Use Cases and User Types

In this post, http://groups.drupal.org/node/93504#comment-317734, it was suggested we make a list of use cases and user types, so I thought I'd explain what I'm interested in a DropCRM for. I build websites for churches so we need a system that connects people and respects the (often complicated) hierarchical leadership structures.

User Types

• Users/Contacts - These may or may not be able to log in they are people who have made contact with a church but not joined it. We probably want basic information on them.
• Members - These are people that are full members of the church, we might want to track their giving or attendance at church services. They may also be part of Small Groups, Ministry/Volunteer Teams, Leadership Groups etc. they may also have parents or children in the church, and (particularly in the case of children) we'll want these relationships mapped for child protection purposes
• Missionaries - These are people (or groups!) that have been sent out by the church to person some purpose in some community. the church will want to stay in touch with them and support them. The church will want to know their progress/prayer points/latest activities and locations. On top of this one or more churches could be linked with a missionary, so in a multi site environment (possibly on two different servers) two different user accounts should map to one missionary. They may or may not be members [Or members on one site and not another).
• Link Members - Most churches assign people to stay in touch with missionaries abroad. these will be members but will need to act on behalf of the missionaries whenever neccessary
• Preacher - May be a member (so with a user account) or a guest, we will want this entity to link to sermons or materials he is responsible for
• Pastor/Minister/Vicar - A church leader
• Elder - level with the vicar, they oversee how the church operates.
• Deacon - deacons are responsible for particular areas in the running of the church. this should be modelled in how they exist on the CRM.
• Child - this may or may not be connected to a user or anything else, this will should the youth groups and activities the child is involved in, as well as important information about attendance, subscriptions fees and payments status and allergy advice etc
• Volunteer - someone who helps with anything, they could be part of a particular ministry group, a youth leader, worship leader, cleaner. They should have access to all the appropriate rotas and information. Details of CRB check status/expiry.

On top of this, we want to model a number of groups,

• Small/Bible Study Groups - these are small midweek groups that form the backbone of most church communities. They need to be able to be semi autonomous and controlled by the leader of that Small group. they need to be able to organise events together and network.
• Teams - these are groups that work together to form some purpose, such as run the PA. We might want to keep track of members level of training, need task lists (with assignment and completion statuses), organise rotas, advertise events.
• Youth Groups
• Congregations - If a church has multiple sunday services we want to know who goes to which one

The things we want to do with all of this information include:

• Organise Rotas - allow teams to function effectively and to organise rotas well. Remove the evil of email from organisational procedure =P
• Organise Events - track attendance, advertise, assign tasks to groups individual members.
• Keep a contacts database - build a directory of contact information
• Allow communication between various leaders - small group overseers need to be able to communicate with small groups leaders etc
• Preaching tools - track and manage sermon resources to build up a strong, usable library.
• Youth Groups/Classes - track attendance and in the case of youth work allow for easy registration and pick up for child protection
• Resource Management - manage room bookings and other things

So, its not fully fleshed out yet, but those are some of the prominent ideas I'd like this system to work towards.