Recent Updates

[Joshua Smith]

I'll post a message like this periodically, to keep you informed of new features and fixes to the web app.  If you have any questions, please reply to this post.

New Features:

Calendar View

This is on the left navigation, under "Features", and it gives you a 90 day look at both posted and regular meetings.  You can click through any meeting for details (if you click on a regular, not-yet-posted, meeting, you'll end up on the page for that board).

Email Notifications

The town clerk and board chair and clerk all get email notifications when meetings are scheduled or changed.  Now ordinary citizens can get these notifications as well.  They simply go to a board, and click the link to "Subscribe to Email Alerts for this Board".  If they already have an account in the system (for example, if they are chair of a different board), then they use that login.  Otherwise, they can create a new account themselves.  Note that when a town clerk creates an account for someone, the system will recognize when that person already has an account, and will simply add that person to the list for that clerk's town.  That way, people will keep their same password, etc.

Subcommittee Meetings

At Ellen's request, I've pulled subcommittee meetings up into the meeting list for the main board.  That way you can get a look at all the meetings related to a board without having to dive in to each subcommittee.  Since boards that use subcommittees tend to do almost all their work in those subcommittees, and since the general public usually will have no idea what is discussed in which subcommittee, this makes a lot of sense for usability.

Minutes Reminders

When a chair or clerk goes to the page for their board, the system puts a red warning at the top of the screen listing all the meetings which have "past due" minutes.  I defined "past due" as being more than 30 days since the meeting, and at least one meeting after the one without minutes (so they should have reviewed and approved them).  If this gentle reminder does not result in minutes being posted more regularly, the next step will be to add periodic email reminders.  But I'm hoping that the gentle approach will work.

Shared Agencies

I can now set regional agencies to be associated with multiple towns.  That means that posting for one of those towns will automatically show up on all the associated towns.

Board Web Site Links

Any board or agency can now have a link to an external web site on its page.

Bug Fixes:

IE Height / Scrolling:

I fixed a problem with IE6 where vertical scrolling kicked in to early, so people with taller screens could not take advantage of that extra screen space.  (In reality, most people suffering with IE6 probably have low-resolution screens anyway, which is why nobody ever reported this bug.  I just happened to notice it when I was testing the new calendar feature.)

-Joshua

[Town Government Support]

I forgot to mention one more new feature:

Conflict Detection

The page for a meeting now shows other meetings being held in the same
location and around the same time. Also, when you schedule a meeting,
the system will warn you if there might be a conflict at that
location.

[Julie Murkette]

Hmmm...that might create a little problem for us. We do have "conflicting"
meetings by your definition, but they are generally in different rooms. How
much of a problem will that actually be?
Julie

[Joshua Smith]

That's fine. (Also, two boards might be meeting in joint session, which would also look like a "conflict".) The messages are carefully worded to make sure the user understands that this is just a warning, and there isn't necessarily a problem.

This page is a typical example:

http://www.mytowngovernment.org/meeting/286001

The message that comes up when you post says:

This meeting may conflict with another meeting around the same time and place.
See the list of related/conflicting meetings below.

[Julie Murkette]

That's perfect...thanks.

[Peter DeGregorio]

I created a Council on Aging board and they have a regular coffee hour every two weeks and an exercise class every week as well as some special events throughout the year, none of which are subject to open meeting law. I tried overlay schedules but didn't really see how to edit one so I made three subcommittees COA Coffee, COA Exercise, COA Events. Per the description above I see the events in the main Council on Aging page. However, it doesn't seem to pick up the subcommittee meetings in the ICS feed for the super committee. Is this by design or is it an oversight?

[Peter DeGregorio]

Also, of the three subcommittees I made only one COA Events even has a calendar feed option. The other two COA Coffee and COA Exercise do not.
In making these subcommittees I renamed one and now there is a COA Coffee event on 4/15/16 that cannot be updated (I want to cancel it or delete it ... not subject to OML) but when I click it nothing happens. One possible cause is I was changing the name of the subcommittees during the time I was figuring out what to do.

[Peter DeGregorio]

I was able to cancel the meeting for COA Coffee this morning. The remaining issue is that the Council on Aging ICS feed does not include subcommittee meetings
http://www.mytowngovernment.org/board/5658954998743040

Has two subcommittee meetings (3 if you count the cancelled one)
The ICS feed is empty:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
PRODID:-//mytowngovernment.org
VERSION:2.0
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Montgomery\, MA Council on Aging Meetings
X-WR-CALDESC:Montgomery\, MA Council on Aging publishes their Open Meeting announcements at http://www.mytowngovernment.org/board/5658954998743040. This calendar summarizes those postings.
END:VCALENDAR

Peter DeGregorio

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[Joshua Smith]

On Apr 12, 2016, at 10:14 PM, Peter DeGregorio <peter.de...@gmail.com> wrote:

 it doesn't seem to pick up the subcommittee meetings in the ICS feed for the super committee. Is this by design or is it an oversight?

That is by design.

Most boards that have subcommittees would not want that.

You should be able to configure your calendar to show all the subcommittee meetings.

However, I’m not sure it makes any sense to do what you are doing. If they are not open meetings, why would you track them with this system. Why not just create a google calendar with those events, and blend the two ICS feeds together with your calendar control?

-Joshua

[Peter DeGregorio]

OK, but there's a problem: two of the three do not have "Calendar feed" on their page.
http://www.mytowngovernment.org/board/5691385894141952 missing "Calendar feed" link
http://www.mytowngovernment.org/board/5688547054977024 has "Calendar feed" link
http://www.mytowngovernment.org/board/5691385894141952 missing "Calendar feed" link

I'm OK with any solution that works but right now due to this problem there is no solution. Can it be fixed?

I am tracking those meetings in the system because the system allows "meetings not subject to open meeting laws" and the COA happens to have these regular events and we're using MTG for the town calendar and it is very easy to use. I don't want to use Google calendar at all as that would make three account names and passwords and three places to work in for my users. The benefits of MTG far outweigh the hassle of making them use two accounts (WordPress for posting news items and updating their pages and MTG for meeting schedules, agendas and minutes).

Thanks for your help. MTG is a fantastic website.

Peter DeGregorio

[Joshua Smith]

My guess is that you have those boards set to “Postings are done on an agency website” which means there should be any postings on MTG. Set that to “Postings are done here"

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[Peter DeGregorio]

Oh OK perfect thank you. Would it be possible to delete COA Events? There is nothing scheduled and I realize I can just have those ad hoc type events done in the main COA. If not no problem.

Peter DeGregorio

[Joshua Smith]

Nope. Nothing is ever deleted from the system, as a matter of policy. You can mark them as “cancelled” and put a note in the Agenda if you like.

[Peter DeGregorio]

It was the subcommittee with nothing ever scheduled I'd rather have deleted not any meetings. But I understand if it can't be deleted and will be more careful next time.

Peter DeGregorio

[Peter DeGregorio]

Hi I was just in the site doing some admin and noticed there is a "Delete this board" checkbox ... So I used it on that entity I created by mistake and it disappeared, as expected. Thanks.

Peter DeGregorio

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[Joshua Smith]

That’s been there all along. It doesn’t actually delete it. It just moves it to an “inactive” list so it doesn’t show up.

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