Advance your Tendenci admin skills by joining our free Event Management and Chapter Memberships training workshops this September and October!
These complimentary workshops are offered to our Tendenci hosted nonprofit organizations, associations, and partners. Encourage your volunteer staff to join and discover new event management features and chapter membership opportunities to engage your members and boost your sales. Don’t miss out!
The Tendenci Platform Training Workshop series with President Nicole Davis has begun! This series offers a fantastic opportunity for you to elevate your tech skills and enables you to effectively engage your members and community. Throughout the training workshops, we are covering basics such as Tendenci features and layouts, as well as advanced topics like recurring memberships and event management. These workshops will equip you with the skills to maximize your platform usage and enhance your overall Tendenci experience. Join us now to make the most of this valuable learning opportunity!
Hi Tendenci Community! You can find all of your online Tendenci support in one spot! Read The Docs, Help Files, tutorials, the training videos, contact form, AMS community blog and vaporware wish list are all accessible from this one spot. Got a question about Tendenci AMS? Start here!
Yet while Tendenci does not do cross site tracking or individual tracking, it is possible that YOUR site does if you are using Google Analytics, DoubleClick or any number of third party add-ons and plugins.
It is up to YOU to reauthorize and comply with the data protection policies associated with third party add-ons on your site.
What DOES Tendenci do that might allow you to make a mistake in GDPR compliance?
If used as designed, it would be hard to become out of compliance as every site is in an isolated database and container. Yet there are security functions that log activity on your Tendenci site, that if you were to use it for tracking with AI or sell your data, it could potentially be against the GDPRs regulations. Talk to your attorney about this.
For example PCI best practices require dual logging and analysis of the logs for security reasons. There is no direct identifying data in web logs, but they would obviously include things like the IP address to block DDoS attacks.
These logs are never sold or accessed by anyone but our security team to trouble shoot the application and provide feedback to the administrators. Remember, you have the same user interface and front end functionality that our team does if you host with us. Zero difference. And the logs do not contain any identifying information such as an email or name.
We are NOT lawyers, Thus it is up to YOU to determine how you manage your data. We do not, nor have we ever, sold client data to third parties.
One of the things that excites us the most at Tendenci is seeing other people really accelerate open source across all sectors. Not surprisingly we see community building as essential in both academics and in business. Because business… can be just a bit too “business like” when we like to work hard but also play hard. Another thing I love to do is talk to clients. And being open source, and as a company with no commissions but that takes care of our people by doing the right thing, it’s fun sometimes to highlight great open source projects that aren’t directly related to Tendenci (but OK, all of these do integrate with Tendenci as they are all based on Django as well.)
Open Source Django projects that Integrate with Tendenci
How about a community discussion board with karma points, community building, banning of bad guys, rewards for the helpful. It includes a playful board you could say personifies the balance between making a gamified application and what some refer to as gamification. I don’t want a gold coin, but I do like the respect of my peers. Misago is just that. And being Django it integrates with Tendenci which is also Django.
Our implementation of EdX for internal use isn’t quite as pretty but it still shows that we love education. EdX is great to train employees, members of your association, your volunteers and much more. The screenshots below are our actual EdX demo site as well as the one we use internally.
EdX Open Learning Screenshot on Tendenci
Course writing in Django EdX. Oh, and you can import courses from other people as well! Sharing is one of the values of Open Source! But what about course material? How about CNX Openstax! Write your textbook online, let people download it or print on demand. Most CNX textbooks are even free! And of course CNX is also written in Django and Python like Tendenci which makes it part of our big integrated solution that you can deploy OPEN SOURCE. You stay in control.
Is this a trend? Yup. We aren’t the only ones who have noticed. You can read about the growth of MOOC’s or massive open online courses in several tech and education articles and quickly moving into the mainstream.
The growth of MOOCs and online courses
How do you track all of those students if you are a giant school? Well, how about Django-SIS? Yup, manage an entire school, even alumni with django SIS (School Information Systems).
School Information Systems – School Management Software
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.
[![image][audience]][audience-link]
[Photo by Eloy Zuniga Jr.][audience-link]
### You’d like it
For those of you who love to tinker with things or reverse engineer them (destroy them) to figure out how they work, [this is your place][pycon-url].
It’s always great to see the latest and greatest being invented by **2500** of your closest friends. When services and features are extremely undervalued and success is at it’s infancy.
Have doubts about the size of this annual event? [Check out the sponsors][sponsors].
I’ve been a programmer now for more than 10 years and a Python developer for over 3 and I can sincerely say I may never grow old of this stuff. It keeps me young, can I say that? Just did.
### What you’ll see and maybe learn
What to expect when your “[Excepting][exceptions],” little bit of nerd humour there, don’t mind if I do. But seriously, what should you expect if you come on down?
[![image][photo-guido]][guido]
[Photo by Ed Schipul][guido]
1. Well we have lightning talks with rapping programmers. [Listen to this intro][lightning-talks].
2. We have the benevolent dictator which only [speaks genius][keynote]. One of these days I’ll be able to understand his entire talk. AKA the creator of Python.
3. [The creator][keynote2] of the [Raspberry Pi][raspberry-pi]. A less-expensive computer that’s providing for those on the other side of the digital divide.
4. People sporting the latest technology such as [Teslas][tesla] and [Google Glasses][glass]. Maybe the car had more to do with the fact we were in California.
[![image][photo-tesla]][tesla]
[Photo by Ed Schipul][tesla]
### Tell me more about these “Lightning Talks”
Anyone attending PyCon can have 5 minutes to talk about anything that is *remotely* associated to Python. Bright minds are sitting in the audience, they could be sitting next to you … you could be one. So why not let them speak.
For 5 minutes you can talk to one of the widest Python audiences you’ll probably ever encounter. Talk about a pet project, do a little venting, bring a community together and promote your conference.
Just be careful, developers tend to be highly sensitive to the ole sales-pitch.
### See you next year
We had a great time — I hope this is obvious — we did a lot of learning, and we hope to see you next year.
[![image][photo-group]][group]
[Photo by Ed Schipul][group]
### References
1. [Full List of PyCon US 2013 Videos][pycon-videos]
2. [Photos taken by Ed Schipul][pycon-photos]
3. [PyCon 2011 Blog Post][pycon-2011-blogpost]
New to Tendenci? Looking for a refresher? Have a new board member, volunteer, or staff member you’d like to train up? Register now for one of our free in person classes!
2013 is in full swing and we’re getting things started right by ramping up our Tendenci Training Classes! We’ve added SIX new Tendenci 5 Training Events to the calendar!
These events will be hands on training in our offices in Houston, Texas covering the Tendenci 5 software platform with our team members.
These classes are FREE but space is limited, so please Register to reserve your spot using the links below or the Tendenci events calendar!
See all upcoming Tendenci Events on our events calendar at Tendenci.com/events
See all upcoming Tendenci Events on our Tendenci Events Calendar at Tendenci.com/events
Questions? Let us know!
If you have any questions about this workshop, if it applies to your website software, or suggestions for future Tendenci Live Workshop events, then contact us and we’ll help you out!
Coming in 2013: We’re updating several features in the administration dashboard to give you easier control over your site’s advanced management tools.
When we rewrote Tendenci in Python and Django in order to release an open source version, we also updated the Administration Management Dashboard that we commonly will refer to as your “Admin Backend”. The Admin Backend is intended for Tendenci Super-Users to manage the more advanced site and user functions, as well as give our open source users quick access to developer and theme documentation and tools.
ON THE TENTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS… TENDENCI’S GIFT TO YOU: Awesome Updates to Your Admin Backend!
Until now, most users have probably never seen this part of your site, and because we’re going to be adding tons of pretty awesome new features to your Admin Backend this year – I thought I’d offer y’all a tour.
If you have any questions or comments after the tour, please post in our comments section below or email me.
Your Administration Dashboard aka “The Admin Backend”
You can easily navigate to your site’s Admin backend two ways:
By adding /admin to the end of your site URL in the browser address bar
Navigating using your Blue Top Bar Admin Nav Menu through the dropdown menu under “Quick Links”
** You’ll need to have Super-User level access to the Tendenci website in order to access the Admin Backend regions.
Sneek Preview of Upcoming Awesome Admin Backend Updates
Here’s a screenshot the site Administration Dashboard Homepage that you’ll see when you first log into the admin backed. You’ll see the full list of modules under Site Administration installed on your site. If you install any plugins, such as the staff or videos plugins, you’ll find those listed here as well.
Your Admin Backend Dashboard Gives You Access to Advanced Site Features.
The Admin Backend dashboard also shows you your “Recent Actions” where you can see recent items you’ve added (marked with a green plus icon), and edited, (marked with a pencil icon). The actions are linked to the content enabling you to quickly access the most recent content you’ve been working on.
New Batch Management Tools
If you click through to one of the modules, for example the Files module, you’ll find the batch organization tools to make it faster for you to update, add, delete, and manage your site’s content and users. The batch organization tools give you the ability to effect multiple files at once.
Here’s a preview of some of the new batch management features we’re adding:
Click to filter and view Contributors and Owners of Files, Pages, Articles and Other Site Content
Filter content and files by the creator of the item on your site with a single click. The updated Filters let you see which users have added content as well as filter by active or inactive files.
Filter and View Content based on the User who Added the Content
You might use this if you’re trying to find the original content for something that a former Staff member or Volunteer had created. You can even combine the filter by owner with the active filter option to see all content that’s currently active or inactive.
Inline Batch Editing for Titles, Tags, and other Fields
With the new inline editing option, you can quickly edit certain fields like we’re showing here for the stories module. Without having to click and wait for the full edit page to load – you can update tags, titles, categories and other fields just by clicking in the field, typing your changes and pressing enter or clicking out of the box.
Inline Editing Options for Stories in the Admin Backend
Just hover over the Reorder icon and then click and hold your left mouse button to change the ordering.
Use the drag and drop re-ordering feature to rearrange the order of content inside your admin backend. This is really great for content such as stories, photos, and video galleries where you may want the content to display to users in a different order than you originally uploaded the content in.
For example, when we initially uploaded a series of Membership videos to the website, the videos were displaying out of the series’ order on the video gallery page. By going to the Admin Backend “Videos” dashboard, we were able to drag and drop the videos into the right order, and display the Membership Module 9 Video Series in order from start to finish:
Simply Drap and Drop to Display Your Videos in Order!
Advanced Sorting Options
The new sorting options will enable you to quickly sort a module’s files using one or more of the header Fields. You can select which header fields to include in the sort and rank them in order for sorting.
For example, let’s say that you’re reviewing content on your website to make sure everything’s up-to-date for the new year. Using the advanced sorting options, you can search your Articles by the last date they were updated so that the most recently updated articles showed up first or last. You can also select to filter out inactive and pending articles by clicking the “active” filter. This way, you can easily start sorting content by starting with content that you know is publicly visible.
Click to Sort and Filter Content in the Admin Backend
As you update content, the “Last Updated” date will change, automatically creating a way for you to keep track of your content that’s been recently edited and see at a glance what content is out of date.
Advanced Site Documentation from Docutils
We also integrated Tendenci with Docutils, an open source document management tool. New Tendenci sites automatically will include advanced documentation and resources for those of you working on Tendenci as a developer or designer and you’ll access these tools from your Admin Backend dashboard.
Find Advanced Documentation and Resources in Your Tendenci Admin Backend
Our developers have packaged up helpful code snippets, in-depth information about Models and Views, and more!
MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM TENDENCI!
We’re celebrating the Twelve Days of Christmas with daily previews of the all new Tendenci Features coming to your association website in 2013! Join us each day to “open new gifts” filled with feature updates for your website! Visit our Twelve Days of Christmas Main Page to find new gifts for each day from now until January 5th!
We love to hear your questions and comments about Tendenci, the open source CMS for Association’s – leave a reply below in our comments section or send us your thoughts via email to support@tendenci.com.
Last week, I attended AspirationTech.org‘s annual Nonprofit Developer Summit in Oakland, California. Nonprofit organizations and technologists came together to teach and learn about the technology challenges in the nonprofit industry. Every day, I was brought into thought provoking discussions on how to solve some of these challenges with technology today and inspiring success stories from .Org’s that were adapting technology to win.
I can’t express how truly mind-opening this event is, and I encourage you to add next year’s conference. NPDev gave me several opportunities to connect and interact with highly technical people who work within the nonprofit space, and because the organizers encourage end user language, I was able to participate in technical conversations comfortably and I learned so much as a result!
Big Data, Teaching NPO Tech, and Maps
To help me select which sessions I would attend, I focused on 3 main themes:
* Innovative NPO Tech Use Cases
* Big Data Collection and Management
* Teaching Methods for Tech Beginners
Here are my top takeaway sessions, linked to their wiki notes pages, for those of you who missed this year’s event – hopefully I’ll be able to pass on some of what I learned at the NPDev Summit.
Innovative NPO Tech – Maps
Nonprofits are doing really awesome things with maps and the conference focused on a couple of open source mapping tools, TileMill and Open Street Map (OSM) with case studies on how .Org’s were creating interactive map tools to get supplies where they’re needed and match volunteers with someone who needs a little help. There were a number of innovative technologies being talked about at NPDev with Mapping Tech being the most popular.
Big Data is one of 2012’s most oft-used “buzz” words and the nonprofit industry is seeking solutions just like the corporate world. Here are some of the best NPDev sessions that discussed what Big Data is and why you need to prioritize Big Data within your organization in 2013:
How to Use Data Informed Campaigns shows nonprofits how to collect and analyze past data to create compelling reports that build credibility around your cause and support your movement.
Open Data Around the World provides resources for finding free data from places like NASA and government organizations and tells you how nonprofits can benefit from using open data.
The Dashboard session includes analysis of several good and bad dashboards and what tools a dashboard should have to be really useful for Nonprofits.
Beginners Tech Guides
Strategic Hosting for NonProfits takes a look at what’s really included in typical hosting plans compared to the needs of most nonprofit organizations and shares tips to help you evaluate and select the right hosting services for your software.
Introduction to the Command line offers a little history and a truly beginner-friendly guide to using the command prompt to communicate with your computer.
Introduction to Git covers some of the basic commands you can use with the Git version control tool.
More of What You Might Have Missed
You’ll find a list of the sessions along with the notes and other resources in the Dev Summit Wiki.
Photos from the event are being shared on Flickr with the hashtag #npdev.
Check out a local Nonprofit Tech event: Netsquared! Netsquared meet-ups are local, community-driven events where participants connect to discuss technology tools that can help social causes. You’ll find me at the Houston Netsquared events, usually so I hope you’ll come to one of our upcoming events in 2013.
One of the most common questions we get asked is “My site is live! Now what?”
Last week, I attended 
