29. Add-on modules in development and in planning
Three optional add-ons are announced but not built yet: SporeCycle (mushroom growing), NitrateCycle (aquaponics) and MeadCycle (mead and other brewing). Each has a panel on the public website and an entry in your icon bar. Opening one shows a page that explains what the add-on will be and says plainly that it does not exist yet.
Three more — LawDesk, ClinicDesk and IOT-DeviceHUB — are marked In Planning, which is one step further out again: work on them has not started. They have a card on the public website and nothing else. There is no page to open and no entry in your icon bar, deliberately.
This chapter tells you what you are looking at, so that an empty page in your icon bar never reads as a fault in your workspace.
In this chapter
- What "in development" means here
- What each one will do
- Where you see them
- What they cost
- The three in planning
What "in development" means here
TechieCRM marks a module with a diagonal corner ribbon in one of three colours, and they mean different things:
| Ribbon | Colour | What it means | Can you open it? |
|---|---|---|---|
| In Beta Testing | violet | Built and working, under review before general release | Only if you have the beta tester role — see A3 ▸ Modules in beta review |
| In Development | amber | Not built. There is nothing behind the page yet | Yes — anyone can. There is nothing to protect |
| In Planning | slate blue-grey | Not started. There is no page at all | There is nothing to open — you will not find it in your icon bar |
So an "In Development" module is never switched off for you, and it is never a permissions problem. The page is open to every user in your workspace, including Client-role logins, precisely because it contains no data.
The page carries no buttons, no list, no search and no Add — deliberately. A control that cannot do anything is worse than no control at all.
What each one will do
These descriptions are what the add-ons are intended to become. Nothing below exists yet.
SporeCycle — mushroom growing
A growing log for mushroom cultivation: cultures, spawn and substrate; sterilisation, inoculation and colonisation dates with their results beside them; each flush recorded with yields per block, bag or tray; an honest contamination log so the next batch learns from the last; and temperature, humidity and fresh-air readings held against the grow they belong to.
NitrateCycle — aquaponics
An aquaponics log: systems, tanks, beds and media with what is living in each; ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, temperature and dissolved oxygen recorded over time, so a stalling cycle shows up as a reading rather than as a fish kill; feeding, top-ups, dosing and maintenance logged against the system; and plantings and harvests kept beside the water that grew them. The same records suit hydroponics and straight fish-keeping.
MeadCycle — mead, and brewing generally
Fermentation records: recipes and the batches that came from them; gravity, ABV, temperature and pH tracked across a ferment; rackings, additions, back-sweetening and fining logged as they happen; and tasting notes built up over time. The name says mead; the add-on does not insist on it — the same records fit beer, cider, wine, kombucha and vinegar.
Where you see them
| Surface | What appears |
|---|---|
| www.techiecrm.com | Three cards at the foot of the Everything your team needs grid, each with an Add-on flag and an amber In Development corner ribbon. Click a card for the full description. A shared note below the grid explains why they exist |
| client.techiecrm.com | Three entries in the CRM icon bar — SporeCycle, NitrateCycle, MeadCycle. Each opens the placeholder page described above, with the amber ribbon in the corner of the window |
| Desktop and mobile apps | Nothing. These are web-only announcements for now; the desktop and phone apps receive no entry for them and no setting to change |
The three In Planning add-ons appear on www.techiecrm.com only — three cards at the very foot of the same grid, with a slate corner ribbon and a note of their own below it. They appear nowhere in your CRM, on no app, and in no setting.
There is one link on the placeholder page — Tell us what you would want from it — which opens the TechieCRM contact form in a new tab. It is the only control on the page, and it does what it says.
What they cost
They will be paid add-ons — optional extras bought on top of your plan, the same shape as TechieCRM Connect. No price has been set, because none of them exists yet, and TechieCRM will not quote a figure for something it has not built.
Until then nothing about them changes your bill. They are not part of any plan or tier, and opening one does not affect the plan your workspace is recommended when a trial ends.
The three in planning
Nothing below is built, and work has not begun on any of it. These are announced because they are being designed with the people who asked for them, not because a date has been set. The names are working titles.
LawDesk — legal practice
Matters, documents and deadlines for a legal practice: the matter as the record everything hangs off — client, other side, filings, correspondence and the dates that cannot be missed — with time and disbursements recorded against it as the work happens. It is being designed with a working lawyer, out of the templates he had already bent his old CRM into.
ClinicDesk — practitioner-led clinic
Patients, appointments, treatment notes and follow-ups for a practitioner-led clinic, with the visit as the record: what was presented, what was given, what was advised and when to check back. It is being shaped with doctors, nurse practitioners and medical clinic staff who want records that fit how he works.
Scope is not settled. What a clinic may keep, and where, is governed by privacy law that differs by country — and that question is being worked out before anything is built, rather than after. Nothing in TechieCRM today is designed or offered for regulated health records.
IOT-DeviceHUB — device monitoring and control
Remote monitoring and control for devices in the field: the devices, the sensors on them, the readings they send, the alerts those readings raise and the commands you send back. It is designed to sit underneath the other add-ons rather than beside them — the temperature, humidity and fresh-air readings SporeCycle describes, and the water chemistry NitrateCycle describes, are exactly what IOT-DeviceHUB would supply, so anything needing a device to report back can use it instead of building its own.
Like the three above, these will be paid add-ons and no price has been set.
Each of these serves a different trade, and that is deliberate: a mead maker has no use for the mushroom one. TechieCRM's core is the CRM; an add-on extends it into one particular business vertical, and there will be more of them over time.
These three come off Shannon Porter's own benches — a grow room, an aquaponics system and a fermenter — and are built alongside the CRM as time allows, rather than instead of it. If you keep one of these as a hobby or run one as a business, TechieCRM would like to hear how you record it today.