What is RedHen?
RedHen is a lightweight, Drupal-native CRM framework. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management*, and the initials "CRM" are often used to refer to a software tool designed to assist with Customer Relationship Management (so "CRM" really means, "Customer Relationship Management Tool" as we use it).
A significant need in the CRM world is for customers themselves to be able to leverage or update information kept in an organization's CRM database by interacting with the organization's website. For instance, you might want your customers to be able to login to your website and update their own contact information, for customers with a membership to receive discounts or access to private areas of your website, or to track customer engagement based on their activity on your site. For this reason, building a CRM into a web development platform (like Drupal) makes a lot of sense: that's why RedHen was created.
Since CRM needs are as diverse as each Organization's work, customization functionality is a key feature need. Drupal 7 is well-suited to this particular need, with it's handy fieldable entities and collection of contributed modules offering custom fields of various types.
History
RedHen was initially designed for common nonprofit needs, but is built for flexibility. ThinkShout is the lead developer for RedHen.
Use Cases
RedHen is a great integration point between Drupal and enterprise CRM solutions like Salesforce (with the Drupal Salesforce Module) and Blackbaud.
RedHen CRM was initially designed with an eye towards membership organizations, but the RedHen framework has been built with the flexibility to be used anywhere.
Module Breakdown
RedHen installs as a collection of modules with cascading dependencies offering distinct pieces of functionality, following a pattern familiar to anyone who has installed Drupal Commerce. The modules are listed here based on their level of dependency on other modules, with core modules first. For more on each module, see the Configuration page.
- RedHen core (redhen):
Provides core functionality like menus and permissions. Required by all other RedHen modules.
Additional Dependencies: Entity API - Fields (redhen_fields):
Provides RedHen-specific fields.
Additional Dependencies: none - Contact (redhen_contact):
Provides a fieldable, type-able entity for tracking contact data. Contacts can be paired with Drupal Users to allow customers to update their own contact information or gain User permissions based on CRM data.
Additional Dependencies: redhen_fields - Organizations (redhen_org):
Provides a fieldable, type-able entity for tracking organization data.
Additional Dependencies: none - Note (redhen_note):
Allows you to add fieldable notes to contact and organization entities. With Fields, Views, and Rules, you can extend Notes to manage simple workflows.
Additional Dependencies: taxonomy, options, field, field_sql_storage, text - Engagement (redhen_engagement):
Provides a Contact engagement scoring framework and API, which integrates with RedHen Notes.
Additional Dependencies: redhen_contact - Registration (redhen_registration):
Provides integration with the Entity Registration module, allowing a Contact's Registrations to be tracked in RedHen.
Additional Dependencies: redhen_contact, registration - Activity (redhen_activity):
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Additional Dependencies: redhen_contact, redhen_org, message, entityreference, ctools - Relation (redhen_relation):
Create fieldable, type-able connections between Contacts, or between Contacts and Organizations.
Additional Dependencies: redhen_contact, redhen_org, relation, relation_endpoint, relation_ui, list, field, field_sql_storage, options - Organization Groups (redhen_org_group):
Allows you to "groupify" RedHen Organizations, similar to Organic Groups.
Additional Dependencies: redhen, redhen_relation, entityreference, ctools
Additional Modules
There are a some additional modules which have been designed specifically to add functionality to or paly well with RedHen, but which do not install with RedHen. Some important examples are:
- RedHen Membership (redhen_membership):
Provides a framework for managing Contact and Organization memberships in Drupal.
Dependencies: redhen_org, redhen_relation - Poultry (poultry):
A custom, responsive theme specifically designed for use with RedHen. - Salesforce 7.x-3.x:
Provides integration with the popular, and much more heavy-weight, SAS CRM from Salesforce.com.
* CRM is actually a pretty versatile little acronym. The "C" can be Client, Customer, Contact, or Constituent. The "R" can be Relationship or Resource, etc, but they all mean pretty much the same thing.