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We are pleased to announce the results of the recent CiviCRM Community Council Election 2020.

The Council comprises 11 seats. Normally each council member will serve for 2 years but since this is the first annual election, half will serve for 1 year.

The following are elected for 2 years:

• Alice Aguilar
• Alison Barham
• Detlev Sieber
• Erik Hommel
• Rose Lannigan

The following are elected for 1 year:

• Andy Burns
• Heather Oliver
• Joe Murray
• Michael O'Toole
• Neil Planchon
• Tricia Gbinigie

Many thanks to all those offering their services to the CiviCRM community by standing in this election, both those elected and those not.

CiviCRM Elections Team (Aidan Saunders, Joseph Lacey - elections@civicrm.org)

Congratulations!

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CiviCRM version 5.24.0 is now out and ready to download. This is a regular monthly release.

Upgrade now for the most stable CiviCRM experience: https://civicrm.org/download

Users of the CiviCRM Extended Security Releases (ESR) do not need to upgrade, as there are no ESR-specific bugfixes or security issues at the moment.

Important announcements:

• There will be a security release for 5.24.x on 2020-04-15. Please see security for more information.
• As of CiviCRM 5.25, which will be released on 2020-05-06, the minimum supported version will be PHP 7.1. The recommended PHP version is PHP 7.3.

This version changes the database schema, has changes to the API, as well as the usual bugfixes and minor feature improvements.

• CiviCRM menu: Adds a new "Find menu item" search under the CiviCRM logo which allows user to quickly locate menu items by typing a few letters.
• Advanced Search: Adds an option to find contributions without a soft-credit.
• Contribution forms: Enable jQuery validate on public event/contribution forms.
• Contribution invoice: Major layout cleanup, added display of the contact's country.
• Contribution invoice: Count refunds when calculating amount due.
• Event contribution invoice: ensures Contribution Invoices are not sent to the CC and BCC email address(s) configured for Event Confirmation purposes.
• CiviMail: Fixed unsubscribe bug on multilingual sites, which could cause mass unsubscribes to all groups.
• Reports: The relationship report has a new option to sort by relationship end date, new column option for "is active?".
• CiviCase: many small improvements. CiviCase is great, you should try it!
• Core: Performance improvement for civicrm/ajax/checkemail which is used when adding a cc email address to an email message among other places.
• Core: On the Manage Groups form, add group type support for custom group types (makes it possible for extensions to expose custom group types and expose them in the filter).
• Core: Fixed installation issues when installing in another language.
• Core: New hook_civicrm_alterUFFields, which allows extensions to modify fields in a profile.
• Core: Updates the Net_SMTP package to the latest version of the library and standardizes patches.
• APIv4: Allows smart groups to be created with APIv4 params in addition to via search form values. Adds a user interface to save smart groups from the APIv4 explorer.
• Drupal8: Improves the installation process for Drupal 8 by making it so civicrm-setup reports the pending action.
• PHP: PHP 7.3 is now the recommended PHP version (this is the last release supporting PHP 7.0, CiviCRM 5.25 will require PHP 7.1 or later).

This is only a short overview. You can read the full release notes here. Big thanks to Andrew Hunt and Alice Frumin from AGH Strategies for putting up together release notes.

The complete list of 5.24.0 contributors (it's a huge team!) can be found here. Thanks to everyone for making this release happen!

We are committed to keeping CiviCRM free and open, forever. We depend on your support to help make that happen.

• Make a donation or contribute to a Make it happen campaign.
• If your organization wants to support our work, please become a member today.
• If you are a CiviCRM service provider, please become a partner.

• Log in or register to post comments

CiviCRM version 5.24.0 is now out and ready to download. This is a regular monthly release.

Upgrade now for the most stable CiviCRM experience: https://civicrm.org/download

Users of the CiviCRM Extended Security Releases (ESR) do not need to upgrade, as there are no ESR-specific bugfixes or security issues at the moment.

Important announcements:

• There will be a security release for 5.24.x on 2020-04-15. Please see security for more information.
• As of CiviCRM 5.25, which will be released on 2020-05-06, the minimum supported version will be PHP 7.1. The recommended PHP version is PHP 7.3.

This version changes the database schema, has changes to the API, as well as the usual bugfixes and minor feature improvements.

• CiviCRM menu: Adds a new "Find menu item" search under the CiviCRM logo which allows user to quickly locate menu items by typing a few letters.
• Advanced Search: Adds an option to find contributions without a soft-credit.
• Contribution forms: Enable jQuery validate on public event/contribution forms.
• Contribution invoice: Major layout cleanup, added display of the contact's country.
• Contribution invoice: Count refunds when calculating amount due.
• Event contribution invoice: ensures Contribution Invoices are not sent to the CC and BCC email address(s) configured for Event Confirmation purposes.
• CiviMail: Fixed unsubscribe bug on multilingual sites, which could cause mass unsubscribes to all groups.
• Reports: The relationship report has a new option to sort by relationship end date, new column option for "is active?".
• CiviCase: many small improvements. CiviCase is great, you should try it!
• Core: Performance improvement for civicrm/ajax/checkemail which is used when adding a cc email address to an email message among other places.
• Core: On the Manage Groups form, add group type support for custom group types (makes it possible for extensions to expose custom group types and expose them in the filter).
• Core: Fixed installation issues when installing in another language.
• Core: New hook_civicrm_alterUFFields, which allows extensions to modify fields in a profile.
• Core: Updates the Net_SMTP package to the latest version of the library and standardizes patches.
• APIv4: Allows smart groups to be created with APIv4 params in addition to via search form values. Adds a user interface to save smart groups from the APIv4 explorer.
• Drupal8: Improves the installation process for Drupal 8 by making it so civicrm-setup reports the pending action.
• PHP: PHP 7.3 is now the recommended PHP version (this is the last release supporting PHP 7.0, CiviCRM 5.25 will require PHP 7.1 or later).

This is only a short overview. You can read the full release notes here. Big thanks to Andrew Hunt and Alice Frumin from AGH Strategies for putting up together release notes.

The complete list of 5.24.0 contributors (it's a huge team!) can be found here. Thanks to everyone for making this release happen!

We are committed to keeping CiviCRM free and open, forever. We depend on your support to help make that happen.

• Make a donation or contribute to a Make it happen campaign.
• If your organization wants to support our work, please become a member today.
• If you are a CiviCRM service provider, please become a partner.

• Log in or register to post comments

CiviCRM version 5.24.0 is now out and ready to download. This is a regular monthly release.

Upgrade now for the most stable CiviCRM experience: https://civicrm.org/download

Users of the CiviCRM Extended Security Releases (ESR) do not need to upgrade, as there are no ESR-specific bugfixes or security issues at the moment.

Important announcements:

We are pleased to announce the results of the recent CiviCRM Community Council Election 2020.

The Council comprises 11 seats. Normally each council member will serve for 2 years but since this is the first annual election, half will serve for 1 year.

The following are elected for 2 years:

The following are elected for 1 year:

CiviCRM was built to be a CRM for organizational data with which users may leverage powerful components that provide a range of functionality and build complex workflows to manage constituent information, all under one system. There exist many ways in which data can come into CiviCRM, and there’s a far greater number of ways in which the data is used across the thousands of organizations that currently leverage CiviCRM.

But, once organizational data is in CiviCRM, how do organizations easily organize and act on it? Again, there are a few ways that’s done, but perhaps two of the most important are 1) search functionality and 2) reporting. This is probably fairly obvious because you have to search for the data that you wish to act on, and more than likely you’ll want to report on the impact of your actions.

CiviCRM addresses both of these through a range of search options and through CiviReport. But, let’s be honest for a second. Both search and reporting can be tough in CiviCRM. Take search for example. Where do you start? Basic search? Advanced search? Search builder? Custom searches? Or, do you just jump into the API explorer? Or, if you’re like many users, do you try to search for what you’re looking for through reports only to realize that reports, well, they just report on the data… they don’t allow you to take many other actions.

All of this is a long way of saying that CiviCRM’s search and reporting capabilities are in need of some lovin’.

Thanks to an initiative led by WikiMedia Foundation, the CiviCRM Core Team undertook a discovery project that included research and review of various search and reporting interfaces, culminating in a recommendation to consolidate those in CiviCRM into single, unified utility. For now, we’re calling this “Search Builder”.

The recommendation is to leverage emerging developments, specifically APIv4 and Form Builder, to create a single, powerful search and reporting utility that will replace the current disjointed approach to both in CiviCRM. APIv4 will serve as the query builder for all future search, exports and reports, and a new user interface will be designed to replace the current Advanced Search and Search Builder UI’s.

Search and reporting has been an area in CiviCRM long ripe for improvement. In addition to discussion and reflecton how to do so, such as here and here, efforts have been made to start MIH campaigns to fund improvements, and extensions, such as Data Processor have been built to address many of search's shortcomings. The recommendation below includes a review of these approaches, review of WMF's specific needs, as well as a comprehensive review of competitor search interfaces.

The new search builder UI will be geared towards advanced users and will provide the ability to take actions on the data, such as creating smart groups, as well as to save configurations into custom searches and reports. These latter two items will benefit from the flexibility of Form Builder, allowing users to easily customize saved searches and reports through a drag and drop interface.

The new search builder functionality is in development starting with a first phase slated for completion by June 30, 2020. The first round of development is focused on improvements to APIv4, to implementation of a search builder interface powered by APIv4, and to smart group functionality, again powered by the APIv4 query engine.

For reference, interested users can view a summary of the new search builder and can track the progress on the first phase of development on Gitlab. Similar to Form Builder, this is a significant undertaking that stands to dramatically improve underlying functionality within CiviCRM. Community participation is vital to the success of the effort. Likewise, if you’re interested in supporting the initiative financially, please contact josh@civicrm.org.

Special thanks to WikiMedia Foundation for seeding the Search Builder overhaul initiative.

That's a great news ! Thanks and I hope that we could help.

Yes!!    Is there going to be a MIH?

• Log in or register to post comments

CiviCRM was built to be a CRM for organizational data with which users may leverage powerful components that provide a range of functionality and build complex workflows to manage constituent information, all under one system. There exist many ways in which data can come into CiviCRM, and there’s a far greater number of ways in which the data is used across the thousands of organizations that currently leverage CiviCRM.

But, once organizational data is in CiviCRM, how do organizations easily organize and act on it? Again, there are a few ways that’s done, but perhaps two of the most important are 1) search functionality and 2) reporting. This is probably fairly obvious because you have to search for the data that you wish to act on, and more than likely you’ll want to report on the impact of your actions.

CiviCRM addresses both of these through a range of search options and through CiviReport. But, let’s be honest for a second. Both search and reporting can be tough in CiviCRM. Take search for example. Where do you start? Basic search? Advanced search? Search builder? Custom searches? Or, do you just jump into the API explorer? Or, if you’re like many users, do you try to search for what you’re looking for through reports only to realize that reports, well, they just report on the data… they don’t allow you to take many other actions.

All of this is a long way of saying that CiviCRM’s search and reporting capabilities are in need of some lovin’.

Thanks to an initiative led by WikiMedia Foundation, the CiviCRM Core Team undertook a discovery project that included research and review of various search and reporting interfaces, culminating in a recommendation to consolidate those in CiviCRM into single, unified utility. For now, we’re calling this “Search Builder”.

The recommendation is to leverage emerging developments, specifically APIv4 and Form Builder, to create a single, powerful search and reporting utility that will replace the current disjointed approach to both in CiviCRM. APIv4 will serve as the query builder for all future search, exports and reports, and a new user interface will be designed to replace the current Advanced Search and Search Builder UI’s.

Search and reporting has been an area in CiviCRM long ripe for improvement. In addition to discussion and reflecton how to do so, such as here and here, efforts have been made to start MIH campaigns to fund improvements, and extensions, such as Data Processor have been built to address many of search's shortcomings. The recommendation below includes a review of these approaches, review of WMF's specific needs, as well as a comprehensive review of competitor search interfaces.

The new search builder UI will be geared towards advanced users and will provide the ability to take actions on the data, such as creating smart groups, as well as to save configurations into custom searches and reports. These latter two items will benefit from the flexibility of Form Builder, allowing users to easily customize saved searches and reports through a drag and drop interface.

The new search builder functionality is in development starting with a first phase slated for completion by June 30, 2020. The first round of development is focused on improvements to APIv4, to implementation of a search builder interface powered by APIv4, and to smart group functionality, again powered by the APIv4 query engine.

For reference, interested users can view a summary of the new search builder and can track the progress on the first phase of development on Gitlab. Similar to Form Builder, this is a significant undertaking that stands to dramatically improve underlying functionality within CiviCRM. Community participation is vital to the success of the effort. Likewise, if you’re interested in supporting the initiative financially, please contact josh@civicrm.org.

Special thanks to WikiMedia Foundation for seeding the Search Builder overhaul initiative.

That's a great news ! Thanks and I hope that we could help.

Yes!!    Is there going to be a MIH?

• Log in or register to post comments

CiviCRM was built to be a CRM for organizational data with which users may leverage powerful components that provide a range of functionality and build complex workflows to manage constituent information, all under one system. There exist many ways in which data can come into CiviCRM, and there’s a far greater number of ways in which the data is used across the thousands of organizations that currently leverage CiviCRM.

1. The MutualAid extension: readme, repository, download
2. XCM extension 1.7-beta used for contact matching and creation (required): readme, download
3. OSM Geocoder (if you don't want to use Google): download

Hey there - great job getting the implemented and shared so quickly :)

For anyone interested and wanting to discus Systopia's extension – there's a dedicated channel on Mattermost: https://chat.civicrm.org/civicrm/channels/covid-19. We're hoping to have a version you can try running on Spark soon.

Thanks for this nice extension. For anyone who want to have a play with it checkout https://corona.civicrm.jaapjansma.nl and login with username admin and password admin1234

In reply to Thanks for this nice by jaapjansma

Grateful that you made this available. I'm failing to see where a requester or helper can specify help types. Enabling all the options in https://corona.civicrm.jaapjansma.nl/civicrm/admin/options Mutual Aid - Help Types Options didn't have any effect. Do you know how/where the respondent would specify the types of help needed/offered?

In reply to Help Types confusion by SRQ_civicrm

Maybe it's since been resolved but all the help types look like they are showing on the offer and needs forms?

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1. The MutualAid extension: readme, repository, download
2. XCM extension 1.7-beta used for contact matching and creation (required): readme, download
3. OSM Geocoder (if you don't want to use Google): download

Hey there - great job getting the implemented and shared so quickly :)

For anyone interested and wanting to discus Systopia's extension – there's a dedicated channel on Mattermost: https://chat.civicrm.org/civicrm/channels/covid-19. We're hoping to have a version you can try running on Spark soon.

Thanks for this nice extension. For anyone who want to have a play with it checkout https://corona.civicrm.jaapjansma.nl and login with username admin and password admin1234

In reply to Thanks for this nice by jaapjansma

Grateful that you made this available. I'm failing to see where a requester or helper can specify help types. Enabling all the options in https://corona.civicrm.jaapjansma.nl/civicrm/admin/options Mutual Aid - Help Types Options didn't have any effect. Do you know how/where the respondent would specify the types of help needed/offered?

In reply to Help Types confusion by SRQ_civicrm

Maybe it's since been resolved but all the help types look like they are showing on the offer and needs forms?

• Log in or register to post comments

Hi CiviCRM community, I hope to bring a smile to all your faces with this simple announcement

CiviContact for Android and iOS has been released! This is a mobile app design to allow you to easily connect and manage CiviCRM contacts, groups, activities on your own device.

Here's a quick overview of the features:

• Quickly connect to a CiviCRM site by scanning a QR Code or receive an authentication email
• Sync CiviCRM contacts, groups, activities
• Call and email contacts
• Take notes and record your time
• Add and edit contacts
• Update custom fields
• View calculated summary fields
• View activities
• And much more!

Check out the the CiviContact website, https://civicontact.com.au for demos of the app and instructions for setting it up with your CiviCRM site.

CiviContact is available right now for free. Download the app for your device:

• For Android, Googe Play Store, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.com.agileware.civicontact
• For iOS (Apple iPhone, iPad) on Apple's App Store, search for "CiviContact"

In addition to the above, we have released this software as free and open source software under the same license as CiviCRM. Developers are free to fork, extend and fix bugs (yeah, nah, yeah!).

Source code is available on our Github repositories:

• For CiviContact mobile app, https://github.com/agileware/au.com.agileware.civicontact
• For CiviContact API extension, https://github.com/agileware/au.com.agileware.civicontactapi

If you are interested in a customised version of CiviContact for your organisation then please contact Agileware to discuss your requirements and receive a quote.

Got questions, found bugs or need help setting up? Then try connecting to the #CiviContact channel on Mattermost, https://chat.civicrm.org/civicrm/channels/civicontact

Thanks for this nice app. Thanks for providing it as open source and even more well done with instructions on how to do customize the app.

• Log in or register to post comments

Hi CiviCRM community, I hope to bring a smile to all your faces with this simple announcement

CiviContact for Android and iOS has been released! This is a mobile app design to allow you to easily connect and manage CiviCRM contacts, groups, activities on your own device.

Here's a quick overview of the features:

• Quickly connect to a CiviCRM site by scanning a QR Code or receive an authentication email
• Sync CiviCRM contacts, groups, activities
• Call and email contacts
• Take notes and record your time
• Add and edit contacts
• Update custom fields
• View calculated summary fields
• View activities
• And much more!

Check out the the CiviContact website, https://civicontact.com.au for demos of the app and instructions for setting it up with your CiviCRM site.

CiviContact is available right now for free. Download the app for your device:

• For Android, Googe Play Store, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=au.com.agileware.civicontact
• For iOS (Apple iPhone, iPad) on Apple's App Store, search for "CiviContact"

In addition to the above, we have released this software as free and open source software under the same license as CiviCRM. Developers are free to fork, extend and fix bugs (yeah, nah, yeah!).

Source code is available on our Github repositories:

• For CiviContact mobile app, https://github.com/agileware/au.com.agileware.civicontact
• For CiviContact API extension, https://github.com/agileware/au.com.agileware.civicontactapi

If you are interested in a customised version of CiviContact for your organisation then please contact Agileware to discuss your requirements and receive a quote.

Got questions, found bugs or need help setting up? Then try connecting to the #CiviContact channel on Mattermost, https://chat.civicrm.org/civicrm/channels/civicontact

Thanks for this nice app. Thanks for providing it as open source and even more well done with instructions on how to do customize the app.

• Log in or register to post comments

Hi CiviCRM community, I hope to bring a smile to all your faces with this simple announcement

CiviContact for Android and iOS has been released! This is a mobile app design to allow you to easily connect and manage CiviCRM contacts, groups, activities on your own device.

Here's a quick overview of the features:

Join Cividesk on Tuesday, March 31st at 12 pm PT/ 1 pm MT/ 3 pm ET for our online training session, "Organizing a Membership Renewal Campaign".

This 2-hour training session is designed for current users of CiviCRM seeking guidance on best practices for the membership renewal process.  Learn how to control and manage duplicates, configure an online membership page, guidelines for creating an effective membership renewal email and how to follow up on progress using smart groups and reports. 

Questions? Contact Training Instructor Susan Engeman.

• Log in or register to post comments

Join Cividesk on Tuesday, March 31st at 12 pm PT/ 1 pm MT/ 3 pm ET for our online training session, "Organizing a Membership Renewal Campaign".

This 2-hour training session is designed for current users of CiviCRM seeking guidance on best practices for the membership renewal process.  Learn how to control and manage duplicates, configure an online membership page, guidelines for creating an effective membership renewal email and how to follow up on progress using smart groups and reports. 

Questions? Contact Training Instructor Susan Engeman.

• Log in or register to post comments

Join Cividesk on Tuesday, March 31st at 12 pm PT/ 1 pm MT/ 3 pm ET for our online training session, "Organizing a Membership Renewal Campaign".

This is an open invitation for everyone in the Asia/Pacific region to join other Australians, New Zealanders etc. on-line to catch-up and discuss all things CiviCRM. If you are a CiviCRM user, developer or casual user with questions, then you are most welcome to join us.

• Introductions and welcome to new people
• Discuss what's going on in the wider CiviCRM community
• Discuss new projects or challenges
• Useful or new CiviCRM extensions
• PRs, bugs etc
• Volunteer for next meeting chair
• Meeting schedule

Meeting details

• To join the video meeting, click this link: https://meet.google.com/vdg-vroc-jkm
• Connect a headset with microphone to your computer for audio, camera is optional
• Otherwise, to join by phone, dial +61 2 9051 3228 and enter this PIN: 379 272#
• To view more phone numbers, click this link: https://tel.meet/vdg-vroc-jkm?hs=5

• Timezone converter, use the following link to convert to your local timezone, https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/aedt

• Log in or register to post comments

This is an open invitation for everyone in the Asia/Pacific region to join other Australians, New Zealanders etc. on-line to catch-up and discuss all things CiviCRM. If you are a CiviCRM user, developer or casual user with questions, then you are most welcome to join us.

CiviCRM version 5.23.2 is now out and ready to download.

This is a minor bugfix release that addresses important issues for WordPress and Joomla! users.

Upgrade now for the most stable CiviCRM experience:

• To download CiviCRM 5.23.2: https://civicrm.org/download

Users of the CiviCRM Extended Security Releases (ESR) do not need to upgrade, as there are no ESR-specific bugfixes or security issues at the moment.

• dev/financial#120 Fixes payment issues in Joomla!

• dev/core#1637 Fixes WordPress admin menu links
• dev/core#1592 Fixes Advanced Search "active period" filter regression
• dev/core#1636 Fixes PHP E_NOTICE in System.Check (fixes monitoring bug)

As of CiviCRM 5.25, which will be released on 2020-05-06, the minimum supported version will be PHP 7.1. The recommended PHP version is PHP 7.3.

Extended Security Releases will support PHP 7.0 until the end of life of CiviCRM 5.21 (the next ESR is 5.27, to be released on 2020-07-01).

We are committed to keeping CiviCRM free and open, forever. We depend on your support to help make that happen.

• Make a donation or contribute to a Make it happen campaign.
• If your organization wants to support our work, please become a member today.
• If you are a CiviCRM service provider, please become a partner.

• Log in or register to post comments