Podcast Episode 37: Episode 10: October Update

Description

Find out what we've been working on as we ramp up to October's 1.0 release.

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. Hello and welcome to our tenth episode of the Rockcast Podcast. We have been working hard to hit October 2014 and a lot to share with you that's been going on behind the scenes. First, let's talk about some features that are new that you may be interested in. David, what do you have for us on that? One thing we've been working a lot on, and actually a little bit more has come out on each update we have done, is workflow. Workflow is just a powerful engine in Rock that drives a lot of things. It is driven check-in from the very beginning, but really it can be used to customize a lot of different processes that your organization might use. It is really powerful with driving forms and presenting forms to users and then taking different actions based on what they fill in. It is just another powerful tool that you can use to kind of help your users and your staff complete things that they do every day. So it's a big time saver? Yes, it could be used that way, yes. Okay. And are there other uses as far as customization and things from the client end? Yeah, just everything in Rock, it's easy to extend. Well, it can be extended depending on what kind of staff or skill set your organization has. But it can be used also just to customize different parts of your website. Whether it's users requesting more information or whether it's staff wanting to hire new people. It's a way of gathering information and then automating the things that you do with that information. And we did release recently the documentation on it so I would really recommend taking a look at that documentation, reading through it, and you'll begin to kind of see and understand some of the power that it has. There are some great examples there I think about what workflow can do for you. And it's pretty exciting once you get into it to think about all the ways you can apply it to your organization. I think as you read that documentation don't read it for what it is, but read it for what it can be. Because I mean, the power of workflow is what you can make it do out of the box, comes, , power some stuff in Rock already, we have some sample workflows, but you really have to read that documentation and be thinking about what can I use this for? Because that's where the magic is. It is a giant box of Legos, but it's somewhat up to the the user to assemble them. And not to get ahead of ourselves here, but David's gonna be teaching some stuff at the upcoming conference on workflows. And I know he's he's been really excited about some of the power behind what you can do. And I think he's gonna blow our minds at that event. Sounds good. Let's see. Other new features? Content? Another thing we've been working on is something called content channels. And this is just something to really help present different data in different ways. That's kind of abstract, but it really is, John mentioned, another toolbox with Legos. But we're really gearing it towards presenting data on a website, I guess, whether that be blogs or dynamic rotating images on your home page. Really any type of information you want to present you can use content channels for. So we have content channel types. So you can create as many different types you want with their own set of data points or attributes. And then you have through our templating engine a way of presenting that in very dynamic ways. So we've pulled out marketing campaign ads and we're replacing it with content channels. So what used to be ads are now content channel items. So websites, promotions is just a channel type, where blogs are a channel type, podcasting will eventually be a channel type. Really just different types of data presented in different ways. It's just another flexible way of using Rock I guess. And the idea behind that came from working with some other guys outside of this team. Right, John? Yeah. I mean there's a lot of folks who are using other CMSs today and just trying to make sure that Rock can be that powerful CMS. We're trying to figure out what tools were needed. And so some of these tools and concepts were kind of shared through expression engine. Have a very powerful set of tools this. And we saw what those tools were , wow, that's really kind of marketing ads, except the whole name marketing ads really limits it to just marketing ads. But the concept behind it, they're the same. And the interesting thing is outside of that, there are people who are using marketing ads to do this. But the but the the moniker of marketing ads made no sense to what they were doing. But they saw that the value and the power behind those tools. So they started bending it in a way that we hadn't really intended. But it was it was a good idea and it was really working. And I think that just lends credence to the idea of kind of blowing that up and making it more of a generic thing. Right. And again, you look at it today and you think, oh wow, that's great. I can do a blog and I can do website promotions. That's great. But you have to look at what else could I use this for? How else could I extend this? Your creativity is really going to be what holds you back, I think, with Rock in general. If you just read the manual and you robotically follow the process, yeah, you can do exactly what we lay out. But you just think about what is possible with it that we haven't even thought of, that's where the magic's going to happen. The tools are there. We're working hard to build the tools, document the tools, and then give them to you and let you be the architect of of your future. , David was talking about the templating engine. We've been putting a lot of time into documenting that templating engine so all of its capabilities. And you can build some pretty cool things that, , learning more about it myself and then even extending it some more. It's sometimes hard not to smile when you go, wow, this is so simple to do this little piece of magic right here. And so what we've been trying document that so you can see that magic and then you can do that magic. And hopefully, someday brings a smile to your face or the face of the organization, because I think it is pretty cool. But again, it's everything in life, it's gonna be limited to the effort that you put into it. But now it's named accordingly, so we don't have the limitations that might've been associated with it. Exactly. Yeah. And I think that was a lesson learned. , we were that was one of the first features actually think we put in was the marketing ads. And just having gone through it, it was , wow, that's a huge limitation just in the name. Makes sense. So we have some things on the horizon still. What might we see coming up next? Anything? We're working hard to march forward to our one point zero release. So there's some additional documentation coming. The contribution giving documentation is nearly complete. We should see that next week. Just putting the last bit of polish on that. Those tools are pretty much feature complete though right now. But documentation always helps. There's some other features that are done that aren't fully documented. There's a duplicate finder that, , we're excited to talk about, but we don't have the documentation done for yet. To be honest, sometimes the documentation is so hard to keep up with because we're constantly changing and, , we are of course, ads is already documented, but now that has to be redone. And but I suppose those are all good problems to have. Better ability to redo your documentation because you got new stuff ideas and to be stuck with the same stuff. But we're really kind of heads down working really hard to get our one point zero, complete, reliable. How Good. Alright, we've run into a few other things, as we've been going through our beta period and, and, I think one of those has to do with hosting. What updates do we have on that? Yeah, so the host, the beta process and beta period has been a huge learning experience in a lot of different ways and a lot of different facets. We're learning a lot about a lot of different aspects of running software in hundreds of different people's environments. And one of the ones is hosting. And all this kind of came about from our second generation installer. We worked on that, started doing that months ago and actually kind of finished it months ago. And so we started going around testing it. Of course, we want to test it. And in the testing process, we discovered some issues. And at first we thought it was with the installer, and then through lots of series of tests we discovered, well, it's probably not necessarily the installer, it's kind of what we're trying to do. We're trying to take these small web host accounts, which are really meant for small websites, small applications. We're trying to stuff in this really big enterprise application in this thing. We're trying to install it in a very user friendly way, which takes a lot of resources and it's a very complex task. And then related to that is the whole update process. So we found some issues. I think some of it was with expectations, our expectations of trying to stuff an enterprise app into a $5 a month web host, that's just not going to happen. I wrote in some documentation, it's not your grandmother's recipe site. This is a full blown application that is taking large amounts of data, trying to find patterns and express them back out to you. It's just not a $5 a month proposition there. We've been really kind of wrestling with that. I think one of the things that we found is ARVIX, had some compilation issues and we still have an issue with compilation. The good news, it only happens on the install and after the update and it goes away. It's just a temporary compilation issue. It goes away in a few minutes and you're back fine. And we're still working with Arvix. We've been working with them for a long time on this. They've put in a ton of effort on it. We've put in a ton of effort. I think we're actually kind of close to figuring that out. But it's amazing the amount of attention they've given it. We've worked with a lot of web hosts over the last few months, and their support has been awesome. It's kind of the way I phrase it. If I had go out to lunch with any of the tech support I've worked on in the last year, those are the guys I'd want to go to lunch with, which is cool, how much effort they've been putting into that. So we're still working through that. That said, we have learned a lot about web hosting. We have updated our external web hosting guide. There's some recommendations in there. Some of them are new that maybe some people haven't seen yet. That document will be updated some more. I think as we work through the final stages of the issue with ARVIX, they'll be back in that guide. And they have some other interesting platforms that we can look at too, Arvix does, that we're researching and looking at. It's amazing how much time and effort we've put into this. But I think it's super important to us so we can give people a reliable hosting platform and options too. Think we just don't want one. We want several. Even if ARVIX was the perfect web host, we don't want one option. We want people to have multiple options. There's other exciting things happening too. There's a group who are interested in starting a whole company just to do Rock hosting. That's the only thing that they would do. They're a little bit in the early stages, so we don't really want to put them out as a recommendation yet because they haven't even started. They're not even able to take a customer yet, but they're they're quickly moving to that stage. And that's exciting. , I think that's another great option for churches. That way you would get a pre installed version of of Rock. Don't even have to install it. And first class support. , these guys would really learn Rock in and out to really provide that support that some churches are really looking for. Right. Yeah. So that's exciting to hear. And we hope that there's not just one of those in the future. We hope that there's multiples of those even too. That just gives you more choices. I would say that one of the learning points is don't expect us to run on $5 a month web host. I'm thinking that the base package, the minimum a church should have is probably going to be about $30 a month. And I'd say that's a very, very small organization. If you're medium to large, know, look to spend a hundred dollars as a minimum. If you're a larger organization, it's probably going to be more than that. It might be a hundred and 50, it might be 200. I think going in there with the expectation of running it on a personal class web host package, I mean, just the name alone should tell you that's not a good idea. And I think we're really close to working out that compilation problem with RVX. But for current customers who are on that platform, again, only really you only really see that post install and after an update. And those are two major, there's a lot going on on that server when we do an update. There's a lot of files coming down. There's a lot of activity. And Some of it is just the nature of what we're trying to achieve there. Another thing that's kind of interesting looking through this as we went through this process is one of things we kind of kept asking ourselves is , well, what do other people do? , what does dot net new do? What does Orchard do? What do these other big products do? And to be honest, they don't do much. the install process on these products is crazy. It's definitely not something you could hand over to a nontechnical user. I feel Rock actually does a better job on the install and the update process. This process really helped us tune that because in the beginning we did think it was our installers. We put a lot of time in just debugging it and making sure everything was great. Even up to last week we were still making it more better. So And just to be clear, I mean, we've talked a lot about the problems. We've never seen these problems in our own environments where we're running these on our servers. Right. And I think that's, again, that's kind of the nature of these two, because now you have a dedicated server with its own dedicated app pool and all the memory it could ever want. The problem is we're trying to run this into a on a server that's being shared by hundreds of people. And not because a hosting company is greedy, but that's that's how they get the cost down. That server servers cost a lot of money. If you want to get a server for $30, well, I mean, you just you just can't get a server for $30. You have to share the server with hundreds of people to get that cost down that low. It kind of reminds me back to my past working at Honeywell. I worked in the and managed the web hosting part of the of the company for all the internal and external apps. And we constantly get calls with people saying, I don't wanna host with you guys even though it's a corporate requirement because I can go pay $50 a month and host it, and you guys are going to cost me $500 a month. And it's kind of going, okay, but you're you're you're comparing apples and oranges. We're going to give you a huge environment for your application. It's just going to be, , incredible. You're going to go host right next to grandma's recipes and you're not getting the same thing. But people couldn't quite understand that. See cost and they need that cost becomes the biggest differentiator between whether they want this package or that package. And I think you have to drill down. You have to see what are you getting for that cost. If Rock is going to be a critical part of your organization, you have to be willing to give it a home that it's going to be a live in. And if it's not a critical part of your organization, I'd say just don't even do it. , , don't don't get Rock unless you want to invest in Rock. And it's not investing means you pay us because we're it's a free product. Yeah. It's just you got to give it a home that it can live in. So we really need to look at the price, of the different options available as indicative of the features that they offer and make sure that the features of the space that they have lines up with what our needs are. Right. And I'd actually say if you see a price that's cheap, it should really should really scare you. I mean, if you see a $5 a month web host, just think you're getting $5 a month out of that. Yeah. , I think 30 is for for a small, small, small organization, that would be maybe okay. But if if you're medium to large, you should probably be thinking you're gonna spend close to a hundred bucks at a minimum. And honestly, if if Rock is gonna be that strategic piece of your organization, that seems pretty cheap. , obviously a larger, organization would need to spend quite a bit more. But Yeah. And again, they can read more recommendations about that on the external hosting guide which is on our website under the Learn tab. Right. So that would be a good place to go check that out if you're looking at hosting or considering if you need to change your hosting options based on what we found out. Right. And just realize that's still a very living document. We feel comfortable with all the recommendations on there. But I think, , we'll probably be adding back ARVIX when we get this little issue resolved. Speaker one: We're not trying to overstate the issue. I mean, it's an issue. We're just not feeling comfortable right now getting more people on that. But I do feel comfortable that we're going be able to resolve it and that they're a great company. I mean, their support has been incredible on this. And that's why we keep trying. Right. Because we know their heart's in the right place, their tech support's in the right place, they're talented. Otherwise we would just give up, right? It's just one company. But the fact that we've actually poured, literally, I mean, way over a hundred hours in working with them in between code changes and I can't tell how many times we've installed Rock on our base. It that I mean, I think that should show that we believe in them. We because we because we think that they could be a valuable partner for the long term. Right. And again, say in the guides, we'll say it again. We're not there's nothing for us in this partnership with ARVIX. We're not getting any money for every person who signs up. We get nothing. And that's way we want to keep it because we don't want there to be a hidden relationship or an unknown relationship behind the scenes that we're benefiting from this. The only reason why we're sticking with them so tightly is because we actually think that they're a partner we could go long term with and that you guys, the people who use Rock will be more successful because of that. Right. And the reason that we're sharing it here is because we're trying to be the front runners for for you who are using the application and figure some things out ahead of time, do some troubleshooting and just let we'll be transparent. Here here's where we are. We may have some ups and downs, some setbacks, some leaps forward, but we just wanna be transparent so you have all the information at your fingertips to make the choices and and educated decisions you need to make. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, exactly. Because, , for the organizations that we're running Rock with, , we already have dedicated servers. And so it's it's not really we're not doing this for us. Doing it to help all the smaller organizations know the pros and cons and that this all works. And I'm sure we'll have future updates as the situation kind of clarifies itself. So look for the blog, look for social media and look at the docs. Would really, even if you're not big into social media, I'm not that big into social media, follow the the the Twitter account for Rocks. That's where you're gonna get a lot of the updates or how blog posts. But Twitter's gonna tell you when there's a new blog post. And we have the newsletter, but that the newsletter doesn't go out as much. So if you want to get more in the loop, would just recommend hitting our Twitter page. , sure. A little more real time updates as they come out rather than getting it in aggregate later down the Road. Yep. All right. Nick, I think you've got some exciting info for us. Well, nothing I haven't been talking about every single podcast. , I'm all about Doesn't make it any less exciting. I'm all about community sharing. The refresh cash event is that, it's a time for all of us to get together, share our ideas, share our knowledge, network with one another. And so yeah, this year it's coming up in October. Tuesday, the '20 first is Rock day that there's no cost to that. You could fly in and fly out if you wanted to. But you'll miss out on the next three days, which are chock full of Rock sessions. So if you still haven't registered, it's only $75 The money doesn't go to us. It's the Church IT Network that we partner with. So if you go to churchitnetwork.com and there's a register button down at the bottom of that page. But if you put a slash schedule on the URL, and then I found this is really handy. Just type in that little search box on the side, Rock, and hit enter. And you'll see basically the whole Rock lineup and all the sessions that we've got planned. I hope we we're all thinking about that. I mean, have been for the last several weeks. And I'm excited because this is really what I'd to pour my energy into open source product, that's free that we can come and teach sessions on and, get ideas from people. So the future for me is , this is it. Next year we'll have twice as many sessions. We'll have to have more teachers, two sessions per hour. But that's really all I've got to say. Well, that's great. And we will have a blog post coming out with links for the registration and the Rock schedule so that will help people get there easily. Yes. Good. Well I think that's a wrap for today. We are still working and I'm still taking info from you. how to get a hold of us on the website. We have an ask tab and several different ways you can get a hold of us there. We always love to hear from you and, thanks so much for listening. Do a church that loves the idea of using Rock but hasn't taken that leap yet? With managed hosting, churches of any size can get access to Rock's amazing technology, hassle free. With just one click, Rock's managed hosting removes the roadblocks that might stop a church from switching to Rock by making the process simple. Churches get the ease of a SaaS church management system without losing any of Rock's powerful features. Are you ready to take the next step or share with another local church? Visit rockrms.com/hosting today.