Client description
Christmas Services of Edmonton is a joint program of the Christmas Bureau of Edmonton and 630 CHED Santas Anonymous. Every year they deliver hampers, toys and gift cards to thousands of Edmonton families.
Project objective
The Christmas Bureau and Santas Anonymous was looking to update their 15+ years old database to manage complex information about clients, application, services and deliveries. The new system needed to be flexible (so that the new features can be easily added later, without rebuilding the system), manageable by Christmas Services staff, and adapted to the busy Christmas season where they receive tens of thousands of applications.
Solution
We implemented an online client and application management system using Drupal and CiviCRM. By building a relationship of entities on top of CiviCRM's core entities, and forms and screens in Drupal, the new system allows CBE and SA staff to track information about clients; their relationships between each other (households); history of applications and services received; track the labels printed; and allow drivers to log in and deliver toys.
Further customizations of searches and reports allow staff to run any client searches that are needed to quickly find information about given client history where reports help to keep track of services they've received.
Currently, the system is being used by multiple staff members at the same time, and the database has tens of thousands of client and application records (and growing).
A view of the application form, with fake client and information:
