Category: Uncategorized
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Remote Working Concepts and Tools
My friends at LegalServer pushed out a web training to their customers last week to offer ideas about how nonprofit law firms can enable their staff to work remotely. During the time of coronavirus social distancing, these ideas may serve you. They gave me permission to share it. http://Click here to watch the recorded training…
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My Favorite Software Applications
Software I love (and maybe couldn’t live without): Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive…and many other Google products. I’m a big fan of G-Suite and promote it whenever I have the opportunity. It is free for non-profit organizations and relatively simple to administer. Plus, for email, you’ll not find better built-in, effortless spam detectors. Trello – frequently…
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Making Data Migration Pieces Fit
One of my favorite parts of a new system implementation is data migration. No lie. Field mapping – the process of equating a field in your old system to a field or fields in your new system – is like a big puzzle. I love playing detective and putting all of the pieces together. Sometimes…
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LegalServer CMS Topic: Data Migration and Mapping Questions
Here is a list of specific questions I ask about the old case management system data when working through the data mapping process for a migration to a new LegalServer system. This is certainly not a comprehensive list; just the items that have most frequently tripped me up over the dozens of LegalServer migration projects I’ve…
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LegalServer CMS Topic: Changing to the New User Interface
After doing a handful of new user interface installations for various LegalServer case management system clients, I’d like to offer my Trello notes board for people who are trying to tackle it themselves. Go on! Just click the link and you should land on a public Trello board that’s all yours. Here are a few…
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Let Go and Let LastPass
After last year’s Heartbleed virus scare, I started using a password manager application. With a growing list of clients who entrust me with access to their client-filled data systems on the web, it was simply getting too risky and too complicated to maintain secure passwords on my own. I could no longer be my own…
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Funding Strategic Outcomes
This is my third (and probably last) post about strategic funder initiatives. Specifically, I’m focused on foundations as the funding entity, since that is what I am most familiar with at this point in my career. The last two posts on this topic were about grantees’ need for technical assistance and ideas about how to pull…
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Choosing a Consultant
It’s a sweet gig being a consultant. I can go into an organization and get to know them a bit, recommend some data solutions, write up a lot of official looking charts, complex specifications and processes, collect my check, then pull a Kaiser Soze. Poof! And just like that, I’m gone before management has a…
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Vision Assistance Tools
I recently had the opportunity to learn a little bit about software for vision impaired assistance. First, I’d like to point out that after 11 years of software training, I’ve never needed to help make accommodations like this, which is probably remarkable. That’s why I’m posting about it. I’m just sure that software trainers everywhere…
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Take Time to Document
You don’t have to be a professional project manager or a technical writer to write useful documentation. No system is permanent or maintenance-free and neither are the people who build them. When configuring a data entry form, designing data tables, Excel spreadsheets, or any other functional information tracking system, keep notes on what you do. Develop…
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Plan a Great Technical Assistance Project
This is a follow-up post to Foundation-funded Technical Assistance Projects from September 17th. That post was mostly about why nonprofit social service organizations need technical assistance from their foundation funders. At the end of it, I heedlessly promised to write about some of my ideas for what a foundation can do to help their grantees embrace…
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When is a go-live alive?
With most new information system implementations, there’s a standard checklist of tasks that must always be completed: Discovery process and documentation – check! Timeline and milestones clearly communicated to ALL stakeholders -check! Data conversion and verification – check! Configure data entry forms and processes – check! Build standard reports – check! Write user guides and…
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Handling the Difficult Ones
I recently posted about the importance of identifying your project land mines – the difficult participants in your project. Most of the time, identifying the people who are most likely to derail your project is easy. How to deal with those people is more difficult. Is there intent? My endless optimism and high expectations (which…
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Survey Says!
It’s a good idea to survey your system end users from time to time. I’m admittedly not up to date on all the latest online survey tools, but Survey Monkey has always worked well for me. Survey Monkey is intuitive for responders and affordable for month-to-month service. I liked the conditional logic configuration option and…
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Foundation-funded Technical Assistance Projects
The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) recently published a report about how foundations can assist their grantee organizations in a more holistic fashion. The findings in the article were powered by surveying nonprofit directors and other decision makers. The article, titled “Nonprofit Challenges: What Foundations Can Do“, did not contain any exceptionally surprising conclusions, but it…
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Leverage Your Technical Assistance
Here are some ideas for contributing to funder-provided technical assistance projects and make them successful. Devote an interested staff member to be the point person for the project. Depending on the nature and scope of the project, this person may not need to be particularly technical in nature or skillset. Many people have a knack…
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Data Privacy Policies and Procedures
I am certainly no expert on data security. I read alarming articles about what a dangerous place the web can be for confidential client data. I admit that I find all of it overwhelming and a little bewildering. Everything seems to change so quickly. It’s challenging to stay on top of all the new threats.…
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Focus, People! Record Your Web Conferences
The obvious reason to record your software training sessions using web conferencing tools is for use as a future training tool. A while back, I started using ReadyTalk to do this on web conference training sessions and making the video available to participants afterward. It’s a common practice. And a good one. Recently, however, I…
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Who Are Your Project Land Mines?
Change scares folks. Technology scares folks. A change in technology can cause this reaction: (that’s a Leaf-Tailed Gecko…he might be friendlier than he appears) Before constructing a solid project plan with specific incremental milestones, someone must conduct a detailed discovery process. Discovery is a catch-all term for general research and discussions with organizational leaders, management…
Lea Remigio 