E-mail
Present: Brian, Claire, Cynthia, Dave, Joe, Lobo, Michael, Peter, Sarmeesha, Wes, Xavier
Web redesign project
Brian spoke about the work that is being done to redesign the CiviCRM website. The draft IA can be found here:CiviCRM.org v2 IA, and you can view some of the notes from recent conference calls here: Redesign Web Presence.
The goal of this project is to make the site more accessible and easier to use for folks seeking information and trying to learn about CiviCRM. Information for developers and more "high end" users will not be as on the surface as it is now.
Wes thought that http://openatrium.com was a good example of a very modern, clean site design for an open source project. Joe thought that http://www.sugarcrm.com/crm/had a home page with photos of people that help humanize the site. Michael thought that http://www.convio.com/ was a good example of a home page that provides links for things that "My" organization needs to do.
Xavier asked if stats showing where people go were available. Lobo said that there were and that he would provide access to the server if anyone wanted to use CiviCRM analytics. Sarmeesha asked to be added.
Michael would like to integrate information about Organic Groups into the website redesign. He will work with Brian on that
Brian would like another round of comments and inputs before beginning any preliminary work. He would like to begin work on the mockup sometime in mid September.
3.0 release cycle and testing
Dave said the second beta would be released on 9/3 and that there had been a decent amount of downloads. Lobo felt that there was not enough community testing yet. He indicated that there would probably be 2 more beta releases. Dave asked for ideas on how we might promote more downloads and community testing. Tentative 3.0 stable release date is set for some time around September 23rd.
Rebuilding the unit testing framework
Dave said the project was going great so far. Big thanks to Dharmatech! There will be training on this for the core team and other interested parties on Monday, September 7th at 6AM PST. Michal will send an email.
The next step is to develop public documentation and write new tests. PHPDOC will be used to document the code.
Standardizing the names for the API
Joe asked about the status of the proposal to standardize names for the API. Wes indicated that the project was more or less in limbo. Could someone else step up to the plate?
Aaron Crosman has some ideas for improving the rest interface that would impact the plan to standardize the API. Lobo said a lot of work would need to be done to get to 100% standardization. Discussion followed about whether to use contact_id or column_name. If people find places where the reference to "contact_id" is not correct they should let him know and/or submit a patch to fix it.
Brian suggested that we need tests that will check API performance and flag bad API's. Dave asked how such tests would be constructed. Sarmeesha indicated that she would write a blog post.
Financial matters & CiviCRM
Peter mentioned the on-going blog discussion about financial matters & CiviCRM. The key issues are to deliver future improvements to make Civi work easier with good accounting principles. Joe suggested that there is no single best way to handle the accounting side of things. Sarmeesha suggested storing the data in the accounting package and not in Civi. She also said that Quickbooks was used by most of their clients. Data flow goes from Civi to QB.
Joe suggested there is flexibility in QB in terms of accounts and standards. Sarmeehsa indicated that QB has a unified chart of accounts.
Peter asked how we are interpreting a payment that is an invoice. He suggested that it would be really helpful if we could get some closure around that issue. What is a payment? What is an invoice?
Dave asked: Is Civi storing the accounting data in such a way that people can use it efficiently. The more granular the access, the better
Peter said he would schedule a Skype conference call with 4-5 key players to help move the issue forward.
What else is cooking?
Xavier asked for an overview of what is planned for the next (3.1) release. Dave said that the work for contact subsets was in progress and that they hadn't identified any large projects for 3.1.
Xavier asked for specifics on what would definitely be implemented and on what might be implemented if a sponsor was found. He would like to have that information well in advance so that he might be able to pitch in to have something included that might not be otherwise.
Lobo indicated that sponsored items rise to the top of the queue. The team will not begin focus on the work for 3.1 until after the NY trip. Meanwhile, we should all look at the items on the 3.1 roadmap and indicate which are a high priority and add our names if we can sponsor the work or if there is the possibility of finding a sponsor. Lobo indicated that usability is still very important. Dave indicated that he would add a link to the 3.1 roadmap for Jira issues that have been fixed.
Sarmeehsa said that software maturity must keep up with functionality. She suggested we are hitting maturity issues because the upgrades are problematical.
Campaigns and petitions
Dave brought up the issue on campaigns and petitions. Joe said that much more functionality is needed here but he hasn't been able to coordinate funding for it yet.
Meeting adjourned at 1:26PM, PST
Next meeting scheduled for Wednesday, September 23rd at 12PM PST
Action Items and items for follow-up
- ALL: Provide feedback on the wiki for the Web redesign project
- Brian/Michael: Integrate Organic groups into website redesign
- Sarmeesha? Using CiviCRM analytics, compile stats on website
- All: Ideas to promote more downloads and more community testing for new releases
- All: Provide feedback on forms/view pages in 3.0
- Sarmeesha: Blog post for API standardization
- Peter: Schedule Skype conference call to discuss Civi & financial matters
- All: markup Civi 3.1 roadmap and indicate priority items and sponsors
- Dave: Add a link to the 3.1 roadmap for Jira issues that have been fixed
Prepared by Cynthia on 9/4/2009
