Archive for Fraternity

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Staff Begins Using iMIS

Posted Monday, August 8th, 2005 at 10:59 pm

Today, our staff began using the Live version of iMIS, Lambda Chi Alpha’s new CRM.

Aside from a few bugs and missed procedures, our staff and iMIS got along just fine. Three of our team members spent most of the day processing membership status changes while JB and I tackled the biggest bugs.

I just want to publicly thank the team members involved with this project:

  • Joe Klimek, CFO, deal closer, and backup techie / project manager
  • JB (Joshua Bennett), SQL guru and lead developer
  • Doug Morris from CSI, our reseller, vendor, and support
  • LCA Staff, for being patient and supportive as we switch from a 10-year-old CRM to a new way of managing our members and information

Thank you all. We still have a lot more to accomplish, but the beginning is finally here.

Posted in Fraternity, Software | No Comments »

iMIS Goes Live

Posted Friday, July 29th, 2005 at 1:23 pm
iMIS Goes Live

Yesterday, at 6:10 p.m., JB informs me that our core membership data conversion is complete. iMIS is live.

There is still a lot of work that needs to be done, for we migrated just our 250,000 member records - containing basic name, address, and chapter information. We still have to migrate their donor history and attributes.

But we have a start; a beginning. We now have iMIS.

Posted in Fraternity, Software | No Comments »

Raiser’s Edge Read-Only

Posted Wednesday, July 27th, 2005 at 3:52 pm
Raiser's Edge Read-Only

At 3:00 p.m. today, Lambda Chi Alpha’s 10-year old membership management software was switched to read-only.

No longer will our staff use Blackbaud’s Raiser’s Edge to update our membership database. Starting next week, they will begin using iMIS by Advanced Solutions International.

This is a big change for Lambda Chi Alpha. The transition is occurring while most of the staff is out of town running our annual conference, giving JB and I the chance to close down the old system, import the data into the new system, and test.

Sure, the next few months will be bumpy with user training, learning a new system, importing missing data, writing new reports, etc. But it’s needed.

iMIS will give Lambda Chi Alpha a more flexible membership management system that will also tie to a new website, which we will begin building once our internal transition is complete.

Posted in Fraternity, Software | 2 Comments »

Windows, IE, Admin Only Please

Posted Monday, July 25th, 2005 at 4:55 pm

Lambda Chi Alpha uses several third-party web-based services. One of which is RegOnline, a service that enables our office to process event registrations and credit card payments online.

In many cases, RegOnline works as expected. Users visit their site to register for an event and our staff is able to manage their registration. When it comes to printing name badges, however, RegOnline falters.

RegOnline’s name badge widget runs on Active X, which as you know, requires a Windows OS and Internet Explorer. But wait, there’s more; the badge widget also requires that the user has Administrative privileges.

Requiring users to have Windows and IE is frustrating, but tolerable. But requiring them to also have Administrative privileges is bad business. In our office of 35 employees, only three folks have such privileges, and that’s our IT team. I suspect most businesses operate this way.

For a company whose sole business resides on the web, it baffles me to find unnecessary audience-narrowing services such as RegOnline’s badges.

Posted in Fraternity, Web Applications | 4 Comments »

Google Maps API

Posted Thursday, June 30th, 2005 at 4:38 pm
casualty-maps

Earlier this week Google released Google Maps API, a tool that lets developers embed Google Maps in their own web pages with JavaScript, adding extra features and functionality.

casualty-maps.com is one of the first sites I’ve seen to take advantage of these tools. Their map shows the progression of US military casualties from the Iraq war. Click on a casualty icon, and you’ll get the name, rank, and date of death. And you still maintain all of the Google Maps functionality; zoom, drag, satellite.

This is the type of functionality I hope to offer members of Lambda Chi Alpha on our site. Guys should be able to easily see which chapters are open or closed, where there closest friends reside, or where our traveling staff are currently visiting.

I have a lot to accomplish between now and then, but Google Maps API will make the job much easier when the time comes.

Posted in Fraternity, Web Applications | No Comments »

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