MissionControl Blog

Events Page

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 20:25:00 +0000

Do you have a public workshop or other event coming up soon? Do you know you can advertise it at no cost on our main website, www.minessence.net, using the Support|Events Page at MissionControl?

A facility is included for you to upload or link to your event brochure.
The public can subscribe to the page's RSS feed so they are alerted whenever a new event is added.

MissionControl Release 3.0 -- Bug

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:56:00 +0000

A glitch with the Project Manager (the summary page would not load) has been fixed.

Welcome to MissionControl Release 3.0

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 21:47:00 +0000

The main changes you will notice are:

There's a new home page--a simple list of the main pages replaces a tabbed page,
There's a SiteMap of all available pages (accessible from the Navigators page),
The pages from which you print your AVI Reports now ONLY list the report codes of the reports to which you have access--currently many codes are listed, but are inactive, and
New group reports are avialable and their usage is logged in the same way as personal and relational reports.

Intermittent Outage

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 07:00:00 +0000

Since 2 pm AEST the ISP who host our website have been having major issues with all the websites they host. Please contact me if this is causing you grief.

In the meantime, I am working to get the parallel site in the UK up and running ASAP. If you have an urgent need to access MissionControl, please contact me and I'll provide you with the link to the UK site.

Thanks, Paul

MissionColtrol Release 3.0

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:30:00 +0000

MissionControl 3.0 is undergoing a final round of testing & will replace the current release of MissionControl in a few days. On the surface, the new MissionControl may not look all that different, however, the software which drives it has undergone a major re-write. The objectives behind the re-write were:

to increase reliability,
to make it easier to support and maintain,
to increase the number of administrative functions that can be devolved,
to improve the navigation--i.e. simpler to find one's way around, and
to make it simpler to add new functionality.

The main changes you will notice are:

A new home page--a simple list of the main pages, rather than a tabbed page,
A SiteMap of all available pages (accessible from the Navigators page), and
The pages from which you print your AVI Reports now ONLY list the report codes of the reports to which you have access--currently many codes are listed, but are inactive.

MissionControl Release 3.0

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:30:00 +0000

It won't be too long now before the new version of MissionControl is released. It may not look too different to users, but it's very different on the inside. A lot of work has been done to make the site more easily maintainable & to get ready for devolving much more of the activities associated with maintenance to others.

Planned Outage

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 04:51:00 +0000

Planned Outage:

A patch rollout has been scheduled for the database servers which support the AVI, MissionControl, & the Minessence Group's website commencing on 27 & 28 July 2009 @ 00:00 AEST.

Please allow a 1hr window for patching to complete. During this time the AVI, MissionControl, & the Minessence Group's website may be unavailable.The latest Microsoft critical, security and recommended patches will be installed in this roll-out.

Mirror Site:

Work is progressing well on the establishment of a mirror site in the UK to parallel the one in Australia. When this work is finished there will no longer be a need to interrupt service for maintenance activities.

Quality Assurance:

If you find any typos or other issues with AVI Reports, please loga a job at MissionControl's Project Manager.

Addition to Values Framework

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:33:00 +0000

The Values Framework page has been updated with the MVF: Skills & Energy Management chart
We are currently contemplating a change in the way the Skills & Energy Management scores are derived. You will be advised when, or if, a change is made.

Reminder

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Fri, 01 May 2009 01:00:00 +0000

Please test the new AVI Questionnaire and give us feedback before it is cut-over in place of the current AVI. The link is:

http://www.minessence.net/avi2.aspx?affiliate=MINESS&procode=corporate

[replace MINESS with your own Affiliate code].

Feel free to "play" with creating fictitious new user's, etc. as the test version is also linked to a test database.

You will notice the link is identical to the current link you use but with avi2.aspx replacing avi.aspx.

Email Issue Over

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:05:00 +0000

The issue with emails to Minessence Support seems to have been resolved. Until I am convinced there are no ongoing issues I'll leave miness@bigpond.net.au here as an alternative contact should you suspect your emails are not getting through to us.

Email Issue

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:20:00 +0000

Due to a problem with the mail server which handles the Minessence Website, we have been unable to receive any emails since 10am this morning AEST. None of the messages will be lost, they are being saved in a queue.

Until this problem is resolved please use miness@bigpond.net.au to contact Minessence Support.

New Online AVI Questionnaire

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 05:43:00 +0000

The new AVI Questionnaire is is now ready for release. Before it actually goes live, I'd like you to "play" with it as much as possible. The current "play-status" version uses a totally separate database from the live AVI so please create as many fictitious users as you like to test as many aspects of it as possible.

Until the new AVI goes you will not be able to control any aspect of it from MissionControl, including access to the responses you create. So while "playing" with it, don't pay too much attention to the statements you choose, just focus on the functionality.

To try the new AVI Questionnaire, just replace AVI.aspx with AVI2.aspx in the link you usually give your clients to access the AVI.

New Software for the AVI Questionnaire

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:00:00 +0000

An new version of the AVI Online Questionnaire will be released soon. The changes from the user's perspective are:

The log in screen looks very similar to the MissionControl log in. There's no "new users click here" hyperlink, instead, there's a register link and first time users are required to register.
The introduction page, which preceded the contact details entry form, no longer exists. Instead, the instructions are included on the registration page itself.
Once a person has registered/logged in, they are given the usual spiel about why values are important.
The affiliates banner is on the top of all the intro. pages except for the login & registration pages.
If group code entry is required, the user cannot move to the next page until they actually make a selection.
The top of all the pages displays the name of the person logged in. So if someone logs in with another person's ID (which seems to happen from time to time!) it will be more obvious to the person that their responses are being recorded against the other person's name.
When a person logs in, they have no opportunity to change their personal registration details, so if they have logged in with someone else's ID (because they were told by a colleague, this is the ID to use!), they no longer have the opportunity to clobber the ID owner's personal details.
A new page has been added, which only appears when people log back in to a partially completed AVI. This new page tells people where they "were at" before logging out, and gives them the option of re-starting from where they were up to, or from the very beginning (including the intro. pages).

From the AVI Consultant's perspective:

New instructions will need to be formulated to give to people who will be completing the AVI.
A new link will be provided to the new software. People can start using the new software as soon as it's released, though there's no immediate need to do so. There will be a cutoff date (a few weeks into the future) from when the old AVI Software will no longer be available. From that date, people will automatically be redirected to the new AVI Questionnaire.

Project Manager Update

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:54:00 +0000

Dougal identified a limitation with the Project Manager, i.e. update descriptions for jobs were limited to a length of 2000 characters. Any attempt to add an update greater than 2000 characters produced an, "unable to update", or "unable to edit" error.

This limitation has been removed and updates/edits to jobs are now virtually unlimited in terms of text length.

Key Values Descriptor List

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:36:00 +0000

The Values Framework page has been updated with the addition of a new document: Key Value Descriptor List.

Key Values are a subset of the 128 values. They were chosen through a process of identifying a minimal set of values from each cluster—minimal in the sense that sufficient values were chosen from each cluster to describe the key features of each cluster.

The Key Value Descriptor list complements the Values Framework Chart - Key Values.

Client Database Admin. Page

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:58:00 +0000

Instructions. The instructions on the Client Database Administration page have been improved.
Error Handling. Additions have been made to the software associated with this page to better anticipate and handle potential operational errors.
Bug. The drop down list for "education" is not always functioning as it should. This has been added to the Bug List and will be rectified in due course.

Important Message

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:21:00 +0000

Planned Outage. Please be advised that essential maintenance is to be conducted on our web server beginning, 23:30 hours AEST Saturday, 7th March and to be completed by 04:00 hours AEST, Sunday 8th March 2009. There will be an outage of up to 60 minutes during this time period.
Events Scheduler. The Events Scheduler has been improved. You can now upload a brochure, associated with your event, yourself. Just click on "browse", locate your brochure, then click "upload" to add it to your event entry. Also, the Scheduler has now been provided with a HTML WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor—so it's now easier to format your event entry.

Scheduling Events

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 23:35:00 +0000

Events Scheduler - the EventsScheduler has been improved. You can now upload a brochure associated with your even to our website yourself. Just click on "browse", locate your brochure, the click "upload" to add it to your event entry.

Additions to MissionControl

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 01:54:00 +0000

Blog Updates + New AVI Reports:

Now, whenever the MissionControl Bulletin Board is updated, the MissionControl Blog is automatically updated. So, to check on past changes to MissionControl, just go to its Blog.
For people who have access to the FAVI (Full AVI Report), two new AVI reports have been introduced. The LDR (Leadership Development Report) and the EMR (Energy Management Report). These are modules which already exist in the FAVI. They have been made standalone to make it easier to print separate parts from the FAVI— a common activity when unfolding the AVI in a workshop over a few days. Eventually all modules in the FAVI will be available as separate reports, the ultimate aim being to enable you to create your own AVI Report.

MissionControl Release 2.2—28 February, 2009

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:23:00 +0000

Changes since Release 2.1.1:

Project Manager replaces the JobTracker—The first version of the new Project Manager now replaces the JobTracker. The Job Tracking functionality has been retained. It is now possible to make individual jobs accessible to groups such as: KeyAffiliates, Accredited, AVIUsers, etc. All Jobs can be associated with one or more Projects

MissionControl Release 2.1.1—14 February, 2009

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 22:16:00 +0000

Changes since Release 2.1.0:

Site navigation—The SiteMap as been restored. The source of the excessive server busy messages has been traced to the auto-trimming [in accordance with access permissions] of the SiteMap. This functionality of the SiteMap has been disabled. This means everyone sees the full SiteMap. If people try to access a page they do not have authority to access, they will be redirected to the LogIn page.
Error Messages—Full error reporting has now been disabled. If an "unhandled exception" occurs, you will receive the usual "Server Busy" message. The full error message which caused the "unhandled exception" is now automatically sent to us by email.
JobTracker—The business and data access layers of the JobTracker have been completely re-written. From time to time, the old JobTracker software produced some weird behaviour. The new software produces results which are much more intuitive. You will also notice that now when a Job is updated, you will receive a more informative email notification.

Skill & Resource Management

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:53:00 +0000

I've had a few requests lately for a list of the values in the different Skill and Energy Management categories. We do not currently have a document which lists the new values descriptors in these categories. However, there will be one available within a few weeks. In the meantime, I've added Brian Hall's skills, time (energy management) categorization of the original 125 values to the Values Framework page at MissionControl. The direct link to the list is: http://www.minessence.net/IntraNet/resources/skills_time_career.pdf

A couple of pointers:

When working with people's energy management chart, it does not particularly matter what values lie behind the scoring, what matters is how a person with a high maintenance score approaches life. Firstly, perople must know what their brain-preference's creative mode is. Secondly, they need to commit to spending at least a couple of hours per week doing creative mode activities for their own pleasure. This strategy automatically reduces the maintenance score and increases the free-essence score.
When working with the skills chart, it's important to be aware that most values require more than one type of skill, e.g.:
- Values such as care/nurture, empathy, admin/management, synergy, collaborative/individualist, etc. require interpersonal skills
- Values such as safety/survival, admin/management, design/pattern/order, technology/science, convivial technology, etc. require instrumental skills
- Values such as design/pattern/order, synergy, collaborative/individualist, convivial technology, etc require system skills
- Values such as creative ideation, convivial technology, pioneerism/progress, etc require imaginal skills
The score just gives people idea of what skills they require in the different categories if they were living their priority values to the full.

MissionControl Release 2.1—4 January, 2009

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:11:00 +0000

Changes since Release 2.0:

New navigation—The SiteMap as been removed. At some point this will be re-instated. However, its existence was identified as the major cause of Server Busy messages and a fix is not immediately obvious.
Relocation of some resources—The Job Tracker and the Events Manager have been removed from the AVI LifeCycle Navigator and added to the Support page. The JobTracker has also been re-coded and should now function more intuitively.
Full Error Messages—Full error messages have been activated. Instead of the Server Busy message, you will now receive a somewhat daunting full error message when something goes wrong. Please send any of these to support@minessence.net and we'll use them to make MissionControl more robust. As soon at the error rate drops back to an acceptable level, the generation of full messages will be removed. Thank you for your co-operation in making MissionControl a great system for AVI support.

MissionControl Release 2.0

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 17:27:00 +0000

MissionControl Release 2.0 has now been cut over.

Please let me know if you have any issues with its use.

MissionControl Release 2.0. Functionality

paul@minessence.net (Paul Chippendale) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:00:00 +0000

This is the first major new release of MissionControl since 2005.

Key Features:

New navigation—including a Site Map—the HomePage is now tabbed & each page has "crumb trail" navigation to help you easily move between pages.
Functionality is now role based— i.e. what you have access to at MissionControl depends on whether you are Accredited, a KeyAffiliate, etc.
Only one AVI Navigator—previously there were different navigators for different AVI Reports. Now, with Reports available online, there's no need for separate Navigators.
CMS—much of MissionControl now operates as a Content Management System (CMS) making MissionControl easier to maintain. This also makes it more practical for non-IT Professionals to maintain the technical infrastructure which underpins many aspects of the AVI.
Core features still the same—core functionality, such as: creating Group Codes, printing AVI Reports, and monitoring AVI Usage, are unchanged in respect of the way you use them.