IT Meeting Minutes 11-5-11
Location: Peachtree and Pine

Attendance: Avery, Kirsa, Matt, Shana, Andrew, Jimmy, Billy, Kelvin.

Get a Consensus: Does the IT team want to split into two separate committees?

IT Infrastructure (sub committee of Logistics) – Setting up Servers, Broadcasting Internet, phone lines, etc. – initial bottomliner, Avery.

Website Team (sub Committee of Media) – all things Website Related. initial bottomliner, Shana.

Friendly Amendment: Both Committees will meet to get a Consensus together on decisions that affect both Committees – via Conference Call if necessary. IT Infrastructure will Meet on Saturdays at 1pm @ HQ and Website Team will meet at 5pm @ HQ so people who wish to be a part of both committees may attend both meetings without conflict.

Yes, CONSENSUS!

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Both Teams:
- Getting the test site working – needs help from someone who really knows the inter workings of WordPress. As in How to fix internal programing errors.
Jimmy – all the issues will be related to the Admin – Includes.
Avery – That’s all I needed, I can now finish my script for transferring the website from sever to server very easily.
- When getting a Consensus Online there will be a 24hr window for a response, blocks, friendly amendments, etc. After 24hrs if there are no further responses Consensus is Finalized.
- When a online Consensus is needed in less than 24hrs, a phone call will be sent out from the number 4045550911. If you receive a missed call from this number you know you need to check your email immediately!
- What is an Emergency? Infrastructure has failed and an immediate solution is being implemented that is not a backup that was previously discussed.
- SSL – Komodo – instantssl.com (Assigned to Avery)

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IT Infrastructure went to work on the Internet box while Website Team continued meeting. IT Infrastructure will meet after the Internet box is completed and after Website Team has finished, so those working in both groups can be a part of both meetings.
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Website Agenda:

Introduction: Matt has been helping monitor emails and dispersing them to the appropriate parties. He also responds to simple website support questions.

For Discussion:
- How do we manage the Front Page so that it’s fair to all Committees and Groups? It shouldn’t be Prime Real Estate that people fight over.
CONSENSUS: Media should decide what are headlines for the main page. Media deals with Media and they should be best suited to determine the best posts for the headline articles.
- How do we integrate more of the BuddyPress system into the rest of the site? pushed to later, not a priority or major issue at this time.
- How can we show an RSS list of Events on the main page of only a certain category and is this something we want to do?
CONSENSUS: Yes, it will save time for Media, because they will not have to repost Events as Articles just to have them featured as a Main Page item. -Shana will look into this and if she can do it she will implement immediately. If not, she will ask for help.

Fixes:
- Front page RSS Feed – add in excerpts intead of full posts on the updates. (Assigned to Andrew)
Events, docs, and Tasks are all showing up in all group tabs, regardless of their group association. ex. create an event in the IT group, click on the IT group Event tab, that tab takes you to all events. The cause on events appears to be separate than the Docs and Tasks, but the same problem. Events is the Priority! (Assigned to Jimmy)
- Better system for Email notifications, possibly add in a Reply by email option, and optional text messaging alerts. (Assigned to Jimmy, already in progress)
- Display “TODAY” instead of today’s date on the calendar. (Assigned to Jimmy)

Other topics and tasks:
- Mobile version of the Site – there is a plugin for this, but it needs to be formatted properly (Assigned to Billy)
- Discuss “Group Tech Buddy” program – who wants to volunteer, how can we help them learn faster, and encourage them to use the site more? For now it is Andrew and Shana only. The others will learn more about how the website functions before helping out with this program.
- Work on more HowTo’s and add to the FQA page. (Assigned to Billy)
- Subdomains for each Committee Group – (Assigned to Andrew)
- Website BP floating NavBar – Make it match the terminology throughout the rest of the site (Assigned to Shana)
- Match all browsers to the way Chrome displays the website (Assigned to Billy)

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IT Infrastructure Attendance: Most of the IT Infrastructure people had left by the time they were ready to meet on these subjects. Avery and Kirsa will work on these and get with their team on the items listed below.
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IT Infrastructure Agenda:
Discuss telephony stuff
Freedom Tower?
Discuss CRM (Current status and future plans)
Internet access at Peachtree-Pine
Clear Hotspot (Who has one? Where is one?)
Land line connection? (Infrastructure costs money! / Tech donation box?)
Where/How can equipment be secured and have power so it does not walk off. One proposal is to move a full locking server rack into HQ, or we could find some kind of locking metal box with a chain.

Internet access at Woodruff Park
Is this needed at this point?
How can this be secured?
How can this be powered? (Solar panel? Car batteries?)

Conference phone
We had reached consensus during the last meeting to provide a conference phone/bridge for those who cannot attend tech meetings in person. If we still want to do this, how do we want to set this up?
We might want to set up a hardware phone (with speakerphone function) of some kind at HQ permanently so that other committees can benefit.
If we set up a permanent phone at HQ how will we secure it?
Is Kelvin able to provide conference bridges for this purpose?
What are our options hardware-wise?
SIP client on somebodies laptop during meetings = cheap and not permanent
SIP client on HQ computer with speaker+Microphone = cheap and permanent, but not always available
Analog office phone with a loud speaker and VOIP gateway = less cheap
Full on VOIP conference speaker phone = expensive but awesome