This week, we sent our CEO Ed Schipul and Programming Manager John-Michael Oswalt to speak at the Ignite session of OSCON 2013 Open Source Convention in Portland!
Ignite’s format is made up of five-minute presentations using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds – known as “speed dating for ideas” by some.
Take 5 Minutes and Watch this Video!
Below is Ed and JMO’s five minute talk on the generational differences of programmers – particularly Millennials vs. Gen Xers – and how that has influenced Tendenci’s development.
“Old Developers Just Don’t Get it. Yes They Do. No They Don’t”
Update! Development Sites are back online! Thank you for your patience, we apologize for the inconvenience.
====
Update July 26 – 8 AM
Update: Power has not yet been restored and development sites are still down as of this morning July 26 at 8 AM. We do not have an estimate of when they will be back up.
Live sites are not affected.
Thank you again for your patience.
====
July 25 – 6 PM
This evening, a power outage has caused our local Tendenci 5 development server to go down. This outage does not affect live Tendenci websites, only dev sites of clients currently in development.
Our Tendenci 5 development sites (that end in the URL tendenci.me) are down as of 6 PM. For our clients who have projects in development – we apologize for the inconvenience, you are not able to get to your development site right now.
We apologize for the inconvenience and will keep you updated as we know more.
Questions? Contact our support team at support@tendenci.com.
Today we wanted to share a quick video from Eloy Zuniga Jr., one of our Tendenci Programmers, as he demos the features of the new Tendenci Dashboard. Check it out!
Tendenci Automatic Updates
Tendenci sites hosted with us get automatically updated as we roll out new features like the Tendenci Dashboard! Look for more coming soon as we continue to add features and expand Tendenci even more!
Questions?
If you have any questions, please contact our Support Team at support.schipul.com or (281) 497-6567 ext 411!
One of the most common questions we get asked is “My site is live! Now what?”
Last week we hosted the webinar Auditing Your Live Tendenci Website: Checkups, Analytics, and Benchmarks for Live Tendenci Sites to hopefully help answer that question.
Your Website shouldn’t be static – it should evolve and change as your organization does. It is a good idea to spend time periodically to step back to analyze your website performance and refocus your content strategy.
We Are So Excited to Introduce the New Tendenci Dashboard!
The Tendenci Dashboard is the very first page you see when you log in to your Tendenci website. In the past, the Tendenci Dashboard has contained a list of Tendenci modules and corresponding icons. With the NEW Tendenci Dashboard, you will now see a whole console of helpful metrics that visually show stats from your top Tendenci modules!
Our goal with Tendenci is to build software that gives you insight into your online and offline community. The new dashboard provides valuable information about what is happening across your website!
The new dashboard will begin rolling out Monday July 1 to Tendenci 5.1 sites.
Old Tendenci Dashboard:
New Tendenci Dashboard:
Available Tendenci Dashlets
The charts that make up your Tendenci Dashboard are called “dashlets.” The new Tendenci Dashboard is launching with the following dashlets:
Memberships
Members shows a graphical breakdown of Memberships by type.
Corporate Memberships
New, Renewed, Expired, and Upcoming Expired Corporate Memberships show activity in each of those categories for the last 30 days.
Top Corporate Memberships lists your top 5 Corporate Memberships by active users.
Events
Upcoming 5 Events shows the next 5 upcoming events on your calendar and registration stats.
Top 5 Events shows the most popular events sorted by event log views over the last 30 days.
Forms
Top 5 Forms shows the most popular forms sorted by number of submissions over the last 30 days.
Pages
Top 5 Pages shows the most popular pages sorted by event log views over the last 30 days.
Customizing Your Dashlets
You can customize your Dashboard by setting these dashlets to show or hide, and reordering them.
To customize your dashboard, click the top link labeled “Customize Dashboard Statistics.”
From here, simply check the boxes to show and hide dashlets you want to see. Use the drag and drop arrows on the left to reorder the dashlets, and click Save to set your changes.
Miss the Tendenci Icons?
As you get used to navigating your site with the new Dashboard, you can always display the Tendenci icons by scrolling down to the bottom of the page, and clicking “Show Tendenci Icons.”
More to Come!
We are constantly working to improve Tendenci, and will continue to expand the functionality of your dashboard.
Have questions or specific suggestions you’d like to make? Let us know! Contact our Support team at (281) 497-6567 ext 411 or by contacting support@tendenci.com!
These days we Schipulites are spending a lot of time talking about, reading about, and developing for the Mobile Web. There is an immense amount of Mobile data out there (88 million Google Results for Responsive Designalone) and it can be difficult to track down the most up to date and useful resources.
We wanted to help by sharing some of our favorite mobile resources that we have been using and sharing in 2013!
This report is from way back in 2011, but it includes some really fantastic basics that still apply for determining your options to implement a mobile website – and the pros and cons of each strategy.
This 2013 list compiled by HostGator boils down some of the major trends in Mobile Web usage in 2013 – including the trend analysts have been pointing to for years that Mobile Web Traffic will eclipse Desktop Web Traffic as soon as 2014 – and what to do about it!
This month’s Netsquared Nonprofit + Technology Meetup was a lively discussion on Mobile Apps. We talked both Mobile Apps we can’t live without and Apps ideas we would love to see created.
We started with a simple question: What app are you addicted to right now? (My answer was Instagram). This led to a conversation on the psychology behind what addicts us to apps, and what we can do to make our internal technology “addicting” to further social causes – particularly when it comes to gamification (adding elements of games like avatars, badges, points, etc. to encourage people to engage with a cause through time or donations). More reading on that below:
We then brainstormed what App or tool we would like to see created. Not so surprisingly, a lot of the features requested already exist in some form or another. Below are 10 Apps I discovered or found out more about crowdsourced from our discussion. Some of them are content creation and productivity related… and some are just fun!
10 Cool Apps Crowdsourced from Netsquared Houston June Meetup
Evernote’s new contact management app allows you to “remember everything about people” with tools like business card scanning, importing contacts from your calendar, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.
The coolest feature is “Hello Connect” – your phone emits an audible tone that sends a signal to phones close to you that shares your contact info automatically. Pretty cool.
Trello allows you to create collaborative task lists with “cards” that you can drag and drop to move around to keep your tasks organized. You can add images, color coding, dates, etc. to keep track of projects big and small.
3. Google Keep – Simple Notes and Task Lists that Sync in the Cloud
Add task lists and “post it note” style notes to keep organized through Google Keep. You can label items and identify notes by category or color. The notes live within Google Drive so you have access to them from your desktop, tablet, phone, etc. The notes have very little formatting options, but that’s the idea. Keep it simple and keep it in one place.
Doit.im is a GTD Task Manager that lets you quickly add, process, and organize tasks. Built in labels like “Today,” “Next,” “Tomorrow,” etc. let you organize your day and prioritize easily.
The Delivery Status plugin is a Mac Desktop Widget that keeps track of what you have ordered online. It syncs with lots of services including Amazon, UPS, and Fedex to let you know what is on its way – and when to expect it. A simple little tool that can save you a whole lot of remembering!
Google Now takes advantage of everything Google knows about you and feeds you time-sensitive “cards” throughout the day. The idea is that if your calendar says you have a flight at 2 PM, Google pops up directions to the airport a few hours early so you’ll be sure to have time to make your flight. It feeds things like traffic conditions, weather, news alerts, etc. throughout the day.
This app combines time and location based alerts to give you the right information at the right time.
This powerful tool allows you to create workflow “Recipes” for virtually any online service that has an API. Define Triggers (if this happens) and Actions (then do this) based on everything from posts on social media to email to the weather. This tool can help “integrate” things that otherwise would not be integrated – and save a lot of time in the process.
Some example IFTTT recipes:
Every time I post to Instagram, save a copy of the photo in Dropbox
If the weather calls for rain tomorrow, send me an email alert
If the National Weather Service updates their sever weather alerts in my area, send me a text message
Create a personalized digital “magazine” with Flipboard by aggregating content from social media, RSS feeds, news sites, blogs, etc. in a visual way.
My favorite feature of Flipboard is setting up your feeds and then visually “flipping” through content and stories to see what’s going on around the web.
Is the content you post on social media sites really yours? It lives in a place that you can’t control, and could disappear tomorrow. Backupify saves your social media data so you at least have a copy of posts on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Yipit aggregates daily deals (think Groupon, LivingSocial, TravelZoo etc.) in any city to give you one place to go for deals. One Netsquared attendee recommended it for traveling – even internationally – to discover activities and places to visit in a new city.
Bonus: Yipit also aggregates the data from deal sites and posts interesting stats and infographics like this one:
What Killer Apps are you obsessing over right now? Share in the comments!
Join Us July 9 for the Next Houston Netsquared Nonprofit + Tech Meetup
We’re big fans of Facebook – and we’re not alone. Over ONE BILLION people are active on Facebook each month. Facebook is particularly powerful when it comes to photos, with over 350 million photos uploaded each and every day!
Integrating the Facebook Like Button with the Tendenci Photos Module
Starting today, we are rolling out more social sharing options within the Tendenci Photos Module. You will soon see the Facebook Like Button automatically displayed on each of your Tendenci Photo Albums and individual Photo Page to make sharing your Tendenci website content on Facebook easy and simple!
The update will roll out to all Tendenci 5.1 sites in the next few days.
This week, Schipulite Aaron Long was a Guest Lecturer for the Art Institute of Houston, where he currently serves on the Advisory Board, on the topic of Using Analytics to Understand Web Design.
At Schipul, we are often working on “redesign” projects, where a client has an existing website and design that needs to be updated. We know that just because a website is “attractive” doesn’t necessarily mean it is successful.
Every day, we are looking at current Analytics data from tools like Google Analytics to shape the design of a new website. Analytics tell us when to change a site from desktop only to mobile ready. Analytics tell us if we did well in search optimization. Analytics tell us what content should be presented for visitors. We use Analytics to determine the success and failure of projects – and hope to share some tips for you to use that data as well!
Below are Aaron’s slides and some insight from his presentation on how we use insight from Analytics in our designs.
Traffic patterns tend to be highly correlated year after year after year. Online traffic should reflect what’s happening offline. If your busiest times are during Spring Break and Summer – your online traffic should reflect that pattern.
Incorporate These Traffic Patterns Into your Web Marketing Strategy:
Take advantage of peak times with seasonal content
Consider boosting low times with special offers or campaigns
Track your progress by looking at year over year data (if you measure your success comparing month to month, you may miss these seasonal shifts)
Plan in advance! Start your website redesign project early so you don’t miss out!
Tip: When comparing timelines in Google Analytics, choose “Compare to: Previous year” from the drop down to automatically select the same time frame last year.
2. Mobile Traffic Has Increased
Across the board, our clients are seeing increases in Mobile Traffic year over year. Our nonprofit clients saw an average 30% increase in mobile traffic from 2012 to 2013. Make sure you are accounting for mobile in your designs.
Don’t Ignore this Mobile Stat: According to Google, 57% of users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly performing mobile website.
Make sure your site at a baseline “works” on a mobile device. Better yet – design it to be mobile and tablet optimized!
Use Analytics to Discover:
What percent of traffic comes from Mobile Devices
Filter down to the device level – does your audience primarily come from iPhone, Android, or Tablet?
Tip: In Google Analytics, navigate to Audience Tab > Mobile > Devices to see specific devices
Navigate to Audience Tab > Mobile > Operating System to view your traffic breakdown of Android vs. iOS
3. Consider Responsive Design
Responsive Design is the most modern and scalable way to handle mobile and tablet browsers – and a best practice as recommended by Google and other search engines. A site with a Responsive Design uses one style sheet and the content adjusts fluidly based on the width of any browser.
This means that a mobile, tablet, or desktop device serves up the same content on your website – which in turn means you only have to update content in one place to account for all devices.
Look at Analytics for top visited pages and navigation paths. Make sure you are making your most popular content easy to find.
Tip: Drill down into the Content Tab > All Pages and select your homepage. Click the “Navigation Summary” tab to see which pages people visit most after your homepage.
5. Discuss Content Improvements with Clients
It’s not all about the design – the website’s content has to support the design to really be successful. Educate clients on content best practices and how they can improve their content strategically.
For instance, Google’s recent Penguin and Panda algorithm updates punish low quality content and overoptimization. Discuss what “High Quality Content” means and ideas for creating that type of content.
6. Remember – You Can Pay Your Way
Search Engine Optimization takes time – it takes about three months for Google to fully index a new website. You can use online PPC advertising to drive traffic to your site immediately – but note that it can get expensive, especially in a crowded or competitive space.
Use tools like the Google Traffic Estimator to see estimates of how much your keywords might cost. Remember to target ads by geography to get the most for your money.
There is an abundance of resources and research on what makes a good landing page that converts well available. Take into account all of these best practices like:
Start with an attention grabbing headline
Use third party validation like testimonials and validating logos
Use the data you have to look at what your audience is interested in. Where do they spend their time and money on your site? If you are getting most of your traffic through photos or revenue through events, make sure those items are easy to navigate and find on your site.
In this example, 21% of traffic and over $1 million in revenue comes through Events. It was an easy decision to make Event content (including content on upcoming events and photos and video from past events) easy to find on the site!
9. Tap Into the Three Motivations of People – Social, Material, Ideological
Social Motivations – Identity, relationships, a sense of belonging
Material Motivations – This is the most straight forward of the three, you give something (time, money, etc.) to get a material gain
Ideological Motivations – Identifying with a cause or higher purpose
Think about what really motivates your audience when designing. Your audience may initially be Socially Motivated to attend your events because their friends are involved before they know anything else about your organization – or they may be looking for Material discounts or special offers. Particularly for nonprofits – tap into Ideological motivations with storytelling focused photos and visuals to compel them to donate!
Set up Goals in Analytics and track them. This adds Conversion data to any report and allows you to see not just where traffic is coming from – but which keywords, sources, content, etc. are actually converting.
Note that you can only see retroactive Goal Tracking data in Analytics – so don’t wait to set up these Goals so you don’t miss any data!
Short video on setting up Goals in Analytics and tips for determining what your goals should be:
In Conclusion: Analytics are Powerful!
Website Analytics give us powerful insight into how an audience is engaging with a website. Use this data to shape how you think about any design work – even if it is as simple and reworking one piece of the website.
Make sure Analytics is installed and Goal Tracking set up now to start using this data to shape your design!
How much money goes through your website each year? A thousand dollars? A hundred thousand? And where is it coming from? Jobs? Events? Are you really getting the most out of the features your website has to offer? Lots of questions! And now, some answers…
Introducing Invoice Reports!
We are excited to release Invoice Reports to our clients! This set of advanced Invoice Reporting is a new feature for Tendenci 5.1 websites that provides information about which fundraising programs are bringing in the most money for your group.
These reports, run for a specific date range, return both summary and detailed information on all revenue-generating (or fundraising) modules on your site: Events, Memberships, Job Boards, Directories and Donations.
Now you can see, in one consolidated report, where the revenue is coming from and just how much your site is facilitating your fundraising efforts!
Accessing the Reports
To access the reports on your site, go to the Admin Bar and choose Reports > Invoice Reports. (You must be on Tendenci 5.1 to use this feature. If you do not see the Invoice Reports option, please contact either Support (5.0 users) or Sales (4.0 users) to upgrade!)
You will first see a list of any reports that have already been generated on your site. This allows you to build a report based on specific criteria and then run that report over and over again for different date ranges. Choose to rerun one of your previous reports or build a new one!
Using Reports for Reconciliation
One of the options you have with the reports is to choose invoice payment status: All, Invoices with an Open Balance, or Invoices with No Open Balance. This is great for the person who reconciles the money for your organization! If you allow people to place openings on your job board or register for events online but permit them to pay offline via check or cash, you can use this data to reconcile your payments.
Sample Invoice Report Detail
Click on one of the revenue categories to jump down to the detailed invoice list for that group. From here, you can see each invoice and quickly locate those with an open balance. Click on the ID to open a specific invoice to see the detail, review contact information and mark the invoice as paid once payment has been received.
Invoice Reports Tell the Story!
Tendenci was specifically designed to help organizations raise funds for the programs and services that they offer. These reports will help you evaluate your different programs, determine your biggest moneymakers, reconcile your offline payments and get all of your revenue figures in one place.
So at the next board meeting, when the questions arise, you can show, real-time, with the exact data, the financial strength of your various fundraising activities!
One of the most common questions we get asked is “My site is live! Now what?”
4. From 
This month’s Netsquared Nonprofit + Technology Meetup was a lively discussion on Mobile Apps. We talked both Mobile Apps we can’t live without and Apps ideas we would love to see created.
We Love Facebook!
This week, Schipulite Aaron Long was a Guest Lecturer for the Art Institute of Houston, where he currently serves on the Advisory Board, on the topic of 
To access the reports on your site, go to the Admin Bar and choose Reports > Invoice Reports. (You must be on Tendenci 5.1 to use this feature. If you do not see the Invoice Reports option, please contact either 