Happy New Year!
Over Christmas and New Year, a team of HQ staff and almost 60 volunteer testers from across the party as well as the team at Prater Raines have been hard at work testing Lighthouse, the party’s new Local Party Management tool.
The feedback from those users has been really encouraging. They’ve found the system really intuitive and easy to use.
It’ll also work for all parts of the party – from branches up to state parties and will solve a number of other long standing issues as well (thought not all on day 1!)
Of course, launch day is fast approaching – and you’ll all soon be able to get your hands on it.
This is how we’re planning to roll out Lighthouse:
Friday 10th January
The team will be deploying the final Alpha test version on Friday. This should have all of the features the release version has and we’ll be testing it over the weekend to make sure it’s as top notch as possible.
The launch version should (effectively) be a like-for-like replacement for the current portal. You’ll be able to do everything you can do now.
Monday 13th January
Once that testing has been completed, we’re planning to launch the closed Beta test of the new system on Monday 13th January. Anyone who was involved with the Alpha testing team, or anyone who has registered as a Super User by the 9th January will be sent a login.
You’re looking for an email from “Lighthouse” using the email address “[email protected]”. The subject line should begin “You’ve been granted access to”
This will be to the live system with all of your member, supporter and donor data present.
If you’re in this initial group and you spot anything that doesn’t look right with the system, just drop [email protected] an email with “Lighthouse” in the subject line and we’ll take a look.
Friday 17th January
We’re then planning to run that initial closed Beta test until Friday 17th January, when we hope to have updated the system again and from the following Monday 20th January, we’ll start adding on more users and move into an open Beta test.
The open Beta will keep running until we’re satisfied that all of our core milestones are in place and working as intended. We hope this will be completed in plenty of time for the Spring Conference in York.
These dates are obviously potentially subject to some slippage. We’ll update you if there is any slippage.
Training & support
The team has also been hard at work drafting step by step guides to every feature in the system.
We should have around a dozen of these task guides ready to go and we’re uploading them to www.libdems.org.uk/lighthouse as they’re finished. You’ll also be able to find them in the knowledgebase on Lighthouse.
We’ve also updated the Membership Geek Sheets to reflect the new system and will be producing more of these soon.
Lastly, we’re hosting some webinars to run people through how to use the system and answer your questions. You can find all of the details here: www.libdems.org.uk/lighthouse – and there’ll be more webinars coming.
We’re also hoping to be able to run training at all of the Regional and State conferences (and if you’re organising one of these, please keep a spot open for me!) this spring and will be running two sessions on how to use Lighthouse at Spring Federal conference.
Longer term
The launch next week won’t be the end of development on Lighthouse.
We’re planning to keep adding more features and refining things to make your lives easier and make managing your local party simpler.
Future developments that we’re looking at include allowing bulk import of donations from other party systems and making training that your members are doing visible to you.
If there’s anything else you’d like to see in the system, please do let us know and we can build it into our development roadmap.
* Greg Foster is the Liberal Democrats' Head of Technology
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6 Comments
Very interesting, except that no where does it actually say what this “lighthouse” does, except something rather vague about Local Party management. Ah, if I click on the link to the task guides, all will be clear, thought I. So I did, and found another log in request that required a personal pass word, which I don’t have.
I this all some elaborate metaphor for the way the party is run ? And is pre moderation enabled because you anticipate torrents of abuse (that’s a joke, btw, I think) ?
Chris
“And is pre moderation enabled because you anticipate torrents of abuse”
No. But because this is an internal party tool, I was being cautious. Perish the thought, but it is not unknown for people from other parties to pretend to be supporters of our party and create mischief on this sort of topic. Shocking I know, but it happens.
Hi Chris – it’s behind the website password login because it’s in the training section. Try using the reset password link with the email the Federal party sends emails to you on.
All members have an account created for them with that email.
Lighthouse is a replacement for Salesforce, so it will do all of what that currently does – help manage membership, donations. file PPERA returns, update executive members, see service fee payments etc.
We’ve already built in a lot of new features around member and donor management. We’re also intending to add dashboards, ways to manage internal selections for your party and more advanced features around branches.
It also does away with the current 2 user limit for Salesforce – your local party can create as many logins as you need with Lighthouse.
Hope that’s helpful!
For info, I’ve also been posting updates on the project in the local party officers Facebook group and the LDV forums and we have emailed local party officers with more information multiple times.
A week does not seem long enough for a parallel run aimed at getting practically all bugs out of the system.
Is there somewhere where it lists the total local party membership numbers?
When will member rebate and incentive bonus amounts be added?
David – you can use reports at the moment to show numbers. The dashboard feature is still in development.
And they will. We’re working on some changes that should give you more info than you had on Salesforce.
Frank – by the time we exit the beta, Lighthouse will have undergone five months of testing. It’s already had two.