that c5 offers, but it sounds like you don't really need them.

SugarCRM is a free one that I know of.

I don't know that C5 would be "kludgy" as jshannon states. Certainly, a re-purposed CRM, while having the structure, would hold some confusion for users unless customised.

C5 may hold some initial development cost to build what you need, but the flexibility and ability to add functionality leveraging existing add-ons makes a compelling argument. Once the system is built, you essentially are left with hosting fees instead of on-going subscriptions.

I'm not saying that C5 is the only way to go as there may be an out of the box solution that starts closer to target, but I think that C5 could be used to create an elegant and efficient solution.

"Once the system is built, you essentially are left with hosting fees instead of on-going subscriptions." This is exactly what I'm hoping for. I'm glad to hear C5 could potentially achieve what I want. Maybe I'll start playing around with a fresh install, and see what I can do with it.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? Maybe suggestions for other software that may be more suited, if you don't think C5 is the way to go.

Thanks for your input!

I very much agree with jshannon (and respectfully disagree with myTooq) -- Concrete5 is not the right system for this use case. I can see how the way you've described it briefly above might lead some to think that, but Concrete5 is primarily intended for "marketing sites" and presenting information in a designed way. Most of its features revolve around designing pages, making pages editable, moving content around so it looks right, etc.

What you're really talking about is more of a database system and an internal application that just happens to run through a web browser, something designed primarily for workflow, not for visual prettiness.

As jshannon mentioned, a CRM system is probably going to get you a lot closer to what you want. Another option I'd look into is Drupal, which is really more of a platform than a CMS -- I personally don't like it for the marketing/informational sites but it seems to be much more appropriate for the data-centric application you're describing.

Another option which sounds ridiculous but might be a good fit depending on how many users and locations there are is building a database application in Microsoft Access. This is pretty much exactly what Access was made to do. And there is a magical service available for hosting Access databases online so they can be used through a web browser --http://eqldata.com/ . If you don't want to hire a developer to build this out (and you're not a developer yourself) I actually think MS Access is the only possible option. Otherwise you're going to need to hire a developer (again assuming you're not one yourself), and if that's the case then really you should be consulting with that person about which platform to use.

Best of luck.

-Jordan

Hi,

Well a few thoughts here as one of the founders...

1) I agree in general terms that concrete5 excels at flexible web
content management. I think if you look at a site and see absolutely
no pages with text on them that you'd want to put in edit mode -
concrete5 is probably not the best choice for the job... So building a
banking application? No. Building twitter or Facebook? No. I think for
something like that you'd want to start with a more fundamental
framework like Zend or Symphony and work your way up from there.

2) I disagree that concrete5 is for small marketing sites. Yes, it
does a great job with them, but you absolutely can build large
complicated applications with it if you know what you're doing, and
there's a lot of features under the hood that are very much geared for
that. We've built document collaboration systems, intranets,
extranets, large portal sites, online communities, all of that is very
much possible with concrete5. Moreover, unlike building those types of
sites with something like wordpress, you're not going to be hacking
the system into something it wasn't designed to do. Single pages are
very flexible and application frameworkish. The member profile section
doesn't do much out of the box, but it's a powerful starting point for
building community features. We really should spend some time building
add-ons that show this stuff off better. Earlier versions of concrete
CMS were very much designed for doing just this type of stuff.

3) I don't know if something has dramatically changed in the last few
years, but I'd think really hard about using Access for anything
important. I'd also avoid cold fusion. Apologies in advance to Jordan
on that one, and like I said its quite possible my information is out
of date on that, but in the past Access didn't behave very well in a
web environment. Jordan's a smart cookie so you might want to take my
advice with a grain of salt - but when I read that I did spit coffee
across the room. ;)

4) If you're spending $10k a year on the application you have, and its
working well, you shouldn't rock the boat. Open source is great, but
you're going to spend a lot more than 10k in development time building
the application no matter how you approach it.

All of that being said, I'm always amazed at how different
organizations can be so flexible in making a solution work. Custom
attributes and files give you just about everything you'd need for the
digital asset management system. With the right programmer, you may
find that concrete5 could be used to build what you want in an organic
way.

I would strongly suggest looking for something that has been designed
for your needs from the bottom up, and if you can get it for 10k a
year, that's a steal.

best wishes

Franz Maruna
CEO - concrete5.org
http://about.me/frz

Jordan is certainly a much more advanced developer than I am (heck, the stapler on your desk might be too).

I should clarify my statements about Concrete5 being a possibility for an application like this. Concrete5 can provide a lot of the leg work right out of the box and provides enough flexibility for an experienced dev or team to integrate the other required features elegantly. Without any custom development, it may be workable, but not necessarily elegant.

The one case that I will disagree with Jordan? Access. Please don't.

I think this is the crux of the matter. The most important question here is "is the OP a developer?" Because if not, then choosing the platform before choosing the developer is a bad idea -- instead first figure out who is going to develop it and let them decide based on their own experience and preferences.

To the MS Access haters out there: have you ever actually built a database application with it? If so, it might be helpful to explain *why* you think it's a bad idea. If not, then on what basis are you arguing to avoid it?

I'm not a huge fan myself, but MS Access is the only system I know of that will allow a non-developer to create a database application (which is what the OP is asking for -- he's not asking for a "website" in the typical sense).

-Jordan

I completely agree that you've got to find the development team first.
I also think that 10k/year isn't much for application development.

Regarding MS-Access - think its a fine tool for a savvy computer user
to use locally for some data management needs. I think as soon as you
stick it on a webserver and expect it to behave with multiple users
pulling and inserting data at the same time, you're asking it to do
waaaay more than it was designed for.

best wishes

Franz Maruna
CEO - concrete5.org
http://about.me/frz

Access certainly has a place for rapid development of apps that don't require a lot of scale. What I have seen happen quite often, is that the non-developer develops an application in Access without any knowledge of database architecture or the underlying auto-generated code. The application is then jammed full of kludges and band-aid solutions to make it perform the way it should. When it craps out, more money is spent on unraveling the ball of yarn to fix it than re-writing it from scratch in something more robust. SO while the non-developer can create something, it does not mean they should. : )

Now, I'm certain that there are hundreds of Access apps [edit: for every example I've seen of an Access app gone wrong] out there that run just fine and have done so reliably for ages. But my experience with companies that are growing is that there is always regrets that they didn't build using something else, as they seem to get stuck creating new software when they should be capitalizing on the momentum of the business.

Add in the cost of M$ upgrades for every computer requiring access to Access, an added cost to use it "online" (the program you mentioned looks cool, but it's not cheap), and duplicating much of the cost to build it in Access and on a more robust platform later, I would avoid it for most every situation.

As always, evaluating the tools and platform is required and there are certainly cases where Access will make the most sense to a business. Generally, I find it falls short somewhere along the way.

These are all good points. In response to what Franz said, you're right -- Access is not very good if you want a web app (but it sounded like the OP might just need it in one location -- if you have less than a dozen users all on the same Windows network in one location it works fine though).

@myTooq -- you also raise good points about Access DB's becoming big unmaintainable balls of yarn. But there is a reason that so many Access DB's become this way -- because it's the only program out there that lets non-programmers create something useful. So to get philosophical about it, is it better that they have something really hacky or that they never had anything at all?

Anywho, if his company is already paying 10K+ per year, it seems like they do have a budget and could easily hire a web developer to create something useful for them for much cheaper (or maybe the same amount but as a one-time fee, not annual recurring).

Thanks for the feedback -- obviously I'm a C5 devotee myself, but I just like to make sure people are choosing the right tool for the right job and not just bending any one system to try and meet all needs.

-Jordan