Jetpack CRM is a versatile solution – the ultimate self-hosted CRM.
Before you get started you might have a number of questions around whether to install the CRM plugin on your main website or install it on a standalone domain (e.g yourcrm.yoursite.com, or yourcrm.com)
This article aims to help you choose by sharing the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches.
Hosting your CRM on your main website
This is the easiest solution. You won’t need to setup a new subdomain (or domain), and you can be up and running in minutes. The following should be considered when deciding whether to install on the same site (as your main marketing website):
- Other Plugins: Jetpack CRM works with best practices. It doesn’t bloat your website or load it’s scripts on non-CRM pages. Not all plugins are created equal though, and you may find other plugins adjusting the intended outcome of Jetpack CRM. If you already have a number of complex plugins on your site, it might be best to use a separate install (stand alone below).
- Performance: Jetpack CRM maintains its data in standalone tables. This means Jetpack CRM does not add any database load to your other site operations, and can be hyper optimised for CRM specific data structures.
- Team: You can add team members to your CRM, but you’ll be giving them some access to the back end of your website (vs having them 100% separate)
- Client Portal: This takes the design of your theme – so you’ll need to manage the look and feel of this either through your theme or customising the templates provided.
- CRM integrations: If you plan to integrate the CRM with plugins like Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, or WooCommerce, setup is simpler if on the same site (though external site connections are available with API settings).
Stand Alone CRM – Self hosting your own CRM standalone
Jetpack CRM is a great solution if you want to have your very own CRM setup on it’s own domain. This could be on either a subdomain(e.g. crm.yoursite.com) or a separate domain (e.g. yourcrm.com). The beauty of the stand-alone setup is the following:
- No impact of other plugins: Use Jetpack CRM as the developers intend it to be used.
- Added security: Your team will only login to your CRM site, keeping things separate.
- Specificity/Zoning: Your team can log ‘into the CRM’ and it’s just the CRM. This is great for teams who don’t want to be distracted by other website features.
How does a stand-alone version of the CRM work
When running a stand-alone version, you can control how the login screen looks and even choose the “CRM only” menus for WordPress (this removes your posts, pages). It’s a great option if you’re running a CRM with a team and want to keep them separate you may choose this option.
Domain and Install WordPress
You’ll need to choose your domain (either a subdomain or a fresh domain) and then setup and maintain a WordPress install on that site. This is easy to do.
Theme
You can also choose your own theme for your standalone site, most themes work well with the client portal, but the best format to choose is usually a ‘single column’ layout, so there’s space for all of the portal elements.
Sync Tools + API (Automatically adding contacts, invoices, and transactions)
This is another consideration if you’re using the CRM on a standalone site. You’ll need to potentially use the API to post data into your CRM. We have the following options available:-
- WooCommerce Sync: This module has an “external site” option where you can connect to your main site via an external CRM. The orders and customers will be kept up to date through a regular sync check.
- PayPal Sync + Stripe Sync: Both these extensions work with either setup.
- Gravity Forms Connector: This has external API settings so captured information can be sent.
- API Connector: This extension allows you to operate a site in ‘hub mode’ – e.g. form connectors etc. can post to a separate domain instance of the CRM.
- Zapier: We also have a Zapier App (invite needed) to be able to connect your standalone CRM to thousands of your other apps or services.
- API: We also have an API which you can programatically use to get data into your CRM.
Standalone or on-site CRM: Which to choose?
The choice is yours. Jetpack CRM works well on your main website and has been written and optimised to not slow down your main site. 99% of the CRM is back end (admin pages) which are controlled in a restricted, permissions manner.
We are migrating our data over to stand-alone tables which will improve CRM performance and make same site installs hardly any different to stand alone.
Going the standalone route is a good choice if you’re worried about too many plugins on your main site, or want a separate login to your CRM for you and your team to use. It’s perfectly capable of being linked to our extensions via Sync or APIs and is a solid choice that a number of users take to avoid any potential clashes.
Here at Jetpack CRM we have our CRM (using Jetpack CRM) running on a separate install to the main site. This is due to the complex setup of our group of websites and we use the API to keep up to date.
Installing JetPack CRM on multiple standalone sites
You can install Jetpack CRM on as many WordPress sites as you want.
If you manage separate standalone sites with different users (clients, for example, or associates) accessing those sites and you’re worried about data privacy and protection, we’ve got this covered.
Jetpack CRM stores its data and information in the database connected to your WordPress websites. If you have separate WordPress installs, the data for each website will be accessible to the users of that individual website only. This means that the data is segregated so that only the users of that site can have access to that specific site’s data.
Multisite network sites are slightly different as they belong to the same WordPress install. You can read more and how to set it up on this page.