2009-06-15 Web Design status meeting

 

Old Business:

1. Agenda modifications

2. Subteam status reports

* Office status (Josh)

-- Store code
-- Other office issues

1. Confirm that after membership processed, mark Complete to close transaction. Don't need to use Finish. (Members are marked as members when payment received.) Need to revise wording on Join/Renew to indicated they need to purchase membership and then reenter shopping to get discount.

2. Remove gift membership from Web site. Don't reinstate until Josh says the word.

3. Hedy: question regarding missing order numbers from time there was a problem - answer: they never completed; Walt contacted people and asked them to retry.

4. Discussion re IE artifacts (green to black; first & last name on same line).

5. Feedback status: trails123 as logon for feedback.

* Technology (Walt)

-- Backup plan
Need to get info from Josh about whether we can use new TC server.
-- Redirected pages -- did some of the 301-ing. Will blast the HOTW files this week.

Lots of people go to trails/index.html -- Walt thinks it because trails information is more intuitive than our home page. Discussion of search hits for NY NJ Trail Conference and how to make the Go Hiking page prominent in Google search.

Pages with picture and caption at left - divide to two divs on one line. Need right CSS.
Walt to explore and contact Trellon for answers to his questions.

Walt plans to 301 trails/index to new page on new site (still working on this - do it this week).

Can track Google Adwords results to see how effective they are. People are ordering via ads (e.g. Kittatiny maps)

Suggest - Doug take us through adwords and analytics at a future status meeting.

-- Drupal 6
-- new CRM database

* Content (Ed for Georgette)

Ed removed Delegates meeting from Trail Mix block. Wanted to add Kittatiny maps to right side, but not sure how to do it. Walt will do it.

* Google Analytics (Doug)

Our numbers are improving (at last!)

Health and Safety - somebody changed it (Doug did) - attempting to get h1 on page after the image. Drupal does it in reverse right now. We need the trick to do this ... still investigating. If we can't figure it out - we'll ask Trellon for help.

Ed's question re current visits - we are down. Doug says we are up.

* Business model (Ann/Ed)

-- Shall we defer Phase 2 of the Web site until we've taken care of Drupal 6 and CRM database?

Move to Drupal 6: Ed: sounds like a good idea; hire someone to do and hold them accountable. There are issues with template.php and nynjtc-custom module (Trellon code) - is it best to have Trellon do it? Possibly not - there's another company Walt would like to explore (in NYC). Write spec, get quotes.

CRM: huge implications for the Trail Conference.
CiviCRM - first few chapters are good background reading. Issues: hard to customize, difficult to import & export data, some things are sluggish compared with desktop app.
Josh, Catherine, Hedy, Ed would be team to discuss need.

Main problems with eBase: fields are not documented; getting info out isn't seamless; (printouts and pdfs easy to do); perhaps 20% obsolete. Filemaker 5.5 - outdated. Scripting language helpful if you learn it.

If stay with eBase, have to build interfaces between Web and eBase for anything we do on the Web.

Ed wants to increase Web traffic - puts that ahead of database.

If Ed had the money, would get someone to work with us to identify current workflow, document eBase fields, redesign and build implementation plan.

While eBase is our tool, eBase is the final arbiter. Need to export stuff from the Web and import into eBase. Process going the other way is similar, but then lose who is the master. No field level tracking of changes.

Ad hoc queries are an issue for most, if not all, CRM databases. Need specialists to build queries and custom reports. (With Filemaker you can create your own.) Ed: what about MySQL queries? (CRM dbs don't do a good job of documenting their fields either.)

* Ann has draft volunteer requisition to submit. Needs a few updates.

3. Set goals for next week.

* Walt's priorities
* Other high priority items

4. Specific action items requiring discussion.

See http://nynjtc.org/meeting/actions
Review outstanding actions from last month's meeting minutes

5. "Phase 2" planning

* Process: gather requirements, prioritize requirements, size implementation, build work plan, implement per plan.
* Gather requirements --
Step 1: Build tentative starter list of requirements (in random order for now);
Step 2: take to committees, staff, board for additional input.

New Business:

Meeting schedule:
Next meeting: phone call or at TC office? -- Ann will schedule next meeting for July 6. Team may hold a call next week or the week after if needed.

Invite someone to next status meeting?

For later discussion:
Ed requests we discuss: Publication pages; Member org pages; Sponsor pages; 301 redirect on html pages