[Odb-help] 3 new news items, and answers to questions

[odb-help at lists.democracygroups.org]

Good afternoon!  --

Lots of updates... here are 3 big news items:

1)  Conference a success 

The Organizers' Collaborative conference on April 16, on
Grassroots Use of Technology, attracted over 200 people!.
There were over a dozen ODB users there, including:

Mark Brunswick     A Phillip Randolph Inst. Delaware
Randy Divinski        consultant to Mass Global Action
Jonathan Falk       HelpNet project  (assisting groups in Maine)
Dennis Fischman    Community Action Agency of Somerville
Heather Freedman   The Civics Center, Vermont
Mary Grissom         Union of Minority Neighborhoods
Gregory Heller          (assisting groups in New York)
Rebecca Kaiser      Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty
Diana Palmo          Alliance for Democracy
Tony Rominske      Peace Development Fund
Stephen Soucy      Peace and Justice Center of E. Maine
Liat Wexler          Organizers Collaborative  (of course)

Did we miss anyone?

2) ODB Manual Updated

During this time, Liat Wexler completed a revision to the
ODB manual.  The changes she made brings the manual
from version 0.9.6 to version 0.9.6c.  We added this new
version to the download site on Friday, so if you downloaded
0.9.6c after then, you can see the manual just by clicking on
on the question mark, and choosing "Documentation and Help."


3) New ODB software revision tracking system unveiled!

We now recommend that you go on over to the new "tracker"
system we have implemented, called Mantis:

http://mantis.organizersdb.org

Mantis is generally used to report bugs, but we are hoping
to have few bugs and instead use the system for organizing
the user community to support improvements in the software.
So we are calling this the "ODB Bug Reporting and Enhancement
Sponsorship System" !

A NEW feature enabled TODAY (May 9) allows you to make a pledge
to sponsor an improvement to ODB. For example, if you are logged in
(create an account first), you can use the URL:

http://mantis.organizersdb.org/view.php?id=37

to view the proposed enhancement to allow a second email
address. Scroll down a bit and you will see the link where you
can make a pledge. The minimum pledge is currently $25, which
means we would need 16 people to pledge in order to support this
improvement.  No money exchanged until the new version is ready!

This is a lot better than one organization footing the entire bill,
and you will all get a lot more then just a text field; we are talking
about fully integrating the second email into the "copy emails"
functionality in ODB, and ensuring that the free upgrades will
not break this improvement.

Anyone can propose an enhancement by entering it as an
issue and tagging it as a "proposed enhancement"

That's all the news to report right now!  Below are some
answers to recent questions asked to odb-help.

More updates later this week!

-Rich Cowan
 for the ODB development team



1. QUESTION From Florida:

>Dear Rich,
>Thanks for all you have done and are doing with the Data Base.  As you know, I love it.  The Office for Farmworker Ministry has decided that they would like to subscribe and download the Data Base as well for their use.  I am not sure whether new users need to do something else besides just going to the home page which I have listed as 
><http://organizersdb.org>http://organizersdb.org
> 
>Thanks a lot.
> 
>Sister Gail 
>Farmworker Association of Florida, Inc.

ANSWER:

...we have instituted a more formal program for
providing telephone support.  The cost is $75 a year for an
organization of your size; it might be lower for the ministry office.

   There is also a setup service we provide, that might be useful
to the farmworker ministry folks.  Details can be found at:
http://www.organizenow.net/odb/supportpackages.pdf

and this info is also now at the bottom of the page at:
<http://organizersdb.org>http://organizersdb.org



2. QUESTION about allowing additional email addresses

 From Georgia:
I wonder if you couldn't just add a second field for additional e-mail.

 From Washington state:
Yes, I would like to add "allow2emails", can you tell me exactly how to
add that feature.

 From Massachusetts:
Regarding this request, I would support ODB providing a software switch to
enable 2 email addresses at one location.  Could a user vary the delimiter
(e.g. use a semi-colon instead of a comma) in order to be compatible with
Outlook?

http://mantis.organizersdb.org/view.php?id=37

Well, would you all be willing to chip in to support the additiona of
this new feature to ODB?  Also, if anyone wants to volunteer on the
Mantis system, we could enter a number of other proposed enhancements
that we sent out in our survey last year, and even create a central "voting"
page to allow groups to chip in.



3. QUESTION ABOUT QUERIES

 From Maryann in Washington State

How can I search all the people in our database except the ones with
incomplete/expired/bad addresses? I actually have lots of search/query
questions, how can I get more help, I find that section of the manual
not very detailed or helpful

a)   you can search for all the people in your database except the ones
with incomplete/expired/bad addresses by going into the Record Selection
tool, checking the "Omit Bad/Expired Addresses" box ODB, and
clicking the Search button.

b)  Resources on Queries:
     http://organizenow.net/odb/odbquery.html
     http://neural.cs.nthu.edu.tw/jang/sandbox/www+db/download/tutorial.html



4. Question about Mergetext

Hello - I am trying to set up your db for WSCA, a local community radio =
station in Portsmouth NH.  We think what you have developed is pretty =
great.  Our problem is that we cannot seem to find the mergetext file =
that is required for thank you notes, etc.  I downloaded the file onto =
my home computer and to the computer at WSCA and neither download has =
the file.  We need to send out a bunch of thanks and are hoping there is =
a quick and easy solution to our problem.

Many thanks and best wishes, Helen

ANSWER:

Please go to "My Computer" on your PC, and from there, go to:

c:\program files\oc\

there should be a folder there called mergetext.

If you want to use the thank yous from more than one computer,
you must copy the mergetext folder to the same folder where
your ODB database is located.  When in doubt, you can go into
the wrench and click on Print Tip Sheet to obtain info on your
ODB installation.