Greetings,
while I refine my strategy about using DT3 for my content creation activity, I’d like to go further and use it as a (light?) CRM.
Because I run my projects inside DT3, and I end up dealing with collaborators, partners, etc…, and their communications, I’d like to have all in one place.
I’d like to go even further, and push toward a light CRM.
It means: who I know, who I deal with, when, what we talked about, other notes, and something more.
Anybody is using DT3 as CRM?
How have you structured your strategy?
What’s your workflow?
Curious to hear ideas about this. If I mail merge a bunch of congress people I have one letter, multiple recipients. Then, as those members of congress both literate enough and haven’t eaten their crayons reply, the conversation starts branching.
First a consideration: I don’t need to track EVERY conversation with a person, but only the most relevant ones.
That said:
I have a “Contacts” folder where I store a Markdown file per each contact.
Here I write infos such as where he/she lives, the job, etc…
Because conversations usually occur related to a specific project, I store the specific conversation to the specific project, and tag the file with the name of the contact.
I can add infos to the file, such as when and where we had the conversation, and others.
Don’t forget we just came out of the holiday season and many people were (thankfully) away from their computers and devices and spending time with those they love
Frankly, the files, especially if you use and rely more on tags, can go anywhere. You can start, then when you decide that doesn’t work for you anymore for whatever reason, drag and drop to change to something else. Fewer is better than a lot.
Any of the above works - using DT3 is largely a matter of personal preference. There is no one “right” way.
That said, you might get more specific advice or anecdotes/examples offered by users if you could be more specific about your use case. “CRM” is a pretty broad category.
When I started using Devonthink, I tried to integrate CRM functionality into DT. But I quickly realized that this doesn’t really make sense. After a long time of searching and testing many different apps, i then decided to use Tap Formsin addition to Devonthink. This is an excellent database app with which databases can be designed in the simplest possible way. With Java Script functionality, import/export and various (mobile) sync options, there are hardly any limits. In combination with Devonthink (as a document management system) we use Tap Forms as a “CRM” database.
You could use the strengths of these two apps separately:
DEVONthink > AI, automation, custom metadata, …
Tap Forms > Relations, evaluations, calculations, …
I run many projects with many collaborators.
Many times my collaborators join me in more than one project.
So i’m looking for a good and friendly way to…
I have a record where I store the bio of the contact, where he lives, his job, how I met him the first time, etc…
I update this record if needed.
When I run a project, store a new document, or get a new message, I can link it to the contact (or more than one contact, if needed).
Also, I can store meaningful and insightful communications from a contact and link it to him.
No need to plan future messages (such as wishes, simple greetings…) because I can plan them on my ToDo App.
I had a quick look at the App, it seems as like as Airtable, but more personal because you store the documents into your device and you don’t have limited records.
Just a question: how do you integrate DevonThink with TapForms?
Do you index the files of TapForms, or do you run the Apps in parallel?
They run in parallel. I strictly separate document/email filing (DEVONthink) and organizational data (Tap Forms). For each case/client i have a Tap Forms entry (with many sub forms, like related contacts, dates, todos, follow-ups, estimates, correspondence, cashbook, …). In DEVONthink i have the same named case/client as a group. Both are linked with record URLs. So I can click on the link and Tap Forms opens (or the other way around DEVONthink opens). In Tap Forms nearly for everything Java Script can be used for automation (see the JS documentation on the web page).
One way would be to create a Group for each project, then tag the group and/or documents with the name of each contact. Then each contact would wind up with a Tag Group referencing back to all the projects and documents it is associated with.
