Free or cheap CRM / PIM / wiki that imports and exports vCards with pictures? Suitable for film production?
September 18, 2009 2:47 PM Subscribe
Is there a free or cheap shared PIM that imports and exports vCards with pictures?
Preferably something suitable for film production?
I need a PIM-sort-of-software for my web-based team to keep track of a database of actors. Additional functionality would be nice such as keeping track of projects (I've been looking at something like Chandler as a group task organizer, but an all-in-one option would be nice) and managing email campaigns (via a less complex clone of SugarCRM perhaps), but the necessity is the actor database.
I found Smibs Doorbell. It seemed perfect. I like the way it's organized by Contacts, Tasks, Groups, and Opportunities, but it exports vCards without pictures, which would be a dealbreaker if we outgrew it.
I'm a graduate student, so $20 per month is way out of my price range. $5 would be possible; free is better.
I wouldn't mind a hack-like solution. I even tried Google Apps. I thought we could manage email campaigns via Google Docs, and maintain the actor database in Google Spreadsheets, but the pictures don't go inside a spreadsheet cell but rather hover above the entire document.
I thought about using Wordpress. I tried Chris Wallace's Gallery Pro theme, but the functionality wasn't quite what I was looking for. Now I'm looking at WP-CRM or Celtx as possibilities. A wiki like Pimki seems intriguing but I haven't wrapped my head around whether that would meet my needs yet.
I'm using Mac OSX Leopard with WinXP Parallels, and my admin has a PC. I have Mediatemple hosting, so I could host it there. The company would manage multiple film projects at once.
Any suggestions on what CRM / PIM / wiki platform we should use?
I need a PIM-sort-of-software for my web-based team to keep track of a database of actors. Additional functionality would be nice such as keeping track of projects (I've been looking at something like Chandler as a group task organizer, but an all-in-one option would be nice) and managing email campaigns (via a less complex clone of SugarCRM perhaps), but the necessity is the actor database.
I found Smibs Doorbell. It seemed perfect. I like the way it's organized by Contacts, Tasks, Groups, and Opportunities, but it exports vCards without pictures, which would be a dealbreaker if we outgrew it.
I'm a graduate student, so $20 per month is way out of my price range. $5 would be possible; free is better.
I wouldn't mind a hack-like solution. I even tried Google Apps. I thought we could manage email campaigns via Google Docs, and maintain the actor database in Google Spreadsheets, but the pictures don't go inside a spreadsheet cell but rather hover above the entire document.
I thought about using Wordpress. I tried Chris Wallace's Gallery Pro theme, but the functionality wasn't quite what I was looking for. Now I'm looking at WP-CRM or Celtx as possibilities. A wiki like Pimki seems intriguing but I haven't wrapped my head around whether that would meet my needs yet.
I'm using Mac OSX Leopard with WinXP Parallels, and my admin has a PC. I have Mediatemple hosting, so I could host it there. The company would manage multiple film projects at once.
Any suggestions on what CRM / PIM / wiki platform we should use?
Response by poster: Thanks mega.
Looking at wikis as a compromise, perhaps I could use mediawiki to make a wiki and use an extension to allow vCards to be downloaded. This might not have exportable pictures, but it would at least allow for the creation of a free feature-rich database, and we'd have a place for the full-size images instead of thumbnails.
But I'm still hoping for a more all-in-one Doorbell-like solution though that takes care of all of this more elegantly..?
posted by Josh Coe at 5:37 PM on September 18, 2009
Looking at wikis as a compromise, perhaps I could use mediawiki to make a wiki and use an extension to allow vCards to be downloaded. This might not have exportable pictures, but it would at least allow for the creation of a free feature-rich database, and we'd have a place for the full-size images instead of thumbnails.
But I'm still hoping for a more all-in-one Doorbell-like solution though that takes care of all of this more elegantly..?
posted by Josh Coe at 5:37 PM on September 18, 2009
Tried it; unfortunately it did not import the graphic.
posted by megatherium at 6:07 PM on September 18, 2009
posted by megatherium at 6:07 PM on September 18, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
If you DM me a vCard with a picture, I can try it for you. Might have to wait until after dinner, though.
posted by megatherium at 2:51 PM on September 18, 2009