This is the first in a multi part series in getting the most out of a Drupal + CiviCRM deployment.
Series Topics Will include

• Collection Member information from the website
• Events, Memberships, and Donations
• Creating Members only sections in drupal
• Creating Interactive Committee Pages
• And More

What are Drupal and CiviCRM

For any organization having one centralized management solution can help improve operations in the organization.  Drupal is an open sourced Content Management System for managing a website.  CiciCRM is a CRM solution targeted at Non-Profit organizations that is packed full of features.  CiviCRM out of the box integrates directly into drupal as a module, and out of the box provides a powerful solution for non profits.

Out of the Box Features of CiviCRM

• Manage donations, and create donation pages
• Manage members, create contact lists and collect dues
• Create and Manage Events and Meetings, including online event registration
• Manage Mailings to users
• Create reports on donations and collections
• Assign Activities

I will not be covering installation of Drupal and CiviCRM but jump right into using CiviCRM.  We are going to enable the most used CiviCRM modules and set up collecting user profile information from the drupal website.

First Enable the CiviCRM modules that you want to use by going to civicrm/admin/settings/components&reset=1
Enable CiviContribute, CiviPledge, CiviMember, CiviEvent, CiviMail

User Profiles

Next we are going to customize the Drupal user profile civicrm/admin/uf/group&reset=1 and select the name and address profile.

Check the boxes Used For Drupal Registration and View/Edit Drupal User Account so that when a user signs up in Drupal their CiviCRM profile information is collected, you can customize the information collected by editing the fields for this profile.

Now your Users can register and edit their contact information right from your website.  In the next installment of this series we will be covering Donations, Membership Dues, and Events.