A lot has been happening with the Quaker Cloud lately.  Here's the latest news about what's going on with our web-based tool for meetings.

Erin Mullaney, our Communications and Cloud Support Associate, accepted a wonderful job offer from another organization and had her last day with FGC on October 13th. While we will miss Erin and all her good work on behalf of the Quaker Cloud, I am writing to let you know how FGC will be providing support for the Quaker Cloud in the short term as we determine how best to provide staffing for the Quaker Cloud.

We have contracted with SKYCATCHFIRE, a web development company that has helped us with our mobile optimization and move to Pantheon projects, to provide support for the Quaker Cloud for at least the next ninety days as we move forward. SKYCATCHFIRE will have a person on their staff dedicated to Quaker Cloud support. This person's name is Richelle Houck. Richelle will be:

1. Providing regular support for type 1 issues including: password resets,and general questions around creation and posting info to the site.
2. Assisting with urgent support issues – such as if a website is accidentally deleted.
3. Working on regular communication with the Cloud users.
4. Helping with the Drupal/SalesForce integration.
5. Training/retraining meetings on the Quaker Cloud – this includes following up on that training
6. Doing demos on the Quaker Cloud for prospective and current users.
7. Teaching FGC committees and new staff how to use the Cloud.

Also, they will will allocate time each week to spend on both improving the process for the Quaker Cloud support and automating various support processes. In addition, their technical team will be available for
issues that arise with Quaker Cloud. This will allow Richelle to work directly with their technical team to address:

1. Helping with the Drupal/SalesForce integration.
2. Technical support for Quaker Cloud admins. 

To reach the Richelle, all you have to do is email cloudsupport@fgcquaker.org. 

It will be the first of November before Richelle and SKYCATCHFIRE are fully able to respond and address all Quaker Cloud support issues, especially the more complex ones. However, she will be in touch about any requests ahead of November 1 as she is able.

Please be assured the FGC is maintaining our control of the Quaker Cloud. SKYCATCHFIRE is only assuming a support and technical development position. While we we’re testing to see if expanding SKYCATCHFIRE’s responsibilities improves Quaker Cloud service on behalf of FGC (and we’re grateful for them stepping in to provide temporary technical support) we are also exploring if this might be the best arrangement for our users moving forward.  FGC, however, will do all marketing, invoicing, decision making regarding improvements to the Quaker Cloud (in conjunction with our Quaker Cloud admins in each meeting), and so forth.

It is our hope that this arrangement will provide you the support you need and allow us to continue to provide the improvements and updates you've requested to the Quaker Cloud.

In the Spirit,
Brent Bill
Associate Secretary for Communications, Publications, and Outreach
for the FGC Quaker Cloud Team

What We're Working On

As we continue to work at improving the Quaker Cloud (based on your requests and recommendations), we have a number of projects underway.

The biggest one is the integration between our Drupal platform (on which the Quaker Cloud is based) and Salesforce (FGC's database, which stores users names and passwords for the Quaker Cloud). When this project is complete, log-in and password issues should become a thing of the past. We anticipate that this project will be completed in the next six weeks or less.

Another project is fixing the issues Friends have had with the photo cropping tool.  We are expecting this "fix" will be finished by the end of October.

Even more improvements and fixes are planned for the near future.  We'll keep you posted on them.

Hosting Change

In August we migrated to a new host, Pantheon.  This allows us to be faster and helps us scale down on the cost of the Quaker Cloud.  Many meetings will not notice a change.  Meetings who forward their website might need to reconfigure their settings.  A reminder of how to do this can be found HERE.

Mobile Optimization

Just a reminder that the Quaker Cloud is now mobile responsive.  This means it is now optimized to look great on your phone or tablet.  We are excited to be able to finally offer this to users!

Pay as Lead 

For the current FGC fiscal year (FY2017) we are moving to a “pay as lead” model.  That's because the "real cost" (support, technical improvements, etc) of the Quaker Cloud is $410 per meeting.

We continue to recommend that a small meeting (fewer than 50 members or attendees) pays at least $120 and a large meeting (greater than 51 members or attendees) pay at least $240, but we want to be transparent about the true cost of this service. 

Paying less than $410 means that the Quaker Cloud is subsidized by other meetings and FGC.  Please consider this when your meeting considers paying for the Quaker Cloud.  When you receive your invoice for the next fiscal year, you will see an opportunity to adjust your payment if you choose to pay closer to the real cost of the service.