Answers.Body: <p>That's like asking how difficult it is to customise your car: it depends on multiple factors but primarily what you want to do and your skills.  If you just want to add a fluffy steering wheel cover - go right ahead, anyone can do that.  If you want go-faster stripes painting on, then you might do that yourself depending on your artistic abilities.  Tinkering (safely!) with the suspension or engine is a specialist job beyond most of us.</p>
  
  <p>Many people do work with partners and contributors but they are all different so the experience of working with one doesn't tell you how that might work out with another one.  Each practitioner has their own unique set of experiences, skills and interests so you might want to talk to more than one to find someone who is a good fit for your organisation.</p>
  
  <p>There is a lot of documentation around and there's no "external magic" - all the code is right there on your server, so if you or your graduates have the time, inclination and skill then they can learn. That will give them knowledge but not experience although you can benefit from the experience of others as Pete has already described. All of us started sometime from the point of knowing nothing about Civi!  </p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2016-02-10T19:00:18.347Z
Answers.Text: And don't forget the fluffy dice ;-)
Answers.UserDisplayName: petednz - fuzion
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Answers.CreationDate: 2016-02-11T11:55:43.570Z
Answers.Text: Thank you for your answer. To be honest my question was a not clear .. maybe because we are very new to CiviCRM and limited in time so I was wondering how complicated is it to customise it to see if we can squeeze it in the time limit or it is better to out source it
Answers.UserDisplayName: user2602
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Answers.CreationDate: 2016-02-11T18:45:46.003Z
Answers.Text: It may help to break it down a bit:  1) How well does Civi meet your needs out of the box?  2) How hard is that to configure?  3) What non-standard customisations do you need? 4) How hard are those?
  
  The [docs](https://civicrm.org/documentation) are a good starting place, or you could post an outline here of what you're wanting to do, or talk to a consultant.
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Answers.UserDisplayName: Aidan
Answers.Body: <p>not sure how to answer this. Members of the core team, and many contributors including Partners are very active on StackExchange. There is also the IRC channel, and you can also put issues in JIRA and have the core team or other developers provide the patches. this <a href="https://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/The+developer+community" rel="nofollow">post</a> might help clarify the community around civicrm.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2016-02-11T11:55:32.630Z
Answers.Text: Thank you for your answer. To be honest my question was a not clear .. maybe because we are very new to CiviCRM and limited in time so I was wondering how complicated is it to customise it to see if we can squeeze it in the time limit or it is better to out source it.
Answers.UserDisplayName: user2602
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2016-02-11T17:55:49.850Z
Answers.Text: If you ask a specific question about customising you will probably get a useful answer. But I think Aidan's analogy of a car is useful. If you can afford to 'source it out' then the developers should be able to help you work through how to use civi as well as possible without costly customisation, and only suggest those customisations where it is critical for your work.
Answers.UserDisplayName: petednz - fuzion
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Answers.UserDisplayName: petednz - fuzion
Body: <p>I am looking into customising CIVICRM for thinkForward UK. However I would like to know how hard and complicated customising the solution would be.</p>
  <p>Has anyone contacted the partners and contributors? Is it worth it or can it be done with some technological help? The charity can get that from a few graduates not working full time though.</p>
  <p>Think forward definitely needs Civicase and core CiviCRM as well as reports.</p>
  
Tags: <civicase>
Title: How difficult is it to customise CIVICRM?
ThreadText: # How difficult is it to customise CIVICRM?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2016-02-08)
  
  I am looking into customising CIVICRM for thinkForward UK. However I would like to know how hard and complicated customising the solution would be.
  
  Has anyone contacted the partners and contributors? Is it worth it or can it be done with some technological help? The charity can get that from a few graduates not working full time though.
  
  Think forward definitely needs Civicase and core CiviCRM as well as reports.
  
  **Tags:** civicase
  
  
  ---
  
  ## 2 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_1 on 2016-02-10. Score: 3
  
  That's like asking how difficult it is to customise your car: it depends on multiple factors but primarily what you want to do and your skills. If you just want to add a fluffy steering wheel cover - go right ahead, anyone can do that. If you want go-faster stripes painting on, then you might do that yourself depending on your artistic abilities. Tinkering (safely!) with the suspension or engine is a specialist job beyond most of us.
  
  Many people do work with partners and contributors but they are all different so the experience of working with one doesn't tell you how that might work out with another one. Each practitioner has their own unique set of experiences, skills and interests so you might want to talk to more than one to find someone who is a good fit for your organisation.
  
  There is a lot of documentation around and there's no "external magic" - all the code is right there on your server, so if you or your graduates have the time, inclination and skill then they can learn. That will give them knowledge but not experience although you can benefit from the experience of others as Pete has already described. All of us started sometime from the point of knowing nothing about Civi!
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_2**: And don't forget the fluffy dice ;-)  
  > **username_0**: Thank you for your answer. To be honest my question was a not clear .. maybe because we are very new to CiviCRM and limited in time so I was wondering how complicated is it to customise it to see if we can squeeze it in the time limit or it is better to out source it  
  > **username_1**: It may help to break it down a bit:  1) How well does Civi meet your needs out of the box?  2) How hard is that to configure?  3) What non-standard customisations do you need? 4) How hard are those?  The [docs](https://civicrm.org/documentation) are a good starting place, or you could post an outline here of what you're wanting to do, or talk to a consultant.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2016-02-08. Score: 2
  
  not sure how to answer this. Members of the core team, and many contributors including Partners are very active on StackExchange. There is also the IRC channel, and you can also put issues in JIRA and have the core team or other developers provide the patches. this [post](https://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/The+developer+community) might help clarify the community around civicrm.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Thank you for your answer. To be honest my question was a not clear .. maybe because we are very new to CiviCRM and limited in time so I was wondering how complicated is it to customise it to see if we can squeeze it in the time limit or it is better to out source it.  
  > **username_2**: If you ask a specific question about customising you will probably get a useful answer. But I think username_1's analogy of a car is useful. If you can afford to 'source it out' then the developers should be able to help you work through how to use civi as well as possible without costly customisation, and only suggest those customisations where it is critical for your work.  
  
  ---
  
  