[NCSG-EC] Follow up from Montreal discussion on our CRM

Tue Dec 3 00:48:41 EET 2019

Hi all,

So I had the call with Josh last week. Here's what came out of it:

-It is possible to export all the information in our database as a CSV
file; doing the whole thing at once may crash the server by using too many
resources however, but it may be done in smaller chunks.

-Because of our server architecture, the php update cannot be done in
instantiated mode and must be done on live servers directly. That means it
may end up disrupting our back end for a few hours, 2 to 3 if everything
goes fine. The PHP update is required in order to update to the latest
version of CIVI.

-The hosting fee we were charged last year was actually too low by mistake
(i.e. Wapix's mistake, but our benefit!). We are not hosted on their
equipment, but we are nonetheless charged that fee to represent the work
required to set up the remote access. We could decide to be hosted directly
with them, but we would save only a few dollars a month at most, given that
we would need to pay an actual hosting fee in place of an access fee, in
addition to a few other items.

-We can have the discounted dev blocks at the lower price point, but they
need to be paid in whole before Dec 31st, and cannot be spread out on a
monthly basis into 2020.

-They removed the mass email option from our package since we were paying
for it but never used it. And given the amount of members we have, we will
never use it anyway.

And that pretty much sums it up.

As a recap of the current proposal which is on the table:

468/month, including 1 ticket (30 min of dev time) per month and 3 hours of
dev time for the year. This price is inclusive of the hosting fee.
One or two dev blocks for 10 or 20 hours of dev time for the year, at a
price of 950/block.

Comments and suggestions welcome. This will be discussed during our next EC
meeting so that the required decisions can be taken before the end of the
year and the expiration of our current SLA.

Have a nice evening,

On Sat, Nov 23, 2019 at 10:41 PM Raphael Beauregard-Lacroix <
rbeauregardlacroix at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> For those interested, I'll be talking to Josh from 1400 to 1500 EST on
> Monday.
>
> I'll give the call details to anyone interested in a separate email.
>
> Have a nice evening,
>
> On Thu, Nov 21, 2019 at 11:11 AM Raphael Beauregard-Lacroix <
> rbeauregardlacroix at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> As a follow up on our discussion on CIVI and Wapix during the EC meeting:
>>
>> I have done a bit of asking around and research regarding web development
>> costs generally and it seems that Wapix prices are still in what can be
>> considered "market"
>>
>> Now there are some costs which are not clear and some numbers that did
>> not match, as we discussed. I still have to clarify that with Josh. But:
>>
>> . 95$/hr for web development for a US/Canada based company is rather
>> standard; someone who begins would charge less, with the downside of added
>> risk.
>>
>> . while 300 to 500$/month for "support and maintenance" is more on the
>> high side, it remains that CIVI hosting is not just like any other type of
>> backend. It requires someone who knows what theyre doing (i.e. who knows
>> how to handle that CRM). Still, I find their 99$ price point on hosting a
>> bit high. I'll see what can be done with that.
>>
>> . I could find some public price points for CIVI monthly packages, in the
>> low 100's, but they did not include any dev time nor technical support, nor
>> backups, not virtual server for testing, nor ddos protection, etc. etc.
>>
>> . Finally, we are looking at at least a few if not several thousands of
>> dollars in "discovery" fees for onboarding a new company or individual. We
>> were to pick an individual consultant, it might be more of a few rather
>> than several, but think about it this way: onboarding is at least 20 hours
>> of work, and most likely more than that, so minimally 2000$ - more likely
>> towards or above 3k.
>>
>> . And maybe most importantly, subject to verification as Steph required,
>> we have a 9000$/year allocation by ICANN. If we don't use that money on
>> these services, it's just not spent, we don't get to bank it or use it on
>> travel support... Given that we have a good relationship with Wapix
>> already, I feel it would be a better investment of these monies to continue
>> with them.
>>
>>
>> That being said, our current system is I would say barely usable, and I
>> heard all of you express dissatisfaction with it. I also share this feeling.
>>
>> Now the thing is, even if Wapix ended up being slightly above market
>> price, I would not be in favour of spending my time working on switching
>> right away, for the following reasons:
>>
>> I understand that a lot of things Wapix does are things we can do "on our
>> own," but I don't think that seeing things this way is sustainable. We
>> cannot rely on the fact that we would always have someone ready *and* able
>> to take care of these things (and as a matter of fact, we have no one
>> now).
>>
>> In that sense, the only longer-term sustainable solution is to have
>> someone do it for us. Let's say we pick an individual consultant who begins
>> and will do it for cheap. Great, we just saved a few 1000's over a year.
>> Then, one year later, said person, because theyre skilled, finds a higher
>> paying job in a company. Now we've lost our consultant, must look again,
>> pay discovery fees again, etc. Do note that we faced a similar situation
>> with Wapix, were our main POC left the company and left us in a limbo for
>> several weeks. However we were spared new discovery fees once we got
>> someone assign to us.
>>
>> In addition, if we only pay the monthly fee and don't buy any development
>> time now, we are paying for a system we are not satisfied with, while we
>> have the opportunity to spend to try and make it better.
>>
>> So subject to discussion with Josh for the points that need
>> clarification, I would suggest that we go with the cheaper option which
>> includes less monthly tickets and less development time included, but that
>> we also buy more time. How much, I don't know; at least one 10 hour block.
>>
>> Given that Maryam is the prime user of the system right now, I would take
>> it upon myself to work with her to make sure that every dev hour is spent
>> on something that makes her life more easy (and incidentally, ours). We
>> used the previous dev time to fix the really outstanding issues, get
>> ourselves a minimally workable front end, and to cover up for emergency
>> issues that arose with the elections. Now I think we can try to capitalize
>> on that and make some further progress.
>>
>> And as an additional note, Wapix SLA is rather open; we need one month's
>> notice to terminate. So if any of you is willing to put the time and effort
>> required to come up with a workable and financially advantageous
>> switch-over plan, eventually asking for an ABR when the time comes and if
>> we need it, or cutting some deal with NPOC and NCUC for more money as we've
>> done in the past, it will always be time to use up our dev time and do the
>> switch. You are free and welcome to start working on that right away, I
>> have absolutely no problem with that, on the contrary. But for now, I would
>> rather use the time I can dedicate to that task and the money we have
>> available, in order to improve the systems we have rather than coming up
>> with another plan.
>>
>> And to end, some numbers: 400/month*12 is 4800. That leaves us up to 30
>> hours of dev time we could buy before topping our allocation. Do note that
>> I'm not in favor of topping it, I'm just giving these out so we know what
>> ballpark we're playing in.
>>
>> The final decision belongs to the EC collectively so I'm looking to hear
>> from you all on that. I will schedule a call with Josh early next week to
>> discuss our questions (those we discussed in Montreal) and anything else,
>> and will share the details on list so you can all join.
>>
>> CCed techteam list for information purposes.
>>
>> Have a nice day,
>>
>>
>>
>>
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