

Ask HN: a lightweight contact db that is Not a CRM - appmap

(This is pretty long, my apologies).<p>I'm looking for a very specific, <i>very</i> lightweight kind of contact database, and I'm having trouble finding it. Most contact db's are CRM solutions geared towards sales, which is overkill, and makes them harder and slower to use.<p>For this db the most important quality is to be able to create and export custom lists based on a very large number of attributes (which may be added and deleted over time).<p>CONTACTS<p>Of course, the db has to hold a large number of e-mail addresses, phone numbers and attributes like country, place of work, but also relatively long (and non-fixed) lists of specialties.<p>Every CRM or mailing program like Mailchimp can do this. The problem being that Mailchimp (and other mailing engines) allows only a limited number of groups or tags and that's simply not enough for the granularity needed in this db.<p>On the other hand, CRM's (like Highrise) are simply overkill for this. We don't want to track relationships with these contacts in the db.<p>LISTS<p>The db has to be able to produce lists of contacts based on combinations of attributes: "X and Y", "X and Y and/or Z", "A and X but not D".<p>EXPORT<p>The db then has to be able to export this list with a number of attributes (name, place of work, phone,...) to Excel.<p>CLOUD<p>Of course, we'd like to use this as a kind of cloud service and accessible by the whole team.<p>The solution has to be used by relatively junior staff. We tried Grubba but exporting from it proved too much of a hassle for said junior, non-technical staff. Thanks in advance for your help.
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jstanley
Depending on just how much data we're talking about, I would suggest using a
tab-separated text file. To test attributes, use a column that is just a
comma-separated list and use awk to match against that column. Excel can
already read TSV.

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appmap
Since multiple people (including interns) will use the list (both to input new
entries, change entries and export lists from it), this would be way too easy
to erase I'm afraid.

I'm looking for something with a minimum of interface and 'fool proofness'.

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devonbarrett
If it doesn't have to be integrated into your own system, why not just google
contacts?

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appmap
It's not easy enough for junior staff to make granular search. (We're really
talking stuff like radio buttons and pre-set "and/or" possibilities here).

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devonbarrett
[http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/apps-
script/aL...](http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/apps-
script/aLwXLHre9CQ%5B1-25-false%5D) Use google forms to create a fool proof
interface for adding them, and do the same to search?

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tamersalama
Perhaps I'm missing something, but why not just use a Google Spreadsheet?

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pknerd
Why not develop one for yourself?

