By persand on

My client hasn't been able to find a CRM/solution for storing the users data and since we're building their new site with Drupal they've asked us about the possibilites of using Drupal all the way.

I'm thinking of using a node profile content type with CCK-fields. It'll add up to around 250 fields on that content type.
This content type will only be available and used by administrators since the user shouldn't be able to see or modify this data.

(There will also be a public node profile content type with just some basic info which the user will be able to edit.)

I'll then create a couple of views which will help the administrators filtering the data.

Has anyone done anything like this before? What about performance? Is it a good solution to this with Drupal or should we keep looking for a CRM?

Any help would be great.

Thanks!

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x

Comments

gforce301’s picture

gforce301 commented

CCK caches it's nodes to improve performance. So in theory you should be ok. Do you really need 250 fields? The only drawback I see is, can you imagine the size of the form?

Without knowing what you need to store it is hard for me to give you a recommendation on how to do it differently. There are various ways of referencing multiple nodes together and some of these methods might help you simplify your tasks, but once again I would need more information to be able to help more.

michelle’s picture

michelle
she/her
Primary language English
Location Wisconsin, USA
commented

Advanced profile kit comes with a node type that has 28 fields on it and some users have reported getting errors because of the number of fields. I'm not sure, yet, exactly where the problem lies but something is choking on it. I suggest you try it out on a dev site on the same hardware and see if it can handle it.

You might also consider breaking it up into a few node types. Nodeprofile will let you associate more than one type with profiles. You can then tie them together for display using panels.

Michelle

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WorldFallz’s picture

WorldFallz commented

i have to second the usability considerations of a cck form with 250 fields. There's probably also going to be client side issues with that many form widgets in a browser window. As Michelle says though-- the best thing to do before committing to drupal as a solution, is prototype it. In addition to the server side hardware, you'll also want to test across the different levels of client side systems your users are likely to have.

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persand’s picture

persand commented

Thanks for your comments! :D

I'm not sure if we need 250 fields. That's what the client told me in a rush and I guess I could shorten that down by using taxonomies in some cases and maybe some fields wont be necessary at all. I'll try to get more detailed info.

Breaking it up on several node types sounds like a good thing to do. (There are 20.000 users in total right now).

The administrators who will create/edit this info are about 5-8 people and I'll be clear to them that they need a modern browser as well as a computer with good performance.