SOAR Customers,
As 2014 starts I wanted to personally reach out to each of you, provide you an update on the past year, what you can expect from SOAR in 2014 and beyond, and thank you for your continued use of SOAR services.
Since I started SOAR in 2007 each year has seen signifcant progress forward in new features and capabilities for your SOAR websites. 2013 was unfortunately the first year that did not happen. Here is why:
- Roster Release - We have been talking about the new Roster release for a long time now and this is still our first priority. The first two attempts at a new architecture for the Roster did not work out as we had planned. That cost us a huge amount of time lost at the end of 2012 and in 2013. The good news is that the current Roster feature in development has improved significantly from those mistakes. Given the Roster feature touches every other feature on your SOAR website, it simply has to be done right when we release it. More on that in a minute…
- Service Infrastructure - We spent a lot of time in 2013 working on the gritty details of how the service works and supports thousands of customers with advanced features while also having customers experience quick response times from their websites. This was done to support the new Roster feature and other advanced features we have planned after that. That work was done in 2013 and the great news is you probably didn't even notice it ! This work took away from time spent on development of new features.
- Business Growth - SOAR has been growing year over year at an amazing rate since 2007. It was time for me personally to reflect and look at what would be the best way for SOAR and its customers to move forward in the next 7 years and be able to handle that continued growth. An old friend with the right skill set approached me about getting involved with SOAR. I thought it was a perfect fit to accelerate the growth of SOAR by bringing on a parnter in the business. That fit never materialized and the process dragged on. The exercise did serve the important purpose of helping me determine the future path for SOAR. Unfortunately it also took up a lot of my time and was another reason there was not as much feature development completed in 2013.
Moving into 2014 and beyond here are my and SOAR's commitments to you.
- Communication - This past year I kept saying to myself, another month and we'll have something noteable to announce to customers. The same thing would occur the next month, and the month after that. That is my primary mistake this past year. Not communicating with you about what was going on, even though it might not have included "new features" in the communication. Based on customer feedback, I understand the need for regular customer communication. Moving forward I will make sure that occurs.
- Roster Release - will be released before March 17th, 2014. Period. This new release is finally shaping up well and the infrastructure work to make it happen is now out of the way. This release will support ALL the details you want to record for anyone in your unit - contact, nicknames, BSA, medical, notes, tour permits, and custom fields you can create. The grouping of members is completely new and will remove restrictions for number of parents, scout only in one Patrol/Den/group, and adults assigned to Patrols/Dens/groups. Contact preferences have been added to allow members to select where they want communication and where they don't. Adding/Editing families will be a much more streamlined process (i.e. a lot less clicks). PackMaster/TroopMaster Import updates. And lots of other little features and usability improvements. This new release will make way for many of the other features of your SOAR website to take advantage of the additional information about members.
- All-In-One Solution - since inception, SOAR has focused primarily on the communication aspect of running your unit. We are finally at a point with the new Roster release where we are moving past the goal of communication. We understand you want a single solution that meets all of your needs in running your unit. It is time we expand the focus of SOAR to satisfy all of your scouting feature needs. In 2014 we will start development of an Advancement Tracking feature. We do not want to commit yet to releasing the first version in 2014 but we are going to try our best to accomplish that. We will be adding other features in 2014 to round out the SOAR service to meet more of your needs past just communication.
As always, you can contact me via phone/email (see below) or the Support Staff via Admin/Report Problem or support@soarol.com for any comments, suggestions, requests, or issues. While we did not make significant progress in 2013 on feature development, I am pleased that our customer support did not suffer in any way. We all still love talking with you on a daily basis !
In Service,
Michael Kabot
President – SOAR
mkabot@soarol.com
585-388-0211
www.soarol.com
