At 3:58PM on Wednesday, December 31, 2008 we went live with our Arena database. We kicked off the project on November 10, meaning that we went from kickoff to being live with Arena in under two months. Things we learned:
(1) Give them your data as soon as possible. Data conversion was by far the longest part of the cutover. We spent a lot of time waiting for Arena software to give us our data back. If I could do it again, I would have given them our data the second I had made the decision to go with Arena. If they required some money up front to cover it in case we didn't actually sign the contract I would have paid it. This would have solved one of our number one frustrations with the process. I think this would have cut a month off of the project length.
(2) Expect to spend a lot of time bringing the system online. Our cutover was a success because we made Arena the absolute 100% number one priority of four staff members. Daniel, our primary IT guy, spent nearly 100% of his time from November 10 to now bringing Arena online. I made it my very highest priority, setting _everything_ else on the back burner, and expected the same of my office manager and my secretary. We had enough resources devoted to the project to make it work and hit our deadlines.
(3) The process will go a lot better if somebody on your staff knows SQL. This is by no means a requirement, there are many churches that are successful that do not have this, but we saved a lot of time because we could drop into the SQL editor and work on things without relying on Arena support. Likewise, when we did get SQL help from Arena support, we could take those scripts and modify them for later needs.
(4) Buy the book "Head First SQL" and read it. Even as the project manager I read this book, and I gave a copy to my office manager and highlighted sections that I wanted her to read. Having a basic understanding of how SQL databases work is really helpful when you are trying to know how best to work with the data and make things happen. To me I felt that this hands on knowledge helped me to interact with my IT guys and the Arena group
(5) There must be a project manager, and that manager must be able to lead. There were times when there was a difference of opinion on what to do and ways to setup and work with data. Ultimately someone has to weight the merits of all the arguments and set direction. There were several points in this project where I effectively had to say "well, i'm the boss, we do it this way." This is very rare for me, but allowed us to move on and those decisions help us to be able to use the product more effectively.
(6) The fewer people involved in the conversion and cutover, the better. We chose a core group of four people: Project Manager, IT Support, Office Manager, and Secretary. With that group we were able to work with the others involved to get information and make decisions related to their ministry, but we don't have a group of twenty people arguing about every choice made. Having key personnel responsible and then empowering them and staying out of their way is crucial to a successful cutover.
(7) Don't try to eat the entire loaf of bread in the first sitting. We went live with Membership, Groups, Tags, Peers, Contributions and Volunteer Tracking. That's it. There are lots of other things we are looking forward to, and we'll roll them out in the next few weeks, with check-in being the last component. This is a big product, with a ton of features, and trying to get everything running for go-live is like trying to stuff a massive loaf of bread in your mouth before hitting the main entree. It's simply not going to go well.
(8) It doesn't have to take a long time. We did this in under two months with Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years to contend with.
(9) The Arena team is great to work with. Clients are assigned a support rep who is your primary support contact. This is really cool, because each time you call you don't have to bring anyone up to speed. Your rep knows you, knows who you are and what you are capable of, and can help you very quickly.
I'm very relieved to have this up and running. Now we can focus on getting the remaining pieces into place and catching up on all the stuff we've been neglecting. :-)
Joel
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Life hits the pause button
This has been one of the busiest, and most stressful, years that I have ever had. We have lots of things to do to be ready for the Arena cutover, and we were supposed to do our final export of our data from our old system today.Yesterday it started snowing very early. By noon the snow was getting so bad that we closed the office and sent everyone home due to snow, a first for me. Remember, we live in southern california... We live at an elevation around 4000 feet, so we usually get a snow or two each year, but never anything quite like this. In talking with others around here, it hasn't snowed like this in 30 years.
We woke up today to a winter wonderland, with between 14 and 24 inches of snow everywhere. We played in the snow early, took pictures, and had a wonderful time. Then a little later we build a snowman, a big one (taller than Patty), in our front yard. Then around 4pm a friend came by in his 4x4 (snow had been melting, making our house accessible, although I still don't know if I can get the jeep out of my driveway, it's rather buried in snow). We built a killer sled run with our friends and finished the day out sledding. I'm really tired, and rather sore, but this has been a fantastic day.
In the middle of all the stress, in the midst of all the busyness, in the hectic hustle and bustle of the season, God called a time out. And we got to play in the snow.
Awesome.
Joel
Monday, December 8, 2008
One Roll of Velvia
One roll of Velvia is all it took to remind me in glorious color why I still shoot film.
One roll of Velvia is all it took to remind me what breathtaking photos really look like.
One roll of Velvia is all it took to remind me why I take the time to work with a film scanner.
One roll of film brought back all the passion, all the joy, and all the love of photography.
One roll of film also reminded me how important the photofinisher is, as a few frames were badly scratched... Grrrrr!
But one roll of film, what a glorious roll it was!
Joel
More thoughts from the little flowers
This book is very interesting. It reads like legend, and seems to exaggerate things quite often. Still, there are good lessons to be learned and pondered from the text. When I talk about legend, it is passages like this one that stand out:
"Inasmuch as the faithful servant of Christ, St. Francis, was in certain things almost another Christ"
That is, to be frank, way over the top for me. But then this is a style of literature I don't normally read...
The next chapter retells a journey of St. Francis and Friar Leo, in which they discuss what perfect joy is. To Francis, perfect joy is to experience a hint of the suffering of Christ. He rejects all the things of life in return for suffering, and claims that perfect joy would be to arrive at the end of their journey and suffer unjustly for the love of Christ. While I think there is a certain pride at work in the asceticism. the key point that perfect joy is only found in Christ is rock solid.
Why do we think the things of this world will satisfy? Why do we boast of our own talents and abilities, when they are nothing without Christ? This book is a good reminder that without Christ, we are nothing.
Joel
"Inasmuch as the faithful servant of Christ, St. Francis, was in certain things almost another Christ"
That is, to be frank, way over the top for me. But then this is a style of literature I don't normally read...
The next chapter retells a journey of St. Francis and Friar Leo, in which they discuss what perfect joy is. To Francis, perfect joy is to experience a hint of the suffering of Christ. He rejects all the things of life in return for suffering, and claims that perfect joy would be to arrive at the end of their journey and suffer unjustly for the love of Christ. While I think there is a certain pride at work in the asceticism. the key point that perfect joy is only found in Christ is rock solid.
Why do we think the things of this world will satisfy? Why do we boast of our own talents and abilities, when they are nothing without Christ? This book is a good reminder that without Christ, we are nothing.
Joel
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Pondering the little flowers (revised for clarity)
I'm currently reading the little flowers of St. Francis of Assisi. It's a small little book that reads a bit like Christian legend. Interesting stuff. One thing that I've been pondering:
Francis was raising money to repair physical church buildings. He also was collecting stone and such. At one point a man he had bought stone from came back to him (knowing that Francis had money) and demanded more money for the stone he had sold. The text uses something like "with avarice in his heart" so it was clear that at least in the mind of Francis the man was being dishonest. Despite this, Francis paid him God used that in Sylvester's life. The text reads:
"Then St. Francis, marveling at his [Sylvester's] greed and not wishing to contend with him, as a true follower of the Holy Gospel, put his hands into the bosom of Bernard and, having filled them with money, put them into the bosom of Sylvester, saying that if he wanted more he would give him more. Sylvester, being content with that which he had received, departed and went to his house. In the evening, thinking over what he had done during the day and considering the zeal of Bernard and the sanctity of St. Francis, he repented of his avarice. That night and on the two following nights, he had a vision from God, in which he beheld how from the mouth of St. Francis issued a cross of gold, the top of which reached to heaven, and arms of which extended from the East all the way to the West. By reason of this vision he gave away all that he had for the love of God and became a minor friar, and he was of such holiness and grace in the Order, that he spoke with God even as one friend speaks with another, as St. Francis many time attested, and as shall be described in what follows."
Hmmmm.
How should we interact with someone who rips us off? I know the little flowers aren't scripture, but I've been pondering this lately due to something that happened to me personally. Should we confront someone who rips us off? Should we take them to court? (scripture is clear on that one, at least if they are a believer, and has another process outlined in matthew 18) Should we just ignore it?
Food for thought, no conclusions here...
Joel
Francis was raising money to repair physical church buildings. He also was collecting stone and such. At one point a man he had bought stone from came back to him (knowing that Francis had money) and demanded more money for the stone he had sold. The text uses something like "with avarice in his heart" so it was clear that at least in the mind of Francis the man was being dishonest. Despite this, Francis paid him God used that in Sylvester's life. The text reads:
"Then St. Francis, marveling at his [Sylvester's] greed and not wishing to contend with him, as a true follower of the Holy Gospel, put his hands into the bosom of Bernard and, having filled them with money, put them into the bosom of Sylvester, saying that if he wanted more he would give him more. Sylvester, being content with that which he had received, departed and went to his house. In the evening, thinking over what he had done during the day and considering the zeal of Bernard and the sanctity of St. Francis, he repented of his avarice. That night and on the two following nights, he had a vision from God, in which he beheld how from the mouth of St. Francis issued a cross of gold, the top of which reached to heaven, and arms of which extended from the East all the way to the West. By reason of this vision he gave away all that he had for the love of God and became a minor friar, and he was of such holiness and grace in the Order, that he spoke with God even as one friend speaks with another, as St. Francis many time attested, and as shall be described in what follows."
Hmmmm.
How should we interact with someone who rips us off? I know the little flowers aren't scripture, but I've been pondering this lately due to something that happened to me personally. Should we confront someone who rips us off? Should we take them to court? (scripture is clear on that one, at least if they are a believer, and has another process outlined in matthew 18) Should we just ignore it?
Food for thought, no conclusions here...
Joel
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
iPhone Apps
This year I finally broke down and bought an iPhone. Of all the technology devices I've ever owned, this has to be the most useful overall in a day to day capacity. Things I like:
(1) The Camera isn't great, but it's good. And that's far better than any other cellphone camera I've ever had. I use it constantly to take photos that I want to capture where I don't have a real camera with me. I also use it to snap photos of prices and item information when I'm comparison shopping for goods... But the real reason I use it so much is that I can quickly email the photos to people, allowing me to share the moment with friends. I _love_ that feature.
(2) Weather. It isn't perfect (is any weather forecast?) but it provides the fastest way for me to get weather information for where I am and where I'm planning to go. I also keep Buffalo on there, so that no matter how bad the weather is where I am, I can see that someone else is more miserable :-)
(3) Maps - I cannot overstate how cool it is having google maps on a phone. No need for a nav system anymore. Google something, find an address, look it up in google maps, have the phone tell me how to get there from where I am right now. If you don't think you would use this, you are wrong. This is the second best feature of the phone after having the internet with you at all times.
(4) Safari - Having the real internet with you at all times is amazing. Want to find the best restaurant in the middle of connecticut while you are on vacation? No problem. Want to find what subway train to take in the middle of New York City to get to the restaurant for dinner? No problem. Want to know what something costs online before you buy it in a store? No problem. Want to remember who the lead singer was of that obscure band you are hearing on the radio? That's easy. The mobile internet rocks.
Those are just the built-in apps. Now the fun stuff:
(5) Facebook - Say what you want about social networking, having a dedicated client on your phone makes it way, way better.
(6) Ebay - Sniping is no longer a problem when you can bid anytime, anywhere. Set an alarm to remind you if it's critical, then place your bid.
(7) AirSharing - The last trip we took, I printed out every receipt, every reservation screen etc. as pdf's and put them on my phone via AirSharing, making it quick and easy to find what I needed. Great way to have documents with you when you travel.
(8) Units - How many ounces are in a gallon? How fast is 240 KM in MPH? If I buy a 60 kilo bag of coffee, how many pounds am i getting? Units makes it quick and easy to find the answers to these kinds of questions.
(9) AroundMe - What is the closest coffee shop to me? This uses your location to tell you... It covers more than just coffee, gas, banks, grocery stores etc. But all I care about is coffee ;-)
(10) SportsTap - How much is USC winning by right now? Quick access to that answer and other less important sports results all in one place.
(11) YouVersion - Bible software from lifechurch.tv, this completely rocks. Search or just browse, a daily reading plan, and almost any translation you could possibly want available when you are online, all for free. There are also some downloadable translations, but not as many. The best!
On the whole, I _love_ the iPhone. It has been a great tool and is by far the best phone I've ever owned. It also plays a few pretty good games...
Joel
(1) The Camera isn't great, but it's good. And that's far better than any other cellphone camera I've ever had. I use it constantly to take photos that I want to capture where I don't have a real camera with me. I also use it to snap photos of prices and item information when I'm comparison shopping for goods... But the real reason I use it so much is that I can quickly email the photos to people, allowing me to share the moment with friends. I _love_ that feature.
(2) Weather. It isn't perfect (is any weather forecast?) but it provides the fastest way for me to get weather information for where I am and where I'm planning to go. I also keep Buffalo on there, so that no matter how bad the weather is where I am, I can see that someone else is more miserable :-)
(3) Maps - I cannot overstate how cool it is having google maps on a phone. No need for a nav system anymore. Google something, find an address, look it up in google maps, have the phone tell me how to get there from where I am right now. If you don't think you would use this, you are wrong. This is the second best feature of the phone after having the internet with you at all times.
(4) Safari - Having the real internet with you at all times is amazing. Want to find the best restaurant in the middle of connecticut while you are on vacation? No problem. Want to find what subway train to take in the middle of New York City to get to the restaurant for dinner? No problem. Want to know what something costs online before you buy it in a store? No problem. Want to remember who the lead singer was of that obscure band you are hearing on the radio? That's easy. The mobile internet rocks.
Those are just the built-in apps. Now the fun stuff:
(5) Facebook - Say what you want about social networking, having a dedicated client on your phone makes it way, way better.
(6) Ebay - Sniping is no longer a problem when you can bid anytime, anywhere. Set an alarm to remind you if it's critical, then place your bid.
(7) AirSharing - The last trip we took, I printed out every receipt, every reservation screen etc. as pdf's and put them on my phone via AirSharing, making it quick and easy to find what I needed. Great way to have documents with you when you travel.
(8) Units - How many ounces are in a gallon? How fast is 240 KM in MPH? If I buy a 60 kilo bag of coffee, how many pounds am i getting? Units makes it quick and easy to find the answers to these kinds of questions.
(9) AroundMe - What is the closest coffee shop to me? This uses your location to tell you... It covers more than just coffee, gas, banks, grocery stores etc. But all I care about is coffee ;-)
(10) SportsTap - How much is USC winning by right now? Quick access to that answer and other less important sports results all in one place.
(11) YouVersion - Bible software from lifechurch.tv, this completely rocks. Search or just browse, a daily reading plan, and almost any translation you could possibly want available when you are online, all for free. There are also some downloadable translations, but not as many. The best!
On the whole, I _love_ the iPhone. It has been a great tool and is by far the best phone I've ever owned. It also plays a few pretty good games...
Joel
Monday, November 10, 2008
ChMS - The Kickoff
Today we had our first official meeting with Arena as clients. We walked through the schedule, which is quite aggressive considering the holidays. Thankfully, the IT staff here has worked hard to get a head start on things. Our hardware in installed, and we have Windows Server 2003 SP2 up and running, and had installed SQL Server 2005. The Arena guys made some suggestions for improving our 2005 install, so we pulled it and did it again in order to insure that everything was set properly. We also uploaded our data from our prior database to them during the meeting, so things are moving on the data conversion front. We then talked with one of the IT guys and verified that we are totally ready for the install. We have scheduled it for Wednesday morning.
My IT staff is hard at work on the technical side of things, and Judy is pulling together the secretarial staff to work on mapping our groups and keywords to Arena's groups and tags etc. The mapping is based on what functionality we want with those items, and how to best maximize the power that Arena offers us.
Taking good advice given to us by other Arena churches, we are not trying to do the entire product all at once. We are going live with the functionality we need to enter contributions by January 1 and use Arena as our only database. From there we are scheduling a plan to go live with additional functionality weekly. We haven't scheduled it all out, but we will try to be done with everything except check-in by the end of February, and deploy check-in during the month of March. Our implementation visit and initial training will be in December, and we have reserved some of the training for the later roll outs, particularly check-in.
The important thing for us is that we don't want Arena waiting on our team. We are moving as quickly as possible to get our tasks done, in order to get this whole conversion done with as quickly as possible. The Asterisk conversion went beautifully this year, we hope the Arena one goes as well or better.
Joel
My IT staff is hard at work on the technical side of things, and Judy is pulling together the secretarial staff to work on mapping our groups and keywords to Arena's groups and tags etc. The mapping is based on what functionality we want with those items, and how to best maximize the power that Arena offers us.
Taking good advice given to us by other Arena churches, we are not trying to do the entire product all at once. We are going live with the functionality we need to enter contributions by January 1 and use Arena as our only database. From there we are scheduling a plan to go live with additional functionality weekly. We haven't scheduled it all out, but we will try to be done with everything except check-in by the end of February, and deploy check-in during the month of March. Our implementation visit and initial training will be in December, and we have reserved some of the training for the later roll outs, particularly check-in.
The important thing for us is that we don't want Arena waiting on our team. We are moving as quickly as possible to get our tasks done, in order to get this whole conversion done with as quickly as possible. The Asterisk conversion went beautifully this year, we hope the Arena one goes as well or better.
Joel
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