1. vTools Presentation IEEE-USA Annual Meeting
March 5, 2011
Dave Green, Bob Parro, Ron Jensen,

2. Key Messages Communicate what vTools is What are the products
Encourage use
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3. vTools is a
Mission
Team
Committee
Products
Brand
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4. vTools Mission Statement
Providing tools to the
volunteers and staff
who support our members.

5. vTools Team Volunteers Howard Michel {1} Marc Apter {1}
Bill Ratcliff {1}
Charles Lord {1}
Eva Lang {1}
Ron Jensen {1, 2}
Dave Green {1, 2}
Gene Ressler {1, 2}
Bob Parro {1, 2}
Jim Isaak {2}
Gustavo Giannattasio {2}
Tania Quiel {2}
Contractors- part time
Jesse
Marco
David
2 prior contractors
Staff
Eugene Khusid
Khanh Luu
Tom Smith
Vera Sharoff
{1} < {2} 2011 (beginning 5th year, formal committee in mid 2010)

6. Terminology: vTools Team vs Products vs “Brand”
We develop some products
Meetings, WebInABox, Voting
We buy some products
DimDim, first pass of Voting, Survey Tool, Wordpress
Volunteers to go to one place to find tool support
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7. Present Portfolio In Production: Pilot Recommended Tool Meetings,
Production means SLA-based support after an IEEE QA acceptance process
In Production:
Meetings,
Supports new L31 process
100+ sections involved (essentially 100% for L31)
Credit card handling
Credit cards for R1-7 for sections with Concentration Banking
Section subunits can use CC wit section’s concentration banking
WebInABox, File Storage (for presentation distribution, etc.)
Voting
DimDim (staff, branded) [We have ~7 months to replace]
Blog tool – WordPress (staff, branded)
Survey tool – FluidSurveys (staff, branded)
Documentation: vTools Blog
Pilot
Officer Reporting
Student Branch Reporting
Recommended Tool
Doodle (just documentation, not branded)
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8. The Documentation Site http://vtools.ieee.org
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9. Meetings In production On-line registration
Credit card support in production for R1-7
L31 Meeting report (only need to add attendee information, only IEEE Web Account necessary)
RSS, iCal, and other feeds of meetings and L31s
Calendar support 
Badge printing, meal tickets
Notice of meeting for display on a web site without webmaster involvement
Feeds meeting information to myIEEE
Other enhancements prototyped

10. Example Web Page
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11. What does Meetings mean?
Easy to create a unit calendar
Data that can be reused
myIEEE
RSS
Easy to distribute meeting information
with Link to meeting
Solves the registration and many credit card problems
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12. WebInABox Basic Section web site “WebInABox” In Production
Wizard-like interface for creation
Data driven
Enable a common look and feel
Calendar for all units
pulls from Meetings tool
Pulls volunteer data from IEEE databases
No webmaster involvement required
Upload and distribute files

13. What does WebInABox mean?
Web presence is important.
Web usage is declining
More unit web sites are out of date
WebInABox allows a system that can be neglected
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14. Voting Electronic Election for local units In Production
Supported all units for 2010 elections that chose to use it
Can support elections for units other than Sections, Chapters, Affinity Groups

15. Blogs and Surveys Sections Congress 2008 Requests Blogs Surveys
Wanted ability to publish a section leadership blog
Eliminate need to write HTML
Adopted WordPress Enterprise
Can be used as a unit web site/CMS
IEEE Branded Templates for GeoUnits and others available
Hosted at IEEE
Desire to move larger web sites off Joomla and Drupal
Surveys
Wanted ability to create easy surveys of members
Adopted FluidSurveys
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16. What do Blogs and Surveys mean?
Tools to allow engagement of member
Don’t require html skills
Allow them to be immediate.
Have RSS feeds to allow members to pull data
Display RSS feeds to add data to blog
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17. DimDim What it is
Web Conferencing service to Geographic Organizational Units for online meetings, webinars, training, demos and presentations. (not an electronic meeting service)
The service is available to Geogaphic Organization Units
DimDim Enterprise Edition hosted by DimDim
Our license allows multiple simultaneous teleconferences with up to 50 attendees
Uses a scheduling interface
More details available at

18. DimDim Challenges and Solutions
Land line number is not toll free, DimDim software allows meetings to be overwritten by other volunteers without warning (same teleconference room only)
We created FAQ Blog that goes over:
Easy Start and Rules of the Road
Ways of making toll free calls using Skype, Google Voice, and DimDim built-in VoIP
Where to get help on DimDim
Blog is updated as we learn more about what users need
A new service vendor will be adopted prior to the end of the IEEE contract with DimDim (now owned by Salesforce.Com)

19. What does Web Conferencing mean?
It supports unit webinars
It supports electronic training sessions
It doesn’t support electronic meetings without a conference call
It allows recording of meetings for reuse
It reduces travel costs
It allows people to attend meetings that distance or time may otherwise not allow.

20. e-Notice Issues
Large amount of staff time is dedicated to e-Notice mailings
There is a wait queue for mailings
Tool is lacking some features such as log of contents and RSS that can be consumed by myIEEE
Unsubscribe functionality can be improved
Process is lacking automation
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21. e-Notice Proposed solution
Core functionality will be based on ing code from vTools.Voting
Aimed toward simple mailings: section, chapter, affinity
Access will be based on volunteer role
Will provide simple filters by status and grade
Will restrict frequency of mailings
Attachments restricted in size
utf8 encoding for multilingual support
Mailings will require quick and simple approval by staff
Complex mailings will be handled by “old” e-Notice
s requiring approvals by volunteers from multiple OUs
Custom mailings: society mailings, staff mailings, etc.
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22. e-Notice replacement Preliminary release feature request:
Mail merge (Name, ID, Section, etc)
Archive of messages (do we include attachments?)
HTML support (Multilingual support)
Moderation (Approve/Reject. Rejecting gives volunteer chance to edit)
Click-thru tracking
Limit # of message (3 per week max?)
Scheduling
Attachments (Limit size)
Header & Footer (Unsubscribe information in footer)
Future release feature request:
Allow members to specify frequency of mailings from a list (Daily, weekly, monthly, etc) and specify text only or HTML only.
HTML support with image upload (optimized by system)
Move attachments to web storage and only send out links
Bounced module
MS Word document support (Converts to HTML automatically)
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23. Geographic support
Each Region has an Information Management Coordinator
Plugged into the GeoUnit Operations Committee
Plugged into the vTools Team
Provide regional advocacy and expertise
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24. Product enhancement process
Individual Product
Prioritized list
of enhancements
for a product
Feedback from
Users and Staff
List of enhancements
Prioritization
vTools Project
Prioritized product
enhancements
Evaluate
Costs,
Benefit
Evaluate
Staff support
Evaluate
budget
Possible new
products
Class or volunteer prototype
Review with
MGA
Committees/
Staff
Produce
Roadmap
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25. Questions?
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26. A Little History: Developed as a result of SC 2005 Organized in 2006
Funded in 2007
Reported in SC 2008
Accepted two items from SC2008
Meetings was first tool
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27. How does a project work:
Provide an opportunity for ideas to be considered
Define a project that could be significant to volunteers (will make life easier)
Determine requirements (volunteer and staff)
Determine Buy vs Build
Integration at the data level
Develop a pilot and learn from it
May use a student team to develop basics
Could be volunteer developed
Has been a commercial product
May require services from IEEE systems
Stretch our development $ by using most productive resources
Refine and release into IEEE production environment
Use paid staff
Support and enhance
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