System Management of FreeCEN

[Captainkirkdawson]

@PatReynolds @DeniseColbert Over the past 25 years FreeCEN has to all intents been managed by one person with some strong county coordinator assistants. Until 15 months ago this was all done using personal records with requests for minimal updates sent to lemon for changes to tables in Freecen1. Starting 15 months ago we introduced a number of online tools for the management of Freecen2 going forward. We provided Brenda with system administrator responsibilities. She made minimal use of the tools available because of their different nature. I made most of the management level changes when requested either by Geoff or Brenda With Brenda and my retirement it is essential we put Freecen2 management on a firm footing and avoid adhoc assignment of responsibilities here there and anywhere.

Freereg has 4 userids set aside for use by the project team so they can manage the project and people. Those userids are GENManager; David Mayall; technical (Inactive) REGManager; Eric Dickens; system administrator; Active SNDManager; Eric Dickens; data manager; Active SBManager; Steve Biggs; system administrator; Active There are many functional roles (15) within Freereg that are assigned to a wide variety of people.

Freecen has one userid set aside SNDManager; Sndmanager Freecen; system administrator; Inactive. Email address: sndmanager.freecen@gmail.com

It did have an additional one CENManager; It was assigned to Scott Murray until I was asked to remove it. There are many functional roles (17) within Freecen that are assigned to a very few people. Some roles are unfilled documentation_coordinator; genealogy_coordinator; general_communication_coordinator; publicity_coordinator; website_coordinator

I would like to recommend that we reestablish the following Userids GENManager; CENManager; SBManager; and assign them to people; (when those people leave we assign the Userid to the new person) That we assign SNDManager; to a real person

[geoffj-FUG]

Kirk Can you provide a short 1-2 sentence description of each role please? Is the SNDManager role different to what Rhoda is doing? Geoff

[Captainkirkdawson]

@geoffj-FUG Those 4 Userids are four people who make up the Management team for CEN: They all have the system_administator role within the project. Ideally
CENManager should be the person with overall responsibility for FreeCEN; the role undertaken by Brenda SNDManager should be the go to person on all syndicate and volunteer matters. SBManager should be the go to person on county and country matters. GENManager should be the go to person on documentation and general matters. The system has a number of roles that can be done by one or hundreds of people. A person can have a primary and some secondary roles. 'computer' Designed to permit automatic access; Used in reg by the Winreg app.(None at this time) 'researcher' (None at this time) 'pending' Special applicants usually potential technical people 'trainee' 0 not used in cen at this time; is used in reg while people are trained 'transcriber' 100s 'validator' 3 'checker' 50

'county_coordinator' 8 'master_county_coordinator' 8 'country_coordinator' 1

'data_manager' 1

'engagement_coordinator' 1 'contacts_coordinator' 1 'genealogy_coordinator' 0 'general_communication_coordinator' 0 'publicity_coordinator' 0

'documentation_coordinator' 0

'volunteer_coordinator' 1 'syndicate_coordinator' Several

'website_coordinator' 0 'technical' 'system_administrator' 6 'executive_director' 1

Rhoda currently is the only data_manager

[Captainkirkdawson]

@geoffj-FUG When I say go to person on all syndicate and volunteer matters. I mean that person makes changes to syndicate being open/closed; changing coordinators; adding syndicates and closing them. Works with volunteer_coordinator (and might even be the volunteer_coordinator if there is no one) tries to get new people in roles etc etc When I say go to person on county and country matters I mean that person makes changes to county coordinators and master county coordinators works with the data manage to ensure data issues are resolved. (May be the data manager if there isn't one) When I say go to person on documentation and general matters. I mean they look after all aspects of getting documentation and manuals onto the system. Works on publicity, fund raising . The CENManager moves it all along and does all of the preceding if there is no one else!!!

[geoffj-FUG]

Pat / Denise

I am having trouble getting my head around these roles as it involves a paradigm shift to what is happening at the moment. So I will be nutting this out as I type.

The best time to establish these roles is now, whilst we are restructuring. It means that new Coordinators are coming in with the updated structure and will not experience major change in the medium term.

My comments beside each role:

CENManager should be the person with overall responsibility for FreeCEN; the role undertaken by Brenda

I think that one of the problems we have at the moment is that this role has been drowned out by sheer volume of other work. My guess is that this is the same as the Chair of FreeCEN and it as an organisational role with lots of meetings including the scrum. This person should be a Coordinator but their Coordination role reduced to one County. That keeps them up to date with what is happening at the coalface but does not swamp either role.

SNDManager should be the go to person on all syndicate and volunteer matters.

This appears to be an over-arching syndicate manager. Given the current focus on Counties I believe that it can initially be rolled in with the SBManager role and done by the same person. When we get past our current restructure and start to allow syndicates to develop as they work in FreeREG then the roles could be split.

SBManager should be the go to person on county and country matters. I see this and the previous role as a trouble shooter who supports the other Coordinators. Am I correct? If so it is a role that should be done in conjunction with a reduced County Coordination load.

I see this new combined role as being akin to the current Master County Coordinator.

GENManager should be the go to person on documentation and general matters.

I see this as a role currently held within the development team. Once the new system beds down this will become less demanding. It can be done by an existing Coordinator.

Does that mean that they are the experts on the system?

Does it involve answering queries on the transcribers board that are currently being answered by bush lawyers?

So, I see these roles as being spread through the Coordination team. The holders of these roles would have a commensurately reduced Coordination role to compensate for the additional duties. Instead of a preferred maximum of 2 Counties they would have a maximum of one.

These roles should all be held by Coordinators who are embracing the new system.

New Coordinators now being recruited should have one or two Counties. These new roles should be picked up by existing established FC2 Coordinators. We need job descriptions to go with the Coordinator job description for these roles.

Geoff

[Captainkirkdawson]

@geoffj-FUG Why do we need special Userids? It is because 1) there are a number of actions that need the authority of a system administrator. e.g. assigning coordinator roles 2) We should not give all coordinators the role of system_administrator. They could destroy the database and the application by a single mistake. It should be restricted to the Management Team. 3) technical people as well as the Mangement Team and the FreeUKGen people have system_adninistrator roles. 4) The system needs a way of distinguishing between multiple (6-10) userids with the system_adninistrator role when sending out certain messages. I agree the need to be experienced and supportive coordinators. Yes they should speak to the transcribers in their role. The minimum number of Managers in the Team is 2 but preferably more. Remember a person can have multiple Userids (each with a different email address) You have a couple I have 5.

[PatReynolds]

Roles decided: CENmanager (temp: Pat) SNDmanager (temp: Denise) DATmanager Rhoda Role 4

• others tbd

[PatReynolds]

Hi @DeniseColbert I've done a first go-through - there are some items (e.g. on onboarding) which you may be able to improve.

[Captainkirkdawson]

I have set up SNDManager SNDManager@freeukgenealogy.org.uk CONManager CONManager@freeukgenealogy.org.uk DOCManager DOCManager@freeukgenealogy.org.uk GENManage GENManager@freeukgenealogy.org.uk DATManager DATManager@freeukgenealogy.org.uk WEBManager WEBManager@freeukgenealogy.org.uk

They all have the temporary password; once you have set up the email address and the forwarding we can send a password reset.

[Captainkirkdawson]

Amended your draft test accordingly

[DeniseColbert]

For collaborative clarification, I've placed the roles in this doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15IPQkT_JMxVmmJT7WvDTieqv4-evMzs8S112S6yj7bg/edit?usp=sharing

[DeniseColbert]

Awaiting @geoffj-FUG to indicate his agreement (or otherwise)

[PatReynolds]

I have found and looked at the FreeCEN2 roles document https://docs.google.com/document/d/15IPQkT_JMxVmmJT7WvDTieqv4-evMzs8S112S6yj7bg/edit?usp=sharing and there Geoff says he is already doing the work described in CONmanager, and the documentation point of DOCmanager.

He does not do the marketing/fundraising side of DOCmanager. I wonder if this needs clarification, e.g is this just providing those who e.g. send tweets about new transcriptions or ask seek funding to support acquisition of new images to transcribe with the information that they need to do this? any thoughts/corrections @DeniseColbert @Captainkirkdawson @geoffj-FUG ?

[Captainkirkdawson]

Personally I see no reason for DOCManager to have any specific role in fundraising. I was asked why we need to set up email addresses for these userids on freeukgenealogy.org.uk and not simply put in the persons email address in the userid. It is because every email address on the application must be unique. i.e. there cannot be 2 userids with the same email address. At the same time we want to have a person to have their management profile separate from their personal profile.