Category: Web/Tech

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New Tendenci Help Files, Video Training, and Updates for Your NonProfit Website!

Looking for Help with Your Tendenci Website?

Check out these recent additions to our Help Files and Training Video Files!

Help Files: 

Find width x height sizes for common Tendenci Template images like your logo, rotator stories, and sponsor boxes

Learn how easy it is to Import your members from another website into Tendenci with a CSV file

Add a PayPal Online Payment button to a page on your Tendenci Website

Sign-up for our month to month hosting plan after your free trial, and then use your own custom domain name

Have a little fun with your Tendenci website content and change your bullet lists to custom icon lists with this intermediate level help file

Video Training:

Watch our new series to take you through setting up your Tendenci Website from the very beginning.

Find all our individual training videos to watch and learn how to set-up and use all the features included with Tendenci

We also add new content weekly to our YouTube and Slideshare pages, so follow Tendenci and get notified when we add new webinar presentations, video and help files, and more resources to help your nonprofit shine on the web!

Come Find Tendenci at These Events!

We would love to meet up with you in person to answer your questions about Tendenci and get to know you and what you are doing to make the world a better place.  Let us know if you’ll be at one of these upcoming events and want to hang out with us!

SXSW Interactive Festival – March 8th through March 13th, 2012 – Austin, TX

NTEN’s 2012 NonProfit Technology Conference (NTC) – April 3rd through April 5th, 2012 – San Francisco, California

Houston NetSquared Meetup – Monthly – Houston, TX

Tendenci Software Updates Has Moved!

For a long while, we’ve been posting Tendenci’s software version updates here on the blog.  We decided to move those updates onto our Tendenci website moving forward.  You’ll still find the updates we’ve already posted on the blog here forever and always, and head to Tendenci Software Updates to find the new updates starting with this past week.

From the Tendenci Homepage, just scroll down to the footer and you’ll find the new link to our weekly version update announcements:

We’ll still share some of the highlights of our weekly software updates here on the blog with you – for example, this week we have made some great updates to Tendenci that make it easier for you to manage your corporate members and set permissions controls!

Corporate Membership Updates

  • The corporate representative page now displays a list of all members associated with that corporation.
  • The creator and owner of a Corporate Membership can add additional representatives under this Corporate Membership.
  • The creator and owner of a Corporate Membership can also assign new memberships.
  • Added permission control settings to ensure that Anonymous users cannot be assigned to a corporate membership.

Better Permissions Control Viewing

I’m really excited about this update! 

We widened and updated Tendenci’s Group and Profile Permissions Control View to resolve the issue with some permission settings being truncated and unclear.

Import Your Members from Your Old Site to Tendenci Faster

We made some improvements to our member import with clearer error messages, better file and application mapping, and now membership fields are no longer case-sensitive in the import CSV file.  You can also separate membership fields with spaces, underscores, or dashes without interfering with the import.

Use the Help File for Importing Your Members to see how to import members from a CSV into your Tendenci website.

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New Tabs in Tendenci thanks to Bootstrap

New Tendenci Tabs

With all of the recent focus on protecting the open web, it’s been great to read some of the stories that really show people’s passion for the internet community. Here is a recent story from us on how we created a new feature for our users.

The Tendenci Tabs

Tendenci modules have tabs. In past and current versions of the software we have used a tabbed navigation system for our modules with exposed module and contextual links mixed together. Let me give an example.

When viewing an Article as a site administrator, you will see links that relate to all articles, such as:

  • Search
  • Settings
  • Add an Article

These links are great and are useful anywhere in the Articles module. You will also see these links:

  • View Article
  • Edit Article
  • Delete Article

The links in the second group relate just to the article we are viewing. In some cases, the separation between these two sets of links is obvious. However, in more complex modules like Event registration and Membership management, these links can really start to add up. See the image below for a real world example:

Old Tendenci Tabs
Old Tendenci Tabs for Articles

We have been on the hunt for a solution to this problem for some time and were fortunate to stumble upon a perfect solution earlier this week.

A few days ago our team came across an article about Bootstrap on A List Apart. In it, author Mark Otto of Twitter describes the process of creating Bootstrap, an “open-source front-end toolkit” made with the goal of helping designers/developers build good stuff fast. While I’ve always been a sucker for the newest and the flashiest in web tech, Bootstrap had much more going for it. It is cross-browser tested so it will work for the broad majority of people. It’s written with LESS, a programmer-friendly way of writing and compiling CSS. Best of all, it’s freely available to use.

The New Tendenci Tabs

There are several parts of Bootstrap that we like, and one of the key features we are now using in Tendenci 5 is the tabs. The tab design from Bootstrap allow us to tuck all of our module links into a drop down, and with a little programming from our side, we can create columns and grouping for much better organization. We’ve chosen to split these two groups of links into two columns, each labelled, with the goal of making it easier to find the links to the functionality you want.

We outlined this goal and sketched out some ways of implementing this into the software. We began the work on Wednesday the 18th and were able to complete it in less than 24 hours and in time for our weekly release. We think the tabs have a much more modern, clean look that will go well next to more modern site designs. We are excited about the aesthetic changes, but the new functionality for the tab links is the real shining point here.

New Tendenci Tabs
New Tendenci Tabs for Articles

Without toolkits like Bootstrap, we would never have been able to implement a solution in such little time. Without a free and open web, companies like Twitter may not be able to gain enough success to be able to release tools like these. Companies like Github are relied on by people like us making software to be used on the web. It’s great tools like these that help us rapidly develop new features and updates for Tendenci.

We are very excited to announce our new tabs, and we give a big thanks to Bootstrap. They should be rolling out to a Tendenci 5 site near you soon.

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SchipulCon is almost here – get your Tendenci + business learn on!

SchipulCon 2011 Quadracopter Promo of Awesome! from Schipul – The Web Marketing Co. on Vimeo.

Our SchipulCon 2011 event is October 6th and 7th here in Houston, TX.  Sure it’s a Web marketing conference – but a Web marketing conference x 1,000,000!!!

Be there for the great Tendenci 5 unveiling!

As a Tendenci software all star, you’ll learn about the new Tendenci 5 platform with an exciting unveiling on Day 2 of our great conference.  You’ll get special access to a free beta invite where you can play around with a new Tendenci 5 website of your own – how cool is that!?

Learn the ins and outs of ‘Smart’ Tendenci websites

Join programming manager John-Michael Oswalt for a neat look at how to build ‘smart’ websites that communicate to your visitors more efficiently, make your website management life easier and create an exciting new way for your community to interact with your Tendenci website.

Sign up for FREE support time with our ‘Ask A Geek’ sessions

Do you have a Tendenci, blogging, Facebook, Search Engine Marketing or other Web-related question?  Sign up for one of our FREE 20 minute support session slots and access the collective Schipul brain.  We’ll help trouble shoot, brainstorm and show you new ways of doing the great work you’re already doing on the Web.

Learn more about our ‘Ask a Geek’ session schedules here!

But of course there’s way more business and brain building content than cool Tendenci discussion and training happening at SchipulCon this year, check out some of these great sessions too:

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‘Like’ it on Facebook through your Web site!

Your website is not an island – your visitors are hopping from your website to Facebook to Twitter to email… you get the picture.  Perhaps you’ve been clicking around on other sites (like Mashable or CNN) and seen your connections sharing their favorite stories with their Facebook friends – pretty cool, huh?

We have an exciting Tendenci update to help make it easier for your visitors to share your website’s great content on Facebook.

Like your Tendenci content on Facebook

Now your visitors can ‘Like’ and share content on their own Facebook account (in addition to sharing on del.icio.us and digg).

Share your Facebook Tendenci content

This option appears on the Jobs, Calendar Events, Articles and Releases modules of your Tendenci site.  Enjoy and share away!

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Share your Tendenci ideas and needs on Get Satisfaction!

 
Getsatisfactiontendenci
The Tendenci team is now using Get Satisfaction to give you another way to keep in touch, share your ideas and software desires and find some extra help for your Web site.

While this doesn't replace our Support services, this is yet another great resource for you to review other Tendenci users' questions, tips and advice – as well as get connected with our Support team.

Have feedback, a Tendenci wishlist or looking for some collaboration with other Tendenci users?  Check it out!

We post regularly 'Give us Your Feedback' topics on new and improved features and functionality, so be sure to check back regularly and give us your two cents!

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Schipul Fan Mania month – last chance win cool stuff!

Schipulfanmania_kickoff

The Schipul team (creators of your Tendenci software) loves our clients – you help us grow, teach us new things and keep us on our toes.  We want to thank you for being part of our tribe and are holding a Schipul Fan Mania contest to do just that.

All you've got to do is login to Facebook and join our Schipul fan page (www.facebook.com/schipul) and you'll be eligible to win one of the following rocking prizes:

  1. Dell Inspiron Mini 10 Laptop
    –Hate carting around a huge laptop just to log in to twitter now and
    then? We’ve got the laptop for you!  You pick the color, and we’ll ship
    it out to your place! With this little gal, you’ll always be able to
    update on the go.
  2. $100 Amazon gift card – Schipulites are book fiends, and we want to get you hooked too!
  3. $100 iTunes gift card – Can’t get enough music? Need another new app? Let us support your habit!

So what are you waiting for!?  We're drawing 3 random winners from our Schipul Facebook fanpage on Tuesday, June 30th at 2pm CST.  Fan us today!!

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Check out the new YMCA Web site

YMCA 

The YMCA of Greater Houston plays a special role in the lives of many families. Approximately 100,000 men, women and children throughout the Houston metropolitan area receive services from the Y each and every day. That's what I call impact on the community! So when the Schipul team was presented with the opportunity to upgrade the YMCA's Web site using Tendenci online management software, we were excited about playing a little role in Y's success. You can see the outcome at www.ymcahouston.org. Part of the challenge is to connect the community with the center nearest them, so there's a zip code search box on every page that's almost impossible to miss. We also are rolling out a new online registration system, Y-Online, which is desigend to be faster and more user-friendly.

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Use Google Analytics for web site reporting!

Deepmetrix, the authors of the web statistic reporting software, has been acquired by Microsoft and they have announced the end of life for the product which will no longer be supported. We will continue to run the DeepMetrix software for as long as it is compatible with a fully patched and secure operating system although it could stop working without notice and data may or may not be retrievable. For those clients who use the Deepmetrix system, we would like to recommend using Google Analytics as a reporting tool if you are not already. The following steps must be done in order to begin use of Google Analytics.

  1. Signup for a Google Account https://www.google.com/analytics/sign_up.html
  2. Send Schipul the embed code given so we can add this to the template of your web site. The data will be tracked from the time the code is installed.
  3. *Please check with the Schipul support team to see if you already have the Analytics code installed if you are unsure. Adding new code will start tracking over and all previous reports will be lost!

When using Google Analytics as your reporting tool, please note the difference in reports that you will be seeing compared to Deepmetrix. Deepmetrix tracks more information and bigger numbers because cookies aren’t necessary to create a statistic. The negative to that is bots and spiders are counted as traffic which will inflate your numbers, but if you’re looking at trends that won’t matter because bots and spiders are pretty consistent.

Google is closer to real user traffic though it could miss some valid site visitors. Again, if you look at over all trends the slight difference this missed traffic makes is minimal.

I hope this information is useful. If you have questions you can contact the Schipul Support team at 281.497.6567 ext.411.

Thanks and happy reporting!

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Interested in Podcasting?

Mic
Did you know that your Tendenci Web site is Podcast friendly?

Read our help files on how to integrate Podcasts quickly and easily in your Tendenci-driven site and check out this useful article on how to produce Podcasts.

If you’re hungry for more information, be sure to tune into www.mytechnologylawyer.com/ to hear Schipul’s very own Aaron Long and Jason McElweenie discuss Podcast revenue sources, production tips and marketing know-how.