PCMA 2013: Convening Leaders
Making the Case for a Tech Enabled Conference
Technology Terminology List
CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
A CRM system helps you keep your organization’s contacts in order. It is where you store information on
their purchase and contact history. A CRM can function as a sales backbone for any organization; a
centralized hub for your customer data.
AMS (Association Management System)
An AMS functions as a CRM system for non-profit trade associations. Designed specifically for
associations, AMS software typically includes functions such as contact management, inventory control,
fundraising, membership and dues management, event planning and invoicing as well. A lot of
associations run their accounts receivable through their rather sophisticated AMS.
LMS (Learning Management System)
An LMS can help your association manage the education and content delivered to your attendees. It can
help keep track of course completion, continued education credits and automated record keeping.
CMS (Content Management System)
A CMS can be used to manage a website. Instead of knowing raw HTML code, a layman can manage the
content, navigation, look and feel and even pictures and documents from a simple easy to use front end.
In a CMS, you can log in, change the messaging on a specific page of your website, save it and it instantly
updates on the public facing website that your users see.
GL (General Ledger)
A GL is like a checkbook record. It is what your organization’s accounting department uses to record
revenue and purchases that affect the organization’s bank account. A GL typically contains different
account codes that function as “buckets” of money that relate to various functions of the organization.
GL’s are also used to create financial reports that can show the financial health of an organization.
Web service
A web service is the method used to share information between two systems. Web services are
essentially doors between two software systems which are hosted on the internet. Using web services,
the systems are able to pass queries back and forth to utilize data that each system houses
independently. For instance, this concept allows a business to keep one customer dataset in their CRM
and access that dataset from another web-based software program.
Web method
When a developer is using a web service (the door between systems), they will invoke a query called a
web method to tell the other system what results they want to see.