Tips for synchronizing data from a local branch to the main office

Question

I have two organisations; both are CiviCRM users. One is the main office and in charge of membership management and membership fees. The other is the local branch and organises events and manages the volunteers.

The main office has a superset of the contacts of the local branch. The local branch has more information, for example, event participation and volunteer details.

The configuration of the two CiviCRM instances are very different but makes sense to exchange information. For example change in the email address in the local branch is of interest for the main office. A new member must be reported to the local branch.

Any tips, what is the best way to do this. Maybe someone has created an extension that can be used, as an example?

Answer 1

If you can, try to use the same instance with ACL to limit what the branch can see (eg only their contacts).

If not, you will need to write at least one extension on the main, to automatically create the relevant contacts on the branch civi, and probably another one on the branch to update the contacts on the main.

Synchronising in both direction is tricky, and you might have situation where one is updating the other with older/incorrect data, think about who "owns" the master data and should be considered always right.

I'm aware of a few projects that helps synchronizing different civi install, but I don't think any is ready to be used the way you want - at least without coding -