About This Guide & the CBM CRM Setup
Who this guide is for
This guide is for the CBM CRM administrator — the staff member(s) responsible for keeping the Cleveland Business Mentors CRM running smoothly day to day: adding and removing users, adjusting settings, importing data, and handling the occasional problem.
It assumes you're comfortable using web applications, but not that you're a server or database expert. Where a task is genuinely technical (server upgrades, recovery), this guide summarizes it and points you to the right person or runbook rather than asking you to do it yourself.
If you're a mentor or a member of the Client Administration or Mentor Administration teams, the guides on the other shelves are for you — this one is specifically about administering the system.
What the CBM CRM is
The CRM is the central system that holds CBM's people and activity — mentors, clients, the engagements that pair them, the sessions they hold, and the supporting records around them. As administrator, you don't change what the CRM tracks day to day; you keep the system healthy and help users get their work done.
Two environments: Production and Sandbox
There are two copies of the CRM, and knowing which is which is the single most important thing in this guide:
| Address | What it is | |
|---|---|---|
| Production | crm.clevelandbusinessmentors.org |
The real, live system. Everyone's actual work and real data live here. |
| Sandbox | crm-test.clevelandbusinessmentors.org |
A safe copy for trying things out. Nothing here affects real data. |
The golden rule: when you're about to make a change that isn't routine — a settings change, a configuration tweak, a bulk data operation — try it in the Sandbox first, confirm it does what you expect, then do it in Production. Chapter 3 covers this sandbox-first workflow in detail.
How the system is maintained
A few things are handled outside the CRM's own screens, so you don't have to:
- Configuration (custom fields, layouts, new record types) is applied through CBM's implementation process and tooling, not hand-edited in Production. See Chapter 3.
- The server, hosting, backups, security certificates, and software upgrades are managed at the infrastructure level. You don't log into servers; Chapter 6 explains what's automated and who handles the rest.
What's in this guide
- Chapter 2 — Users, Roles & Access: add and remove users; manage who can see and do what.
- Chapter 3 — Configuration & Customization: settings, the navigation menu, and the sandbox-first change process.
- Chapter 4 — Managing Data: importing, exporting, duplicates, and cleanup.
- Chapter 5 — Integrations: Google, email, the website, and this documentation site.
- Chapter 6 — Operations & Maintenance: backups, updates, and routine upkeep.
- Chapter 7 — Troubleshooting, Recovery & Reference: fixing problems, recovery options, and where everything lives.
When in doubt, slow down. Most administrative actions are easy to reverse, but a few (bulk deletes, resets) are not. If a task in this guide carries a warning, take it seriously — and if you're unsure, see Getting Help and Next Steps at the end of the guide.