January 12 2023

Volunteer Systems: D’oh!

National Governance, National Operations    5 Comments    , , , , , ,

On the heels of my last blog post, I have an update regarding Volunteer Systems 2.0. I’m not going to rehash the previous post, so if you’re confused as to what I’m referring to and what I’m about to share, then head back to January 1st to be filled in.

Near the end, I wrote:

It was built on the wrong architecture, and it’s filled with shoddy and patchwork coding.  So in my opinion, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Either ditch the whole thing and look to another solution which will cost even more money, or continue to limp along like we are now and toss money down the drain. Neither one of these decisions is palatable, but one needs to made, and soon.

Little did I know that a couple of days later, my question would be answered via a coincidental statement by GSUSA, and it wasn’t the one I was hoping for. GSUSA basically said what we already knew — that VS 2.0 is made up of many out-of-the-box IT solutions all cobbled together for a custom IT platform. They made an analogy to a car and said that parts from all sorts of different models were hammered together, and well, the car doesn’t run very well overall. Ya think? And when attempts are made to fix things like the engine, it causes problems in other areas. Hmm, where have we read something like this before? Continue reading

January 1 2023

Volunteer Systems 2.0 Tasks Me

National Operations    6 Comments    , , , , ,

VS 2.0 tasks me

Happy New Year!

On New Year’s Eve, I decided to knock some things off my To Do list with one being to register my daughter and I for an upcoming council event.  Fast forward forty-five minutes later, and all I had to show for my efforts were frustration and an epic email to my council’s Customer Care department documenting yet another major bug in GSUSA’s IT platform, otherwise known as Volunteer Systems 2.0 (and formerly known as CEI).  I’ve railed about it many times before and documented how much it’s cost so far in these posts:

I’ll reproduce the email to Customer Care here, and then afterward, I’ll update us on how much has been spent on this IT system over a period of NINE years (hint: $169 million). Sorry in advance for the blurry pictures.  I originally pasted them in the email but copying them back into a saved file didn’t help the resolution. The grammar isn’t great either but I was in a hurry to get this done because I had an appointment I needed to get to, and this took up way too much time.  Anywho: Continue reading