Database Requirements
September 2005

 

 

At the heart of the Fellowship are people and their relationships with each other.  At the heart of the administration of the Fellowship is information -- information about people and information in the form of an epochal revelation.  Our mission involves the integration of persons with the spiritual stimulus of the revelation.  We do this by managing information.  Our challenge is to order our information resources in such a manner that they can be efficiently used for our mission to the end that our members are strengthened in their inner lives and equipped to more effectively work for the emergence of the kingdom in our world.

 

We need to think about our task in terms of an information paradigm.  The commodity with which we are involved is information.  We need to order and store this information in such a manner that it supports and facilitates our mission of making particular segments of this information available to increasing numbers of people.  Information that we gather and manage about these people will enable us to do a better job of mobilizing more workers for the revelation and strengthening supportive social networks.

 

The information we need to manage includes addresses of interested persons, financial information about contributions, information about the service rendered to the organization by various individuals, the text of an epochal revelation, indexes and study aids, an archive of historical documents, conference presentations, audio and video recordings, photographs, records of conference registrants, records of book and other product orders, legal documents, minutes of meetings -- all of this is part of the information collection that we need to manage. 

 

The website is a database.  The accounting system is a database.  The mailing list is a database.  The list of General Councilors is a database.  Each conference has registration records which are separate databases.  File cabinets containing old correspondence form a database.  A file of old bank statements is a database.  Files of purchase orders form a database.  Files of receipts for committee expenses form a database.  The list of subscribers to the socadmin email list forms a database, as do each of the other email lists we administer.  Records of organizational expenses form a database.  Archives of organizational publications form a database.  The list of autodebit contributors is a database.  The collection of scans of incoming mail forms a database.  Every Society keeps a database of information about members. 

 

Workflow consists of the way in which information enters the organization, passes from person to person, is acted upon, passes into one of these respositories,  and/or is made available to some external recipient such as a member.  For this reason, office reorganization and database development are intimately related. Office reorganization is about optimizing human interaction with information.  Database development is about organization our information for efficient access.

 

As the organization grows, managing all these different databases becomes increasingly cumbersome.  As the organization grows, more and more individuals require access to some of this information.

 

We should end up with three separate collections of information:

1. Organizational archive stored electronically and available via web server
2. Paper stored in a physical location

3. Information about members stored electronically and available via web server

 

(Note: It might be useful to have a link between numbers 1 and 2 above enabling someone to find organizational information such as contact information about the author of a particular document on the website.)

 

 

 

Some of this information is highly confidential and should be accessed by only a few individuals.  Much of this information should be easily available to the entire readership. 

 

We are not simply solving problems of today; we are attempting to create an administrative and technical infrastructure which can solve today's problems as well as provide a foundation for efficient organizational service on into the next generation or farther.

 

It is important to move forward with the creation of a virtual organization.  In the future many more members of the EC and officers are likely to need to travel.  We need a system that lets us administer and function from any geographic location.  This also opens the door to participation by individuals in other countries.  This is important for the future of our organization.

 

 

Workflow and administrative needs must first be understood because we will be creating a virtual model of our information processing procedures.  We need to begin with a careful evaluation of all of our operations because we don't want to simply build a virtual model of present dysfunctionality.

 

 

Several aspects to the situation:

            1. The design of the backend database

            2. Web based forms for adding, deleting, and editing information

            3. Static reports uploaded to web pages at regular intervals

            4. Dynamic reports available to qualified individuals

 

Needs:

 

            1. An architecture that make it easy to have multiple levels of security and access

            3. Secure backup and reliable restore procedures; must be tested regularly

            4. A library of standard administrative reports

            5. Database needs to be fully integrated with POS/EFT system

            6. Committee chairs should be able to log on to password protected pages and track their expenditures and budgets.

            7. Must be integrated with fully automated email system; autoresponder for new inquiries

            8. Must be able to integrate with data sent from web site; privileged administrative logons, specialized indexing, form processing, financial transactions, conference registrations, etc.

            9. Societies should be able to keep their own records current; should be able to create mailing lists of their members.

            10. Should track organizational service -- Society officer, GC member, etc. including expiration of term

            11. Should have product ordering capabilities -- books, CDs, DVDs, etc.

            12. Comprehensive documentation that needs to be maintained as the system changes

 

In house vs outhouse

 

Rather than outsourcing the development of critical systems I much prefer doing it inhouse, seeking the advice of consultants when necessary.  It is nice to be able to avoid ongoing costs whenever possible.  It is also good to have people inhouse who know the whole system.  Without this it can become necessary to constantly pay for little things that need to be done.