Interesting. Would it make sense to integrate this to various social media, so that you could see your contacts profiles or recent activity, or maybe even integrate messaging?
Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family
51–60 of 586 posts
Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family
#52Founder here. Here to answer any questions you might have. The site is not perfect, it's not mobile optimized, there are probably bugs, there is a gazillion features missing, no APIs but it's a labour of love, open-source and I hope it will help people other than me. I want to grow this product but I need to know what you need, people. Edit: sorry for the bugs I see on my server popping here and there. Didnt expect t…
This seems super handy. I am kinda interested in seeing if I can get it to run on Sandstorm.io. Then I don't have to put a lot of effort into managing hosting for it, but it seems like it'd be handy and I'd probably use it if I could host it that way. And if you want to let people use your open source thing without having to manage it as a service, there's some nice perks: https://sandstorm.io/developer
Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is where I need the community. I'm just a small Laravel amateur developer who doesn't know much about Docker I love simple solutions and Laravel seemed to me the easiest way to build something simple, and more importantly, easily maintainable, which is the most important for me.
That's what I meant, I would contribute a dockerfile, which people may use to run the application with one command. Would standard Laravel instructions to deploy an app[1] help me here or do you need additional steps? [1]: Maybe something like https://medium.com/laravel-news/the-simple-guide-to-deploy-l... (first thing I could find)
Just tried setting it up, pretty simple assuming you're comfortable with Linux.
You need MySQL/MariaDB, PHP >= 5.5.9 (see composer.json, require section for version requirements - worked with 7.1.x for me), node/npm, and composer (typically installed from getcomposer.org)
Otherwise, directions at https://github.com/monicahq/monica#setup-the-project work with one exception: I'm not familiar with laravel in particular, but I had to do some funkyness with the the .env file:
Replace APP_KEY=SomeRandomString with a valid key, like this random one I found on the internet: APP_KEY=base64:i7QndWbN33zY1x013Yw2cju9KQsxpT/1nnf8/3ziZ+U=
Then run php artisan key:generate to get a new one.
(Set DB credentials in .env as well)
Finally, php artisan serve to fire up the dev server (uses php's builtin server)
Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family
#54This seems like something I may use. I have terrible memory, so I never remember birthdays, anniversaries or even my own doc appointments. Tangentially related: I wonder what the fallout is for the average person who may get discovered using this. I could see someone catching flack for having software send them reminders of things that "should be important enough to remember". Then again, what's wrong with using tech…
That's something I've struggled with while building the v1. I wondered if it was moral to use technology to help me have better relationships. I'm the kind of guy who hates Facebook and all the bad things the technology has brought into our lives. And yet, ironically, I do something like this. But the motivation behind is genuinely pure: I really want to be better at remembering things about the ones that I love.
Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family
#55Love the idea, would like to see: * Imports from Facebook or CardDav, one at a time is horrendous. * Relate contact to Social Facebook/LinkedIn/Meetup? * Add activity from LinkedIn/Facebook other social sites to contacts * Native App
I think import seems to be the number 1 feature request. Makes a lot of sense.
Add activity from FB/Linkedin: How would you do that?
Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family
#56Call me cynical, but I find the term CRM pretty wrong. Yes, I understand what it does, people have been keeping track of this stuff (if I read the intro page correctly) for ages, and still I find this borderline creepy and overengineered. Disclaimer: I am using e.g. Facebook's "On this day" feature to reminisce about old stuff with friends, I also keep birthdays in a calendar. Maybe just the professional spin puts me…
I understand what you mean. I don't like it either, but I've yet to find another way of explaining quickly what it does. A CRM for friends is very explanatory. But I dislike the creepiness of it.
Also maybe it's a not-a-native-speaker thing, but your use of "Manage significant others" gave me a good chuckle because all I could think of at first how it can help to hide your affair from your spouse. :)
Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Damn it, I broke it. I'll fix it today, or remove it entirely, I still don't know about it. I like the idea of being able to quickly log in, but it's yet another feature to maintain, so...
My personal recommendation is to drop third-party logins and allow users to sign-up via usernames (without emails). That means you need to deal with "lost password with no way to recover" situations and spam but it's still better than third parties controlling the most important aspect of your application.
I actively avoid sites that offer only FB logins.
Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family
#58Interesting. Would it make sense to integrate this to various social media, so that you could see your contacts profiles or recent activity, or maybe even integrate messaging?
Yeah, one of my idea would be to have a Chrome extension where you would see the private notes about the contact you are currently seeing on Facebook, for instance.
Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is where I need the community. I'm just a small Laravel amateur developer who doesn't know much about Docker I love simple solutions and Laravel seemed to me the easiest way to build something simple, and more importantly, easily maintainable, which is the most important for me.
Docker is the way to go here :) It's going to be a very valuable tool to add to your arsenal. "Easily deployable" is going to be a top concern of your users, and Docker solves that.
Very good point indeed. Didn't think of it, but I understand the importance of this.
Re: Show HN: Monica, an open-source CRM to manage friends and family
#60IMHO: You want to pivot this product, now, to compete with ourfamilywizard.com. OFW is a great concept but the site runs slow, its search and reporting is erratic and basic, and the UI can be difficult. It is, however, the only game in town for managing divorced families and its about $200 per year. It also features: - Timestamped and hashed communications and records. - Lower price point than OFW. - More intuitive r…
Thanks for pointing out to this site. There is probably a lot of good ideas to take from it.