Jason Powell - Church IT and Other Musings

sticky post: Church IT Info and Links...

Are you involved in IT for your church/ministry? If so you really need to check out our active Church IT community at http://churchITnetwork.com. Here you'll find other like minded IT peers from across the globe sharing tools and best practices in efforts to push the Kingdom forward.  ALSO MAKE SURE you're subscribed to the Church IT enewsletter. Here are a few select quick links as well:
- Listen/join the Church IT Podcast
- Join the 24/7 Church IT Chat Room

2016 National Church IT Network details annouced!

We just wrapped up the 2015 National Church IT Roundtable ... and with that announced the location and dates for our 2016 event!

Add this to your calendar NOW!  The biggest gathering of church IT and web/dev peeps will be 

OCT 10-12 at Newspring Church in Anderson, SC!

More deets will show up over on www.churchITnetwork.com 

Microsoft Adds New Religious Exemption Clarification to Anti-Discrimination Policy

My buddy, Nick Nicholaou, announced last Friday, at the Church IT Roundtable, that Microsoft had changed their anti-discrimination policy language.  And it's a GREAT change for religious organizations!

Essentially, their policy used to say, to be eligible for non-profit/charity pricing, organizations could not use any discrimination in their hiring processes with the exception of "other than as allowed by law."  Some churches did not feel comfortable with that language and thus would not sign that they were in full compliance with Microsoft's anti-discrimination policy and thus could not get charity pricing.

Now, Microsoft clearly spells out exemptions for religious orgs...

Per http://www.microsoft.com/about/corporatecitizenship/en-us/nonprofits/whos-eligible/

Microsoft values and respects individual and cultural differences and is committed to providing an inclusive environment that is welcoming and free from discrimination.

Therefore, organizations are not eligible to participate in the Microsoft corporate citizenship nonprofit giving program if they have a policy or mission of discrimination in hiring, compensation, access to training or services, promotion, termination, and/or retirement based on race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability, gender identity or expression, marital status, pregnancy, sexual orientation, political affiliation, union membership, or veteran status.

The only exception to this policy is for religious organizations that are exempt from laws that prohibit such discrimination.

*Microsoft is in the process of applying this updated anti-discrimination policy across all of its giving policies; this process is expected to be completed by the close of calendar year 2015.

Microsoft also added more language about their reasoning behind this new change...

Per http://www.microsoft.com/about/corporatecitizenship/en-us/nonprofits/faq/

Why is Microsoft creating an exception for religious organizations that discriminate? Are you giving special treatment to religious organizations?

Microsoft’s policy is intended to be consistent with United States federal laws to the extent they provide exemptions for religious organizations, based on the organization’s religious doctrine and beliefs, from anti-discrimination laws or regulations related to hiring or access to services.

We are a religious organization, but we do not know if we are exempt from laws that prohibit discrimination. How can we know for sure?

The laws or exemptions that apply to your organization depend on your organization and its practices. Some commonly considered issues include hiring based on religious affiliation or beliefs (under Title VII to the Civil Rights Act of 1964) and the U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding same sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges). If you are uncertain about how federal anti-discrimination laws may or may not apply to your organization, we suggest contacting an attorney to request a legal opinion.

Is my organization required to provide evidence of compliance with Microsoft’s anti-discrimination policy to be eligible to participate?

Microsoft expects organizations to honestly and accurately certify the anti-discrimination statement during the eligibility validation process. Microsoft does not require nor collect evidence of compliance with the anti-discrimination policy, nor does Microsoft make legal judgments of the accuracy of the certification or applicability of anti-discrimination law to your organization’s practices. As always, however, Microsoft reserves the right to grant or deny an organization's application or participation at any time, for any reason.

So, if prior your church didn't feel they could fully comply with Microsoft's charity eligibility requirements, there should be nothing stopping you now!  Well, unless you're not yet a 501c3 :-)

Huge thanks to Nick for his work with Microsoft to help make this change happen!

2015 National Church IT Roundtable

Wow ... I've not posted to this blog since last fall?  

Anyways ... our big National Fall Church IT conference is about here!

Still time to register to join 300 of your church IT and web peers to talk tips, tools, best practices.

ALL THE DEETS AT http://churchITnetwork.com 

2014 National Church IT & WebDev Conference Oct 22-24 - BE THERE!

What's the best way to learn IT & WebDev best practices as it relates to the Church/Ministry space?
Attend the National Church IT Roundtable this October in Peoria, IL!

Join 250+ Church staff and volunteers from across the country this Fall to learn from knowledge experts, connect/share with your peers, and get a big shot of encouragement!  Now in it's 8th year, this un-conference continues to grow in size and impact.

This will be our 2nd year combining forces with RefreshCache to cover all things Web/Dev. 
Wanna talk virutalization, VLAN routing, VoIP?  We got that!
Wanna talk jquery, .net, UX/UI?  We got that too!

Registration is ONLY $75 for all 3 days and includes most of your meals!  You won't find a conference with better ROI, PERIOD!

Registration is open so signup and spread the word.

LOTS more details HERE

Hope to see you all this Fall!

Addressing The Consumerization of IT aka GCC's Transition to Macs and Mobility - Part 6 - Is AppleCare worth the cost??

This is a continuation of a blog series I started back on April 2013. You may want to start reading there if you're new to this blog series.  Part 1

Part 6 ... Mac Repairs and Extended AppleCare
This week marks the 1st time, since early 2011, we've had to pay for a mac repair.  Though this particular air was still under it's 3yr applecare, it had water damage.  $800 later and Apple replaced virtually all the components...so it's kinda like a new refurb LOL.  We've also had very few instances where we've actually needed applecare...11 times in almost 3 1/2 years. 
So this has raised the question:
Is it worth buying the 3yr applecare warranty at $199/air and $279/mbp15???

Let's look at the data...

2011 - 25 Macs purchased
1st year repairs = 2 (1 was an accidental screen break miraculously fixed at no cost!)
2nd year repairs = 2
3rd year repairs = 3
** All Macs from 2011 are now outside their 3yr applecare **
2012 - 29 Macs purchased
1st year repairs = 0
2nd year repairs = 3 (1 was the accidental water damage at $800 repair cost)
3rd year repairs = 0
2013 - 9 Macs purchased
1st year repairs = 0
2nd year repairs = 0
2014 - 9 Macs purchased so far
1st year repairs = 1

Leaving out accidental damages our totals are
1st year repairs = 2
2nd year repairs = 4
3rd year repairs = 3

So as you might expect, especially for laptops, we're seeing more repairs AFTER year 1.  2 repairs were covered under the included applecare that comes with each Mac, and 7 repairs covered by the extended 3yr applecare we purchased.  Now let's do some rough math. 

We've purchased 72 macs (mostly refurbs) since March 2011 (Production Arts purchased their own Macs prior to 2011).  They were not all airs, but for easy math we'll say they were.  72 macs times $200 for 3yr applecare = $14400
Let's say our 7 extended warranty repair jobs would have been $800 each (they were usually much lower) ... 7 x $800 = $5600. 
$14400 - $5600 = $8800 = at minimum 12 more repairs before matching what we've spent on applecare.
Granted, we didn't buy all 72 Macs at the same time so a chunk of them can still fail inside their 3yr window and incure no cost to us, but how many more will likely fail?
Since the macs bought in 2011 are now outside of their 3yr applecare, we can make some predictions.  Out of those 25 Macs, 5 required repair after year 1.
25 Macs times $200 3yr applecare = $7500
5 repairs at $800/ea could have cost us at most = $4000 (Again, this number is an overestimation)
In other words, we spent about twice as much for applecare than what repairs would have cost us.  Boo!  Of course that's a risk you have to weigh.  We had no data to go off of at the time, so we err'd on the side of caution and bought the 3yr warranty.  Now that we have over 3yrs of data to go off of, we can make some much better decisions ... meaning the data is telling us we should no longer be purchasing 3yr applecare :-)
However, there is a slight catch.  In 2011, had we NOT purchased applecare we would have saved $7500, BUT you have to accurately budget for future unknown repairs ... which for those 2011 purchases we estimated the repair costs (see above math) to be $4000 2-3 years after their purchase.
Again assuming a repair would cost $800 and had we NOT purchased 3yr applecare for any Mac
2011 repair costs = $0
2012 repair costs = $0
2013 repair costs = 3x$800 = $2400
2014 repair costs = 4x$800 = $3200 ... and 2014 isn't over yet
Moving forward I should probably keep a $4000 budget line for mac repairs each year, especially since we now have 25 Macs with expired 3yr applecare.

Another factor in the equation - self repairs.  I keep using a high estimate of $800 for our local Apple Store to do repair jobs.  The reality is that we could do many of these repairs ourselves for much less $.  For instance, I have an estimate from the Genius bar for $567 to replace a 256GB SSD.  WHA?  We can buy several SSD's for that cost and it's pretty simple to swap them.  Now for stuff like screens and logic boards, we'd probably let Apple take care of those and just bite our tongue at the premium they'd charge.  The easy stuff we'd handle in house.

Apple does have a self service program which we signed up for years ago, but we've yet to actually DO anything useful with it.  Guess it's time to dig back into that and see how we can leverage it :-)

Summary?  So far, for our environment, our data is telling us to STOP buying 3yr applecare.  Instead we need to budget about $3000-4000/yr to cover repairs.  This will save us several thousand dollars each year, which if our purchasing and repair trends stay the same, we'll end up saving $10,000-15,000 in 3yrs time.  Yeah, that's a lot of dollars we can invest in other projects!

I'm very curious who else has done a similar exercise and do your results match up with what we're seeing?

That's it for Part 6.  I'll plan to do one more final post to wrap up this blog series.  Stay tuned :-)

** I decided to close comments on this blog post and direct folks to comment over here.

Addressing The Consumerization of IT aka GCC's Transition to Macs and Mobility - Part 5

This is a continuation of a blog series I started back on April 2013. You may want to start reading there if you're new to this blog series.  Part 1

Part 5 - Mac Hardware and Software

Wow, it's hard to believe we're into year 4 of this transition to Macs and mobility ... time flys!!  Surprisingly, we've made only a few edits to our mac hardware and software standards since we started this journey.  Also to note, after 3 years, the macs are still going strong giving us no reason to believe they won't give us 5 years of service.  We do see some reduced battery longevity, but so far it's not newsworthy.  It will be interesting to see how the batts are holding up this time next year.  We also see folks originally lobbying for a 15" or 17" macbookpro now asking to trade in for a 13" air or 13" retina mbpro.  Heh, told 'em so ;-)

Hardware
On the hardware side we still use the 13" air as our default ... still i5, we've bumped ram to 8GB, and in 2014 we up'd to the 512GB SSD.  Yes, we're still mainly buying Apple refurbs when possible.  I predict we'll see more interest in the 13" retina mbpro unless Apple releases a 13" retina air (yes please!).  I've been using a 13" retina mbpro for over a year and really love it!  The extra pixels are worth the slight weight and thickness tradeoff.

External Monitors - most staff, especially air users, have an external monitor, which is typically purchased by their dept (through IT of course).  Some are using old 17" LCD's we left in place when we removed a desktop PC, some are using Dell 24" LCD's, and some are using the really slick 27" Apple Cinema display.  While the Apple display is a whoppin' $799, it really is worth it when you consider everything it provides: amazing resolution, charges your laptop, provides a Gig network port, thunderbolt and usb ports, webcam and audio.

Software
We don't use any imaging software for mac deployment.  That could change someday, but so far we've not had enough pain to make us head down that road. Here's essentially what happens when we get in a new mac:

New mac comes in ...

• record the serial number off the box into inventory (we use smartsheet) and write end users name on box as another form of initial record keeping.  Yes, we have a GIANT stack of boxes in storage!
• power on (duh!)
• join to public wifi
• enter our TechOps info and user/pass
• UNCHECK NATURAL SCROLLING!!!!
• run software updates
• name computer (jpowellair, jpowellmbp13r, jpowellmbp15, etc)
• enable remote management and remote login
• create another admin user account matching the end users AD user/pass
• enable guest account ... uncheck parental controls (we want a theif to be able to easily log in so we can hopefully have time to track their location)
• login as the end user
• uncheck natural scrolling
• join to private wifi via ruckus zero-IT portal (uses end users AD creds)
• require password from sleep
• keyboard > shortcuts > change to all controls (allows you to tab between all fields)
• finder preferences ... check all
• shared drive and media drive shortcuts
• add needed printers (we use a mac mini running OSX server as our mac print server)
• install our custom LogMeIn free client (part of LogMeIn Central)
• Office 2011 install and run updates
• Outlook 2011 setup
• CrashplanProE install (our backup software)
• ESET NOD32 install (our antivirus softare)
• print and attach a label of the machinename to underside (silver label tape)
• For some users like Finance, we install and setup the free Microsoft Remote Desktop app. This app combined with a Remote Desktop Gateway config gives users one-click access to a terminal session desktop or published app, like Great Plains, from on or offsite.  Bye bye VPN!
• handoff to happy end user with training as needed

Sounds like a lot of steps, but it's really a quick process.  We could script some of it, but again there's not been enough pain to warrant the effort to figure out scripting ;-)'

If end user needs a paid app from the appstore installed we ask them to create an apple ID with their church email address.  Their dept pays for any additional apps.  For stuff like Adobe CreativeCloud we manage licenses and charge depts for new users and renewals.

What about iPads?
If a user needs an iPad we will make the purchase for them (again usually a refurb), but their Department is on the hook to pay for it.

So that'll wrap up part 5 of this series that now spans 2 years (facepalm).  Part 6 will be about Applecare and is almost ready to publish.  It's got some pretty revealing information that I think you'll want to check out :-)

Addressing The Consumerization of IT aka GCC's Transition to Macs and Mobility - Part 4

Here in part 4 I'll talk about our initial test phase and staff rollout.

One of our big unknowns surrounded staff wanting to switch from Windows to Mac ... many having never touched a mac prior. What kind of intial training would they require? How long would it take the average user to be proficient on a mac?  Could we find other mac savvy staff that would be 1st level support for newbies so IT wasn't flooded with basic questions?

I personally had tried switching to mac only a few years prior and ended up back on a Dell, but I knew I had to dive back into it 100% so mid Feb 2010 I ordered our 1st 13" Air for myself and got a 15" macbookpro for Justin (he was using a dog old 1st gen intel macbookpro).  You learn a lot when you're forced to give up familiarity :-)

Our beta test group comprised of Tim Stevens (Exec Pastor, Windows power user, no mac experience), Kem Meyer (my boss and Comm Director, Windows power user, no mac experience), Jami Ruth (Comm Coordinator and long time mac user at her prior job and at home).  They all got their new macs right at the end of March giving them time to play over Spring Break (1st week of April).  Part of being in the test group was required feedback to the entire group about questions, fun findings, frustrations, etc.  Our Tech Director at the time was also invited to join the feedback loop since he was a very savvy OSX user.  As questions and frustrations surfaced, Justin and I would make notes into a make shift FAQ list.  By the end of June we felt we had address all the main issues and our newbie mac users were doing great!  Time to start the rollout to the rest of the staff!

Recall from Part 1, that for 3 years prior we had ZERO computer purchases or upgrades because the economy tanked.  This meant EVERYONE was running on old hardware and would LOVE to get something new.  Problem was I had a limited budget. This meant only about 1/3 of our staff would get upgraded in 2011 and it was my task to figure out who that would be (gulp!). 

I looked at many many variables, had lots of discussions, and ultimately ended up with a list that I shared with my boss and our Exec Pastor to get approval.  Next step was discussing upgrades with dept heads to get their input based on possible staffing role changes, needs, etc.  Then finally, we got to "surprise" selected staff with their upgrade news :-)  I was not surprised when everyone on the list chose a mac vs PC even after explaining there's a learning curve jumping platforms and some limitations with Outlook 2011 for Mac.  Of course some of them were already mac users, or had macs at home...and if so they were tagged as being part of our go-to team for the other Mac newbies around them.  Also recall from Part1 that we required anyone switching to mac to get supervisor signoff that they could do their job on a mac with mac software.  Publisher was the biggest hurdle a few switches had to workaround.  Most of them just ended up using Pages.

Finally, in August 2011 we made a large purchase of mostly 13" Airs and thus began GCC's transition to 'chose your platform' and mobility.

Naturally, before we got to August, Justin and I had been pondering how we were going to deploy and manage all these new macs.  We talked to other Church IT peers, researched enterprise and academic solutions, and looked at what had and had not been done over the years with the 30ish macs already on the GCC network that were not under the IT umbrella.  In Dec 2010 we dropped from a 3 man IT shop down to 2 and knew we'd remain at 2 for a long time to come.  What we couldn't afford to do was create a headache for ourselves OR our end users.  We decided on the KISS (keep-it-stupid-simple) approach.  We would NOT join the macs to Active Directory, instead they would be what I'd call "free range" devices...which is what the macs already on our network had been for years.

To "manage" our macs we landed on using LogMeIn Central ($300/yr) with the free LogMeIn client and Apple's Remote Desktop ($79).  LogMeInCentral with the free LMI client turned out to be such a big win that we started putting the free client on every machine ... and today it's part of our software build for both Mac and PC.  LMI Central creates a special client installer package for your org so install is super quick and easy.  If you're not using LMI Central with the free client you really should check it out...especially if you are multisite.  Apple's Remote Desktop app is a sweet solution

In Part 5 I'll list out how we config our macs for end users along with software we include.  I plan to then wrap everything up in Part 6 sharing what we've learned and changes we've made since rolling out this transition in 2011.

 

TechSoup's Microsoft Nonprofit Licensing Things To Note

Continuing from my prior post about the huge TechSoup Microsoft announcement for Churches ...

Here are a few nuggets that I've found helpful to note.  Mainly I'm putting them here on my blog so I can refer back to them in the future ... if others benefit that's a BONUS! ;-)

The limitations of the TechSoup Microsoft Software Program can be summarized down to the following:

Within a 2yr window which starts with your 1st purchase...

You can purchase up to 50 licenses per Title Group across 10 Title Groups max...this includes server cals.
You can purchase 5 server software licenses
No, you can not renew Software Assurance via TechSoup. You must use an authorized charity reseller for renewals.  However, in most cases it'll be cheaper just to purchase again from TechSoup unless you're over the above quanity limits.
After your 2yr window, your licensing allotment resets to zero.

If you want the read the full monte, TechSoup has a great page explaining the above in detail along with handy purchasing examples http://www.techsoup.org/support/articles-and-how-tos/microsoft-eligibility#allotments

TechSoup Microsoft software includes Software Assurance ... which is awesome!
Basically, that'll give you upgrade rights for 2 years, usually home use rights for employees, and online training resources.

I'll update this with other helpful nuggets I or other church IT peers uncover...so if you have nugget to share leave a comment below :-)

Fall 2013 National Church IT Roundtable - 4 weeks away!

Time is flying!

In just 4 weeks the Fall 2013 National Church IT Roundtable will kickoff at Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, KS!

Have you registered yet?  Dude, it's only $75 and that includes your all your meals from Monday until through lunch Weds!  If you've been to ANY other conference you know that's a steal of a deal!

Where else can you hang with about 200 other Church IT/Web/Dev men and women from all across the country to talk shop and best practices, hear from subject matter experts, and walk away from the event encouraged for another season of ministry!

Register today and bring your peers!

 

HUGE news for Churches! Faith-based Organizations now Eligible for TechSoup discounts and Free Office365!

Before joining the Church IT ranks 10 years ago, I was the IT Director for a large school system for four years.  In that time, I became very familiar with TechSoup.org from chatting with my EDU IT peers.  TechSoup offered crazy software discounts to non-profits even if quantities were limited.

When I came to GCC I was surprised and bummed to learn that although our church was a 501c3, TechSoup had some fine print that excluded 501c3 Faith-based organizations.  So while we were still able to purchase Microsoft licenses at their nice non-profit discount through places like Dell, CDW, CCB, etc, it wasn't the crazy discounts available through TechSoup.  Very recent example:  A few weeks ago we purchased 2 SQL Server Standard CORE licenses for $2723 at charity pricing.  On TechSoup that would have been $430!!!  Yeah, BIG difference!

Then last week TechSoup made the HUGE announcement that Faith-Based orgs would be eligible for both the crazy Microsoft discounts available on TechSoup as well as the free Office365 E1 plan for Nonprofits!  Announcement

So here are the steps and process we went through at GCC ...

I immediately created an account on TechSoup and started their qualification process as organization type: Religious Activities - Church, synagogue, etc
You'll have to fax or email some paperwork to TechSoup, namely your IRS Determination letter to prove you're a 501c3.

Now, some people have gotten tripped up during the TechSoup application process because it has an anti-descrimination policy ... and yes, Churches do discriminate to a degree. Per the TechSoup website:

TechSoup Global is an equal opportunity agency. It will not allow discrimination based upon age, ethnicity, gender, national origin, disability, race, size, religion, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic background, other than as allowed by law.  link

However, if you read the statement carefully it clearly states "other than as allowed by law."  Federal and State regulations allow churches to legally "discriminate", therefore a faith-based organization would be qualified under TechSoup's policy.  If this were not so, why would TechSoup make such a big announcement to the faith-based community?  Logic would dictate TechSoup had already made internal provisions for faith-based orgs to qualify, but if you really need to see it spelled out the above should set your mind at ease.  Knowing I was going to blog about this, I did run the above by our Finance Director as another point of reference.  He agreed with my asessment :-)
Of course, I'm not a legal expert nor do I play one on TV ... so seek your own legal counsel ... I'm not liable ... blah blah blah ...

This is how our TechSoup portal looks today:

After you go through the qualification process with TechSoup that'll start the qualification process with Microsoft.  Microsoft also has an anti-discrimination policy, but it also states "other than allowed by law".

It took 3 business days to get the following "approved" email from Microsoft saying we were eligible for Microsoft non-profit pricing through TechSoup:

Next step was signing up for the Office365 Enterprise E1 for Nonprofits.  TechSoup doesn't handle O365 for Microsoft, but instead routes you to this page to signup: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/non-profit/compare-office-365-for-nonprofits-plans-FX104081605.aspx

Yes, you're signing up for the E3 trial listed at $4.50/user ... but you'll let this E3 license expire at the end of 30 days.  Once you have a trial E3 license you can then add as many free E1 licenses as you want.  This is explained in that above link, but it seems most people aren't reading the page and just click on the "start trial" :-)

While you're signing up for the O365 trial you'll encounter another anti-discrimination policy as part of their qualification as a nonprofit process.  Again, "as allowed by law" is used.

It took 5 business days for our O365 portal to stop showing an open support request for "verify eligibility"

Oddly enough the support request just changed to closed..no status update saying we were now eligible as a nonprofit ... just closed.  Wanting to be sure I wasn't missing something, I found the Office365 subscription support hotline and gave them a call.  800-865-9408 Option 1 (Billing)
Sure enough, I was informed we had been approved for the free E1 plan.  w00t!  And it was followed up with an email confirmation.

Again, after you signup for your E3 trial you can immediately go signup for the free E1 subscription and add a bunch of licenses.  You only get 1 E3 trial license, so you'll need the E1 licenses if you want to start playing right away :-)

I hope this is helpful for other churches and nonprofits wanting to save on Microsoft licensing and experiment/migrate to the free Office365 offering.

What does all this mean for Granger Community Church?  Well, for starters we can get some killer Microsoft discounts even if the quantities are limited and FREE Office365 has a lot of features we're looking at closely.
Lync was a no-brainer to play with 1st.  There's practically no setup and the video/audio quality is very impressive even with multiple people in a chat.  While the mac Lync client is missing some options, it's still very usable.
We're big fans of on-premise Exchange (in fact we just upgraded to 2013 on 9/16) and it's pretty cheap even w/o TechSoup discounts ($600ish for us).  Some will say on-prem Exchange is a nightmare.  I will say based on 10 years of experience that if it is set it up correctly it will hum along without issue.  Having said that, we might do a hybrid cloud+on-prem setup down the road for giggles.
We also have on-prem Sharepoint, but do little with it so moving it to O365 sounds like a win for the HR docs and whatnot it houses.
25GB Skydrive accounts sound pretty sweet!  I've not played with it enough to say if it's on par with dropbox, but for sure that's a lot more space.
The web version of Excel is pretty impressive, especially if you've tried to do anything sorta complicated in google sheets (ugh, shoot me now!). 

So, plenty of stuff to experiement with over the coming months.  And yes, we do also have a google apps account that a few staff use for shared docs so it will be interesting to compare gapps vs O365.

I'm expecting quite a bit of discussion about this announcment at the National Church IT Roundtable next month in KS :-)

>>> ADDITIONAL INFO:

Office 365 Enterprise ProPlus for Nonprofits: This can be added on to the Office 365 Enterprise E1 for Nonprofits for $2/user/month. This provides the latest, current Office applications (PC or Mac) to be installed on up 5 of each user’s computers (desktop, laptop, home computer, etc.). This subscription automatically includes newest Office versions as they are released (currently 2013 for PC and 2011 for Mac). This subscription also includes Office Mobile applications for install on up to 5 mobile devices (iOS, Android & Mobile) for each user.

Exchange Online Archive: This can be added on to the Office 365 Enterprise E1 for Nonprofits for $1/user/month. It adds unlimited storage for archived email with access from multiple devices, including through the Outlook Web App. It also includes retention policies, eDiscovery and legal hold capabilities.

Followup post about TechSoup's Microsoft Limitations

Addressing The Consumerization of IT aka GCC's Transition to Macs and Mobility - Part 3

Continuing from Part 1 and Part 2 ...

Well, this is really a continuation from part1 since part 2 went in a different direction than I planned :-)

To quickly refresh ... Part1 was the proposal I made to my boss and our Exec Pastor to A) go mobile and B) give OS platform choice.  For this blog series I asked Tim and Kem to think back about the proposal, why they said yes, and any quick thoughts 2 years later...

From Tim Stevens (Executive Pastor at Granger Community Church):

I'm a huge proponent of technology. I consider myself a technology champion. Maybe it's because I was one of the volunteer audio engineers at GCC for 11 years. Or maybe it's because I got my first home computer before MS-DOS or Windows or Mac were household names (yeah, it actually ran on the CP/M operating system). I've always been somewhat of a geek. And that's why, in my role as Executive Pastor, it's really easy to get behind technology.

But even more than that, I'm a huge champion of finding and resourcing the right leaders. When I have an impassioned, skilled and aligned leader who loves Jesus, loves the church and is the best in their field—I want nothing more than to equip them to be successful. And that's why it was so frustrating in the recession era when we weren't able to replace ailing equipment or invest in new technology. Not only could I not see us implement the best technology to serve the church—I also couldn't equip Jason and his team to soar with the right tools. Every month was just hanging on and riding out the storm. And yet I never heard one complaint or negative comment. Rather, I heard comments like "We'll make it work" and "We will figure it out" and "We'll get creative".

I never questioned Jason when, after the recession, he came with the proposal to A) go mostly mobile and B) provide a path for supported Mac OS machines. I didn't question it because of his long track record of well reasoned and researched decisions. And it turned out to be a huge win for the church. Yes, a bit more costly on the front end, but the tangible and intangible wins with higher productivity, greater employee satisfaction, and reduced operational costs more than made up for the higher price tag.

It was exactly the right decision.

From Kem Meyer (my boss and Communications Director at Granger Community Church)

Here's the thing—the question isn't about whether or not we are on a mac or PC environment. It's about whether or not we are stewarding our resources well and helping staff do what they want to do. I appreciate how our tech ops team elevates people as the value over technology and keeps learning about the various options available to us. Instead of reacting to the increasing questions about people wanting MACs with a "that's not what we do" posture, they sincerely investigated options. They worked through and had answers to these questions before they came to us with a proposal.

• How did we get here?
• What has changed?  What has stayed the same? (Both inside our environment as well as the overall technology industry.)
• Can we afford it?
• Can we support it?
• Can we grow with it?
• Is our environment secure with this solution?
• What will we gain? What will we lose?
• Will this make work harder or easier for our team?
• What are the pros of this approach? What are the cons of this approach?

With the answers to these questions before us, it made the decision pretty easy. We were "eyes wide open", as they say, and knew what we were getting into. It made the change easy to communicate. We were able to set expectations and get everyone on the same page with a shared definition of the win.

For me personally, I was uber productive on my PC for years and I'm just as productive on my MAC in different ways. If you forced me to choose, I would choose a MAC because it's just more fun to use. Our tech ops team is smart enough to recognize that a work force that is having fun with their technology is a happy work force. A happy work force makes the support load a little easier to carry.

Hopefully that's helpful to those that were wondering why leadership agreed to move forward with the proposal.  Naturally, there were clarifying discussions and I believe it went before our Board of Directors, each time being given a green light.

In Part 4, I'll share the process we went through and insight we gained from a small beta test team before annoucing to staff and starting the transition with our 1st batch of users.

There's been some great discussions about this blog series here. So I suggest reading/leaving comments there vs here on my blog.

Addressing The Consumerization of IT aka GCC's Transition to Macs and Mobility - Part 2

Continuing from Part 1 ...

One of the questions that arose from the Part 1 post was how we arrived at the $2100 figure.  It actually ended up being $2300.  This amount would cover the purchase of a 15" macbook pro with 4GB ram, 7200rpm 750GB drive, 3yr applecare, and extra power adapter (for home), which at the time totalled $2300.  While we would actually recommend the 13" air to end users, we knew some would want/need a larger screen so we made sure to accomodate a need for a 15" mac laptop.  Our 13" air config included 4GB ram, 256GB SSD, 3yr applecare, extra power adapter, external super drive (if needed) and rounded up to $1800...another reason we pushed the air over mbp :-)  Again, anything beyond $2300 and another dept would have to pick up the overage.  We had a few staff that went a little over due to job role needing the highest proc and additional ram (which we buy from OWC and install ourselves) or opting for the 17" macbookpro, but the majority of staff have went with the 13" air. 

Today we still recommend and default to the 13" air for our staff.  We've bumped the ram up to 8GB on the standard i5 model which is still under $1800 ($1720) with our config.  AND today we'd also recommend the 13" retina macbook pro ... with our config it comes to $1904.  I used a macbook air for about 2 years and even ran some Fusion win7 vm's on it.  With 4GB ram it was tight running VM's on it, the 8GB air I tested handled VM's much better.  I figured if an air worked great for me, it should work well for the majority of our staff :-)

I switched to a 13" retina macbookpro in Feburary for testing and have REALLY liked the increased screen real estate over the air.  It's a tad heavier and gets warmer, but I'll take that for the extra pixels.  I should also note that while at work I jack into a 27" apple display.  So yes, the air and 13" macbookpro can drive a 27" display with no problems.

Another thing we've discovered over the past 2 years ... spinning hard drives and macbooks don't do well together...even 7200rpm drives give way more spinning beach balls than they should and don't even bother with the 5400rpm drives.  We have had good success by upgrading 15" macbookpros with 750GB hybrid drives, but we strongly recommend going SSD on new mac purchases.

We usually buy our macs/apple gear from our local apple store where they match WCA's discounted Apple pricing which is roughly 10% on most items.  Having their store 1 mile from GCC is a VERY nice plus!  It took some work to create a good relationship with the local store business team, but today they really seem to go to bat for us.  We've also had success getting even better pricing on large volume purchases from ITSavvy, mostly due to their ability to heavily discount applecare.  Another option is buying refurb gear from Apple.  We've gotten several refurb 13" airs for $900-1200 and had no problems with them.  I know some churches get their Apple gear from CDW as well.

What do we do when a user wants a windows laptop?  So far it's been rare, but it has happened.  For instance one of our graphics arts designers is a windows power user and she had no interest in switching to a mac.  No problem!  Except we did have a problem ... what to recommend to her.  The Dell Latitude lineup at that time was franky quite ugly.  True, being ugly shouldn't dismiss a technology decision, but that goofy orange on the Latitudes was bleh!  After much looking around and stalling our recommendation, Dell introduced their "air" competitor in the XPS13.  It was sexy looking and had very similar specs to our 13" air config...except for a lamer rez screen.  Probably the biggest disappointment was that this Dell was MORE than our air config coming out to $1967+shipping!  Here's the invoice :-)  But, as you can see, we did purchase it and she's been very happy with the XPS13 and that's a win.

We've still not landed on what I'd call the perfect PC version of the air.  We thought the nicely priced $800 14" Vizio ultrabook would be a win, but the keyboard on it stinks. We had a couple staff test it and all of them turned it back in saying the keyboard was a deal breaker.  Rats!  We still have a couple more ultrabook options we'd like to try ... and we need hurry up as we have a couple users on the refresh list this year that have already requested to stay PC vs switch to mac.  We've also had a couple staff test windows8...so far nobody liked it, and my personal experience with it was pretty frustrating as well.  This stinks since many of the newest ultrabooks have no option for coming with win7 vs win8 installed.
[edit 4/16/13: Just ordered a refurb Dell 6430u. Hope it works well in testing]

I didn't mean this next blog post to be all about the hardware costs, but that's how it turned out.  Hope it was helpful :-)

I'll get back to the transition process in Part 3 ...

Addressing The Consumerization of IT aka GCC's Transition to Macs and Mobility - Part 1

Hard to believe it's been 2 years since the below email was written which put into motion perhaps the most significant IT transition at GCC to date.  Up to this point, TechOps didn't officially support macs.  Sure we'd help the few mac users on staff as best we could, but it was best effort only and you were not assigned a mac unless your job/software required it.

Fast forward two years later and we've watched the number of staff using the mac platform increase to almost 70% and our overall computer ratio shift to 52% macs (out of 150ish machines).  And we've not started any computer refreshes yet in 2013, so the above stats will shift soon to reflect even higher ratios of fruit :-)

As people have heard about our transition, I often get asked what started the wheel rolling?  Well, it's a culmination of many variables and discussions around how to address the consumerization of IT for our organization...which lead to the email you'll find below.  This email is thus the actual catalyst that got us to where we are today.

Keep in mind this is now a hair over 2 years old and what works in our environment may not work in yours...

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Date: Friday, March 25, 2011 2:54 PM
To: Tim Stevens, Kem Meyer
Subject: GCC laptop proposal draft

Tim/Kem  [For those that don't know. Tim Stevens is our Executive Pastor, Kem Meyer is my boss...both of them were long time windows power users with zero mac experience]

Here's my working draft for upcoming computer refreshes at GCC … it's a work in progress.  Kem suggested I get what I've got so far in front of you both to help field any questions that may pop up as new test computers get rolled out.
Also note I'm leaving out whatever macs that have been bought buy Arts, GSM, etc since those were not TechOps purchases.

As you probably are aware, we have not purchased any new desktop computers in 5+ years nor any new laptops in 3+ years.  This means everything is now outside of warranty support.  If there's a hardware issue, we have limited options for repair, which usually includes buying parts of ebay and doing surgery to attempt extended life for the device.  It works, but is not optimal :)

So taking the above into account, along with an emphasis on anywhere/anytime access from The New Normal project and our own CommWebTechOps 2011 vision and of course other variables, here's what I'm proposing over the next 2 years…

Transitioning to an all-mobile hardware platform for end users.  No more desktops unless it makes sense for a specific job role/function.

PROS:

• Laptops require far less power than desktops plus they'll be traveling home with users instead of being left on in the office overnight.  This saves GCC not only electrical costs, but also cooling. 
• Staff office moves will be no biggie if TechOps doesn't have to move everyone's computers around! w00t!
• Studies show increased worker productivity for mobile workers.  You guys already get this since I bet you'd rather die than give up your laptops for a desktop ;-)
• The lines between work and personal continue to blur. Staff keep buying personal laptops and bringing them to us asking to make them able to do basic office/email functions.  Might as well provide them with something that can serve their needs for work and personal while allowing TechOps to keep things standardized which helps everyone in the long run.

CONS:

• Laptops are more much more expensive to purchase than desktops
• Laptops require battery replacements over time
• Laptops are more prone to accidents
• Laptops see significantly more wear-n-tear

In my mind there's no doubt moving to laptops makes sense for the staff culture at GCC and the Pros far outweigh the cons.

I've been thinking about moving this direction for more than a year. Just haven't had any $ to do so until this year. I've also talked with other churches that have made the transition toward all mobile…most notably my pals over at LifeChurch.tv so this isn't really a new idea for me.  It's been simmering for a long while :)

Perhaps the more radical shift is giving users the option of mac or windows.  We're finally in a place where we have necessary tools and know-how to adequately support mac users, helped in huge part by the latest mac Outlook2011 client.  It's still not as good as Outlook2010 for windows, but it's finally a viable solution.  We also now have software (CrashplanProE), which will allow enterprise class backups for macs – another huge stumbling block for us supporting macs in the past, as timemachine is NOT an enterprise solution.

PROS:

• In talking with other churches supporting dual platform most indicate a far lower % of support needs from their mac users.  For sure many variables are hidden in that data as to why, but data still shows that macs typically require less load on IT staff.  Of course we don't see a lot of support needs from our windows users either.
• Over 40 of our staff have iPhones and thus use iTunes and apps.  iTunes works much better on the mac OS (I'm sure by design).  Keeping all devices under one 'ecosystem' simplifies life for the end user as well as IT.
• Apple is 'sexy' and I think our younger staff gravitates toward that.  Plus I guess it could be seen as lending some credibility to our staff being in tune with the culture? 
• More freedom/flexibility with OSX operation system fueled further by the recent addition of the app store for macs. 
• So far mac OS isn't a big enough target for virus/malware writers.

CONS:

• All the fanatic apple users making cracks about "oh, you finally seen the light?" and other such fanboi comments that make me wanna hurl then PUNCH them with my fist.
• Macs are more expensive than similar equipped Dell…it's gotten closer over the past few years, but still there's a gap.
• Apple has no "real" enterprise class support nor accidental damage coverage.  I am looking at 3rd party options for accidental coverage.
• Troubleshooting issues on mac is much harder. 
• When it becomes financially beneficial, virus writers will go after macs.  When that happens we'll have to find ways to best protect macs.

Transition plan of attack
Current laptop users would be first in line to get replacements.  Then their current hardware would be trickled down to staff currently w/o laptops with hopefully enough spares to take care of break-fix needs until next year when they'd get option of something new.

I have $X earmarked in my budget for laptops.  Currently proposing each staff be "earmarked" up to $2100 for purchase of a new Dell Latitude E series or Macbook when their time for refresh comes due.  Anything additional they'd like (higher rez screen, faster/bigger hard drive, accessories, etc) above $2100 would be charged to their dept.  The plan is also that this will be their laptop for at least 3 years and more likely 5 depending on role.

Staff interested in switching to a mac would need their supervisor to sign off that their job role doesn't require windows specific software.  We will not allow nor support the loading of bootcamp, parallels, or vmware on a mac so user can run a virtual windows session.  If you need windows to do your job then you need a Dell.  Again, thanks to my friends at other churches I have copies of the paperwork they have staff/supervisors sign that spells all this out :)

My guess is that, given the choice, most staff will opt for a mac and that in 2 years GCC will be mostly mac laptops.  Windows servers and such will still be at the core of the server infrastructure, but clients will be predominately mac. 

I've spent a lot of brain cycles over the past year trying to navigate this "consumerization of IT" trend that continues to grow and I strongly feel the above proposal will help our staff be more productive and happy in the long run.  Because this is such a radical shift for us I'm planning to do a big blog post to point people to that have questions.

And Tim, although your laptop isn't super old, I'd be more than happy to put you in our coming mac Guinea Pig testing group if that would help you.  I think you're very much like me in that I very much dislike being labeled as a "mac user" just because of all the baggage/crap it carries.

So there ya have draft proposal version 1.
Look forward to your feedback and questions.
Jason
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Stay tuned for Part 2 ... Guinea Pig testing begins

I've also started a discussion thread for this blog series here over on the Church IT Network forum

=======================================

update: Part 2 added

update: Part 3 added

update: Part 4 added

update: Part 5 added

update: Part 6 added

Church IT Network 2013 Schedule = 2 National Events in Feb and Oct

2013 SCHEDULE Unveiled! 

In efforts to move our big National event from Spring to Fall (get away from Easter and Spring break and unpleasant weather in Northern States) we’re having 2 National events next year!

National Spring 2013 event >> 2/27-3/1 in Phoenix, AZ at Christ’s Church of the Valley http://www.ccvonline.com/Arena/default.aspx  Schedule will be a mix of training, workshops, presentations and peer roundtable discussion spread over 3 full days.  And like we started last Spring in Dallas, we’ll have a separate Web/Dev track again so be sure to invite your web/dev peeps!

National Fall 2013 event >> 10/21-10/23 in Kansas City, KS at Church of the Resurrection http://cor.org/  This event will also be a 3 full days of a mix of training, workshops, presentations and peer roundtable discussion.  This event will also kick our web/dev track through the roof by hosting Refresh Cache along side our Church IT Rountable event!  RefreshCache mirrors the DNA of our community so it was a no-brainer to host our 2 events together in 2013.

From the RefreshCache website …
The RefreshCache community is a group of connected web developers and designers from churches, businesses, and non-profits that leverage the power of Church Management Systems. Our purpose is to create an environment driven by innovation, collaboration, sharing, and openness. We seek to empower each other; to share ideas and code, and to shatter the traditional business dependencies on silos and secrecy that plague many ministry organizations today.

We believe that through our God-given talents in design and software engineering, we are in control of our own destinies. With innovation and collaboration, we can give birth to far greater things than a single church IT staff can alone.

More details to follow, but we wanted you all to get this on your calendars NOW!  You’ll want to be at BOTH events if at all possible, so get it in the budget and start convincing your boss now.  We had almost 300 in attendance at our Spring event in Dallas!  Wonder what will happen in 2013? :-)

Starting 2014 our schedule will be a Spring Regional Event (date will change each year based on Easter) followed by a big National Fall Event (late October timeframe).

We’re EXTREMELY pumped to have 2 events next year AND have the location and dates ready for peeps to put on calendars :-)

Fall 2013 info here http://citrt.onthecity.org/plaza/events/31f191abbdc5a211e5bef29603ecec996f06ace2