New features in the Groundhogg Companies plug-in

I greatly enjoyed yesterday’s co-working session. One of the things I heard is that @audree.morin struggles a lot with the hack that we currently use for organizational information in Groundhogg. I’ve been aware of the problems with that strategy for a while, but I think I was able to more deeply connect with how much distress it causes Audrée. One piece of news that @nplanchon shared is that the Groundhogg Companies plugin has new features that may address some of the needs that we have around storing organizational information. So one of my goals is to review what’s new in the Companies plugin and see how much it may be able to meet those needs.

There is a bit of a domain question here: does this work on managing the documentation, communication, and training around Groundhogg features live in @website-circle or @IT-Circle? On its face it seems like a Website Circle question, but I think we’re starting to treat Groundhogg support as an IT Circle issue. What do you all think?

I’m also happy for news on what people already know about the new Companies plugin.

A related issue exists around how we study, synthesize, and share information about software updates (related to the website in particular, but the issue is actually more general than that). I plan to write about that separately. (I managed the recent round of plugin updates, but I didn’t know they introduced these feature changes to the Companies plugin! :sweat_smile: I’m excited that Neil has so much energy around understanding our CRM deeply!)

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Thanks John! It feels really good to be heard!
Just to clarify my struggle: I operate pretty fluidly with the workaround for organizational information, it’s when it’s time to train someone that I realize how complicated it is. This has resulted in no one being able to support me with GH stuff, and a pile of information to put in GH that sleeps in my Asana because I don’t have enough time to do it.
So, yes, the companies update in GH is promising for this, it seems like it could result in less things to explain to a trainee!!

Interesting information: the tab and the field that I added to a company record yesterday as a test is still there this morning, in another company! So it seems very easy to start using the company records instead of the individual ones!!

This would make it easier to train people, and also quicker to put info into GH. No more determining the point person for an organization!!

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And I’m grateful for Neil too!!

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I haven’t looked at it myself, yet (although I plan to), but I thought when we tested it on Wednesday we saw the tab in another company record, but not the field. It’s different today?

Exactly. The field is there today!

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That’s very exciting! I’m talking directly with IT and Website Circle members to explore how we want to support you and other SoFA members in using this new feature.

Also, I remember you mentioning that searching for organizations was annoying. I don’t know if this quite meets your needs, but does it help to be able to search directly from the Companies page within Groundhogg? I know that doesn’t help search through our custom fields on individual contact records, but perhaps you are wanting to look at the company records themselves.