Podcast Episode 148: Episode 121: Is Christmas Coming Again Already?

Description

The Spark offices are all abuzz lately with the exciting new things coming in the latest version update and in the community. In this episode, Jon, Nick and Emily give you a peek into not only v13 and v14, but also v15 and beyond. With so many mysteries and surprises to look forward to, it's like Christmas all over again!

Transcribed Content

This episode of Rockcast is brought to you by Rock partner Triumph Tech, a full service specialist partner. Rock partners provide crucial support for Spark Development Network and important services for the Rock community. Connect with Triumph Tech today at rockrms.com/partners. Welcome back to Rockcast, the podcast where we talk all things Rock and Spark Development Network. I'm Emily Forman. I have Jon Edmiston and Nick Airdo here with me today, and we have your regular Rock update. So as usual, we have to start with what's going on with our latest Rock releases. Nick, tell us all about it. I can tell you that version 13 o had a great alpha run and a beta run, which is coming to a conclusion really the end of this week, which means version 13 o will start on technically or theoretically the 20 thirty first, January '30 first. And yeah, there's tons of fixes and features. It's rich full of new things. Right behind that, we are now getting ready to go into alpha for 12/2008. Ah, okay. And you might ask why 12 Why Nick? Go backwards. Well, I'm gonna let you actually cover that. I will. Yes, we are actually moving with when we go v13 launch, that's into early access. So just a reminder, we've had early access and our general release, but that's changed a little bit with the funding model tweak that we made for the beginning of this year. As we talked about previously, we realized that our Rock funding was about half of what it needs to be for sustainability at the scale of what Rock is today. So we adjusted the funding model, and that's tied to our early access. So organizations need to make sure that you have updated your commitment to the new funding model of $3 per regular attendee per year. And if that's set at your commitment, then you will have early access. Now early access means you get access to the general major Rock releases one year before general release. So v 13 is going to be available in early access on the January 31 for people who have that early access commitment set. If not, that's okay. We will make sure that we're still supporting v 12, and that's why twelve eight is coming out. Right. Right. Right. So there there could be a twelve nine in the future. Once it's in general release, we still support it for, I think, maybe two major versions behind early access, but expect only critical bug fixes and security fixes in those That's right. So it will be in your best interest to get access to the best and the latest through that early release program, which is mutually beneficial because it supports the work that Spark is doing that's really required to meet the current needs and support this entire code base that has been built. That's just so extensible and so broad and deep now. It's really quite another product than we had anticipated it might be very early on. We wanna get that funding correct, and we wanna get you the latest and greatest features. So you have just a little window of time to make sure you go get that updated. I would to just end my section on a shout out to the alpha testers because we swapped a lot of beta testers into alpha and it was amazing. They found so many things early on that we were able to address quickly, and that made our beta much smoother. Oh, that's really exciting. Was that what you were going for when you did the switch of moving people to alpha? It was exactly that. So now we need more beta testers. If you wanna be a beta tester, let us know and we can sign you up. And what would you say if someone's thinking they might be interested, what would be the requirements for that? For beta testing, it's kick the tires, use the features that your church organization uses and make sure they're working well for you. It's a great time for you to get in to that pipeline of verifying that everything's gonna be smooth once switch over to that version. And it helps us, it gives us a chance to get going on any fixes that they might have, or issues that they might find during that beta. So it's beneficial for churches who have features configured in different ways and have their own data to be testing what's built before it's released, just to try all the different edge cases and different methods of use that our features might have. Yeah. And we've now even moved that into alpha. Our alpha testers are using copies of their production data, which is extremely helpful. That's fantastic. Well, the shout out is definitely deserved. Thank you to the alpha and beta testing teams. And the call is out, you've heard it. If you could join the beta testing team because you are not on one of those two teams yet, please do. And that would be very beneficial. Also, there are community points associated with testing per release, right? Yeah. Yep. One other thing to note is, Nick said, 13 is going to pre release or the early access release, right? But some features are going to remain in quote a beta stage because they're so new and so big. So all the giving analytics, we just need more people to be using those because everybody's giving patterns are different. And we've tested a lot with that more than any other feature. We've done a ton of testing. We did some really pre alpha testing with some client data, But we still need a little bit of time to everybody shake that out. So just go a little bit slower, make sure that you yourself look at the results before you start doing victory laps and showing your finance team. Just be cautious. The other one that I wanna note as being in beta stage is the new Obsidian event registration. It's great. Again, tons and tons of testing, but it is a entirely new framework and code base. And so you do not want to, the day after you install this, roll it out for your CAM. That's the next day. That would probably be a little risky. Not saying you can't, but just expect a few a little bit turbulence if you do. Again, there's so many edge cases that go along with that registration. So many different ways you can configure it. We've tried to do a lot of testing and reiterating what Nick said, alpha and beta team have done a lot of testing with that and found some stuff that we've fixed, which was great. But you just need to be a little bit careful with some of these bigger features in 13. Thirteen's a huge release. Mhmm. And event registration is something that is used in so many different ways across the community. Yeah. You don't wanna mess that up. Right. Yeah. It's pretty critical and fairly public. So Yeah. It's a good caution. How about we talk about v 14? That has to be the next thing on everyone's minds. Yeah. We've been actually it's been on our mind for quite a while. By the time everything with 13, , gets out, you're kinda , oh, that's kinda old. So 14, we have a good start on that. So just a reminder, the feature sets for that would be an updated person profile, the way it looks and the way it's architected, so expect that. We would also be doing some additional personalization features. Rock can do tons of personalization a day, but we're gonna increase that capability in version 14. And, of course, digital signatures, that's the one that people have been talking about. Good news is about that is we already have a good start on that. And digital signatures will show up in two forms, one inside of a workflow and the other one inside of event registration. Now as it relates to event registration, we're only putting the digital signatures into the new Obsidian event registrations. We're not gonna put it in both. Would be a lot more work. And so we're trying to invest into the future and not backport it into the old one too. So the good news is the the workflow piece is almost done. And by doing that, we've actually created the foundation for all that whole feature. So adding it to event registrations will be not easy, but it's not gonna be as We'll be more than half done when we get event registration. And we already have a church who's gonna do some pre alpha testing with that soon. So that'll be great because that means by the time it gets shipped, it'll be, , already confirmed to be working in in environments. So that's really cool. And in '14, there'll probably will be I can't guarantee, but they'll probably will be one surprise feature that's really gonna be cool. So I'm not so that's all I'm gonna say. We're heavily working on it right now, and I think it's really gonna be amazing. So that's pretty cool. And the personalization, we're also excited about. And just to give another little, , shout out in 1516, depending on how it goes, there's gonna be even more personalization that's really exciting, and we're already working on it with teams even outside of Spark. So it's it's another cool feature that we can't wait to to talk about at the conference. Oh, all these mysteries. Yes. I feel Christmas is coming up again already. Yeah. They're exciting. They're fun features. So And our goal now is we're working on more major releases than we've done in the past. Yeah. So that's why we're gonna, , put a hard cut on 14. Right. So we're gonna get those things done. We're gonna try to ship it. There'll be a few little things this little surprise feature might be a little bit of an addition, but trust me, you'll you'll it. And that's why you really wanna get your early access updated. Of course, you want to support Spark in the best way possible, but you don't wanna delay and put it off until later because access to v 13 is either 01/31/2022 or 01/31/2023, in which case you'll have missed 1314 and whatever else may happen in that calendar year. So don't delay getting that updated. This is the first time we've really had our funding model change intersect with a major release update. So it's not the typical process of of preparing for an early access. We just wanna make sure everybody has that heads up. Cool stuff ahead. Don't miss out. Yeah. And I think it's interesting because I consult with so many churches and talk with so many churches and help so many churches. I'm in a lot of churches instances. It's it's interesting because when I am working in a in a version that's a year old, it's so noticeable. It's , oh my gosh, it doesn't look the same. Oh, it doesn't have that feature. Sometimes you don't have that perspective of what you're missing until it's missing. When you haven't added it yet, you don't know what you're missing. But when you go back to a version that's a year old, it feels more than a year old. It feels ten years old. It's , Oh yeah, right. We don't have this feature yet. Oh, and it looks What is that? Oh wait, we fixed that. It looks better now. So sometimes it's going back in ancient history when you're working on an instance that's a year old. Right. And the program really is intended for churches that are small and new, and don't have the same level of extensive feature needs that the larger churches probably do, that they'll still be able to use our grant process and be able to have access to an incredible an incredibly proficient system, and it doesn't really make as big of an impact on their ministry, whether they're running the latest and greatest. Yeah. And I'm so happy that we have that grant process because it it really hits our core value accessibility. It does. We want all churches to have the best technology, not just the big churches. And occasionally there's a big church that's just going through a financial situation that they just need a grant and we work with that. So it's really great that there is that program and it's not an exclusionary thing. So core value of accessibility has always been at the top of our list. Definitely. We run that as a filter through all the decisions that are made. Yep. Well, this has been a really busy week to kick off the classes for 2022. We ran Rock classes for a sequel for Rock this week, the first one of the year. And then we also did a private master class for a church in Ohio. So that was really exciting. If you didn't know, you could do a private master class if you have quite a few people on your staff that want to go through it, and or if you can get some other local churches to come together on that, that sometimes is a good option. So we're kicking the year off really strongly. We have another master class coming up that is completely full, I believe, starting here in just a couple of weeks and in our office here in the Phoenix area. And we have a Rock 100 class coming up in March and the next sequel for Rock class coming up in April. So this is definitely a year where after we had some delays in what we were able to book for classes and , extra demands on the technologist time. Those have stabilized a bit more, and so this is probably the year to get caught up on those classes that you may have had to put on pause for the last couple of years. But we are seeing the registrations fill up for classes. So don't make a last minute decision on that. Try to get out ahead of it so you can make sure and reserve your time. We are planning probably right now, demand is showing one virtual master class a year. That seems to be about what demand is looking for virtual versus on-site. They're different experiences. You can expect different things out of them. Same curriculum, different experience. So make sure that which one is gonna make the most sense for you with the pros and cons of each one of them. But again, go check those class schedules out and make sure to get something on your calendar to get you up to speed with the latest. I love looking at that too because as part of the master class process, we all get a list of who's in the class and it's it's kind of a cool list. It's all done in Iraq and it has pictures and shows some of their profile, what size of church they're from and the name of the church and what area of the country they're in. And I love looking through that list and it's these are people who are taking their education seriously. They wanna increase their knowledge and their capabilities. And it's just so cool to look at those lists and and just recognize that these people really want to engage and go deeper. Mhmm. It's kinda cool. It is really cool. The SQL class from this week was totally sold out. Mhmm. And looking through that list, there were just a lot of people that we've known for ages that were in there. It was just must have been a really fun class. Yeah. And and that SQL is just a a skill set and a tool set that's just so helpful in so many ways. It's not just a Rock thing. It's everything in the industry is SQL based. You can find SQL everywhere. Mhmm. And what's interesting? When I looked through the list of attendees, it was great to see people who came from a database background and who came from a nontechnical background and found themselves in the Rock world through other avenues. But there was just a total mix of experiences and backgrounds on that. And it's really cool to see that, again, in the Rock community, people can kind of pick their path and the steps are there to help them achieve success on something, whether or not it's what they went to school for. Mhmm. Definitely. We can't help but mention the conference. Right? It's coming. It's always coming. And this one is so unique. So we keep talking about it because we wanna make sure no one misses the fact that you want to come in a day early. So you want to be there all day Monday plus Tuesday, Wednesday. Monday is gonna be the pre day, and it's gonna be full of brand new things. We've been listening to what the community wants, and we are rolling out some really incredible, very technical training programs that are at a different technical level than the content that's coming in the rest of the conference, and they will complement each other very well. So it's something you don't wanna miss. It is free. There's going to be a big break for lunch in the middle, and you can go to any of the many restaurants that are nearby. And then we're going to have a party, a community fun time in the evening. So don't miss out. Great time for connection. Great time for extra learning without the extra cost on that first day. It's all inside our event registration on our conference page. So check that out. And for those of you who are listening and interested in speaking, make sure and let us know the speaking slots are open now, as well as sponsorships. So everything's officially open. Lots of cool new opportunities on both fronts, even more than last year with what's possible. So let us know. Reach out. Of course, connect with Aaron if you have questions on any of those. Lots going on this year. There is. It's a busy year, it's a busy time. It definitely is. I wish you could see us over here all scrambling around, trying to get all the things moving forward at all the right times. It's fun to see the major releases this come together and it just represents so much incredibly hard work from concept to completion. Yeah, it does. Well, thanks so much for joining us today. We're happy to bring you this update and look forward to connecting with you throughout the year. Don't miss the classes. Don't miss the conference. We'll see you soon. 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