ITC News

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6/20/07

• Decision has been made to use a "phased rollout" where features that are ready will be released for use by the global NVC community.
• Site launch will begin with a Feedback phase, where several categories of users such as Unregistered, Trainers, Staff, etc. are invited to explore the site and share their experience for final adjustments to the site before full public launch.
• Nearly all features have been implemented from our initial target set.
• Most pages have been imported from the old static site.
• Final import of data such as user information will be complete before the Feedback phase begins.
• Target launch date has been set for early July.

5/1/07

• We have developed tools for importing all of the existing cnvc.org website into the new Drupal installation.
• We have drafted a plan to handle the "Oprah effect" in case NVC or Marshall gets sudden notoriety resulting in surges of thousands or millions of hits before the switch Drupal is complete.
• We have begun receiving user feedback and making changes in preparation for rollout.
• Official release has been postponed until after the CNVC Office move to Albuquerque is complete.

12/22/06

• We have a functioning Drupal test installation running on a dedicated server, and several other test installations including one on an official CNVC server.
• William, Kay and Bobbi are working on look and feel, with support and input from the entire ITC.
• Additional modules are being investigated, that will provide additional functionality and/or better meet identified needs.
• Focus is being maintained on Urgent needs, while also implementing lower priority needs where it's easy to do so.
• Most of the Urgent needs have been substantially met with the current installation.
• Porting of cnvc.org to the test site has begun.
• We anticipate beginning a formal alpha testing phase soon, and when practical announcing a public beta testing phase.
• Spending to date has happily been below most initial estimates.

10/16/06

• The initial project is now complete, and we have a full report on analysis of our needs list.
• There is a high level of uncertainty about how much it will cost CNVC to administer a Drupal-based site, but it will probably not be very much more or very much less than what CNVC is spending for administration of the current web site.
• We decided to set up managed hosting through Advantage Labs.
• We decided to have Advantage Labs start work as soon as possible on getting a Drupal-based web site up and running for us, including:

• low-hanging fruit (easy-to-meet requirements)
• requirements related to "inside CNVC", possibly including porting some data from the current web site
• a focus on improving ease-of-use / ease-of-navigation (this is an area we are somewhat concerned about) - perhaps setting up an easy-to-set-up theme for us within the next week, if this would improve ease-of-navigation without requiring too much effort.
• giving our circle a list of Drupal-based web sites with good themes (easy to use and navigate) that we might choose from as a starting point for our theme.

9/28/06

We hired Advantage Labs from the interviews, and they're about halfway through the project. Initial indications are that CivicSpace is still a viable option for our core dynamic web application package. We're setting up another wiki on a CNVC server and will be moving ITC pages there [update: that wiki is up, but not in active development].

9/01/06

We are in the process of interviewing for a Drupal consultant who will help us to assess that product's suitability and set a timeline for implementation.

9/12/06

We considered using a blog to serve this news function, but it was not implemented.

Note: Although it is no longer active, you can also see the Recently Completed Milestones section on the ITC Status main page, for additional past progress reports.

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