However, I do agree that we are too core-centric at the moment. This is largely because there isn't a huge degree of community assistancein most of these areas at the moment.
Going the other way - how much does it cost to sponsor a developer...
Lets see some realistic charges to "buy" a feature.I have too little time and there are several main areas I would like to see developer (related)
1) Some improvements to the customer DB. Not really a full CRM, but I want to be able to store cell phone, company, custom fields (in order to hook into a second private DB that we maintain with different data). It would be nice to store company data so that I could group people by company reliably. Also it would be nice to have a basic lead-tracker or ToDo system which would allow flexible notes against customers (even if this is external). I also want to be able to use this DB as a datasource for other systems, eg lookup callerId with my asterisk system, and sync it with my email program addressbox, etc (external projects here - just want the datasource to be more robust to use as a base) 2) Some workflow hooks. eg I regularly bill people airtime where I need to have their SIM card details handy for a recurring payment. I want to be able to more easily program a button on a form which looks up the SIM number from past invoices, sets up a sales order, jumps me out to the CC screens to take payment and then sticks in a purchase order with our supplier to purchase the relevant airtime. This same kind of passthrough processing no doubt applies to many business models? 3) Invoices should store all the details so that they are unchangable. ie if I change the customer's address details then invoices should NOT change when I reprint them. Same with VAT rates. 4) CC integration - customers pass us their details - we will use a payment processor to enter the details and get an "instant confirm" back. This should be filed and in future we can collect additional payments against this ref id simply by resubmitting a repeat payment against that ID.
Number 4) is the one I want to work on first. I use Protx and want to be able to more easily bill and re-bill customers. ...How much and how soon can you deliver...
Ed W