Can you give us your best rough guess, or even a time interval, for when we might see CC 3.0?

Can we have some advance notice on the new features so we can plan for them?

Class Creator 3.0 is a series of major updates to existing features. It will be released as a series of updates from now through around the end of summer. While many elements are already complete, they cannot be released until other elements of the system they're related to are also complete. I don't have a specific release date for the first set of updates other than to tell you the programmers are working hard on it. I wish we could focus just on that but it's also reunion season now so the programmers take on many issues per day related to reunion planning. There's more than this in total but here's a list of the new features that comprise Class Creator 3.0:

1) Notify Me (significant and expanded replacement for the Profile Subscriptions feature. (Already done.)
2) All current designs redone in CSS and slightly wider and centerable on screen (Already done.)
3) 3 new designs (Already done.)
4) Brand new significantly improved page editor (Now underway.)
5) Unlimited pages (Now underway.)
6) Flyouts and Dropdowns for level 2 and beyond links (Now underway.)
7) Ability to rename and reorder all links including default links (Now underway.)

That's the main new features upcoming. The main delay right now is the later half of the list has to be complete before most of the top half can be released. Its' hard to put into perspective the size of this undertaking. The good news is, when the updates start coming out they will be significant and create all kinds of new possibilities here. I'm as anxious for them as all of you are. As new 3.0 updates come out they will be announced in the New Features forum.

How do these upgrades correspond to the Platinum Member level of service, or is that just a size/space consideration?

All of the updates are included for all Premium Members. Platinum Membership, which we're about to launch, was primarily made for people who have run out of their 200 megs of space and want more without paying the $3 per month fee for 50 meg blocks of storage. We've made it far more economical and increased the storage by 500%. We also added a completely separate email system (both hardware and software) to support private email that matches your domain name with all the proper security certificates etc. so those who want to upgrade no longer have to use the "noreply@classcreator.net" outgoing email address. This will create better recognizability as well as deliverability because less email will get flagged as spam. I'll announce the Platinum plan with complete details next week. It's actually done and ready now, I just sneaked away to a big farm in Iowa for a week.

Perfect! Just in time for me to "sell" going Platinum to our Alumni Assoc. Board of Directors at the next meeting. Be sure to include how the prorating on a 10-year plan will work, when you announce. Love you guys!

Are these new features only offered to the Platinum Members?

Thanks a lot for all the info.

You didn't mention interaction between different classes' sites or a password that a member can give to friends to access only that member's profile. Are these options in the works?

Paula: All of the 3.0 updates are included for all Premium members. The upcoming Platinum Membership pertains strictly to 500% more storage space and up to 10 custom email boxes that match your domain name that can be used as the "From Address" for your site itself. The reason these 2 items are going under a new Membership Level is because they are very costly to provide.

Lane: Those and dozens of other enhancements are on the "Wish List" for after the completion of the 3.0 updates.

Could you tell us what CSS is in feature #2? Thanks.

The entire design itself is redone in CSS, as opposed to the original table-based layout. CSS of course has numerous advantages, including much slimmer code, faster load times, more we can do with flyouts and dropdowns, better capability to add future options, better search engine rankings and more.

Lane

I did searches on CSS and I think the wikipedia answer I found could be what Brad is talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets

Joan,

That is right, CSS means Cascading Style Sheets

Brad Switzer wrote:

All of the updates are included for all Premium Members. Platinum Membership, which we're about to launch, was primarily made for people who have run out of their 200 megs of space and want more without paying the $3 per month fee for 50 meg blocks of storage. We've made it far more economical and increased the storage by 500%. We also added a completely separate email system (both hardware and software) to support private email that matches your domain name with all the proper security certificates etc. so those who want to upgrade no longer have to use the "noreply@classcreator.net" outgoing email address. This will create better recognizability as well as deliverability because less email will get flagged as spam. I'll announce the Platinum plan with complete details next week. It's actually done and ready now, I just sneaked away to a big farm in Iowa for a week.

Is there any update in seeing the results of Platinum; i.e. email system. Also, can you update the Space planned allocation for Platinum. Mine seems to be a bit different than 1 gig.

Platinum {MIGHT} be live as early as tomorrow. Still ironing out last few issues. It will come with 1GB.

Scott Mastenbrook wrote:

Scott, what will indicate to me when Platinum goes Live? Will I see Subscription menu link indicate I am Platinum and not Premium? Will I see something different in Message Center since email changes.

Finally, is it safe to assume that I will have some "configuring" to do with the new Email system on Platinum?

Yes, there will be configuring to do. If yo have not already guessed, that MIGHT was for NOT. Our new MIGHT is Tuesday. (if all goes well)

OK, thanks. What should I look for that I would know the new MIGHT has occurred?

Will I be sent an email or anything? Or I would assume there is some Help Instructions to configure new Email? Will the Subscription Link say Platinum, as it now shows Premium default?

I'm certain an email will be sent. And, while I know there are some help instructions, I'm also fairly certain that I'll soon be cutting some new videos.... (in my spare time of course.)

I can now see in my "Subscriptions" link that I am officially recognized as Platinum, 10 years. Yayyyyy! Strangely, even though I am logged onto my site as Admin, when I click Subscriptions I have to log in again. Not a big deal, now that I figured out what wash happening.

Any update upon when I will see the new Config for Email that Platinum gets?

It's actually there now under your Preferences page but you have to turn it on. Once you do you'll have a new Email Configuration tab. There's without question going to be a few kinks here, there was a lot more than meets the eye in setting this up. So we'll probably dabble with this for another week or so before we officially announce it. You can go ahead and complete the email setup form though and grant yourself and other co-Admins private email boxes at this time if you wish.

Thanks Brad. I will check that out.

Just set up the sending email address to be info@porthuronhighschool.info under our Platinum account. The email came from noreply@classcreator.net. I forwarded the email to you, Brad.

John

Also, will the new set-up emails now be forwarded automatically to my other email address? Or do I need to go to the domain site and set up forwarding for each one of those?

Hang tight and we'll have full instructions. The first launch of Platinum includes manual setup of the email addresses you selected. That's why you're still seeing noreply@classcreator.net. Ultimately the process will be automated.

So...uh...ya know...ummmmm...well....it's September now and we've...uhhhh..passed Labor Day so it's in a way the end of summer (next week is officially Fall)....so...uhhhhhhhh...where we at on the 3.0 launch?? Just curious and all (and impatient)

Jamie Reed wrote:

So...uh...ya know...ummmmm...well....it's September now and we've...uhhhh..passed Labor Day so it's in a way the end of summer (next week is officially Fall)....so...uhhhhhhhh...where we at on the 3.0 launch?? Just curious and all (and impatient)

I know what you mean, Jamie. Some much more specific and definitive information would be appreciated. Maybe they are trying to diplomatically distract us with all of the Platinum features discussion so we'll forget that they told us it was supposed to be originally launched back in the first quarter of this year.

One step at a time? Maybe they added extra steps...

Brad:

Am I confused here? I am Premium Plus. I don't need more space and didn't want Platinum. I do want the features of CC 3.0 such as (you know this!) the flyout links because we have too darn many links! It's overkill to the viewer.

Do I have to purchase Platinum to do what I want to do, which is simplify. I was NOT under that impression, and I don't think it will fly with my group.

If I don't get that feature, I am going to have to totally rebuild this to look like what I want it to.

Thanks!
Denise

No, Platinum isn't part of ClassCreator 3.0.

OK, so I will be seeing this eventually then? As Premium Plus?

Yes, all the 3.0 features are for all levels of service. The Platinum subscription was for an e-mail address and additional storage mostly.

That was my understanding and then I got confused....so I need to be patient....not my strong suit

Are you getting any closer? I've been avoiding putting more things on the site knowing that I'll want to redo with the 3.0. It was coming out any day almost a year ago! What's going on?

I am with Alyson on this one. Come on guys?!

I think you guys are specifically talking about the upcoming designs with flyout menus. 3.0 is comprised of a whole suite of upgrades to numerous features. As part of the 3.0 updates we recently launch the new WYSIWYG editor, next on the docket is the new Reunion Planner (which should be launch next week), right after that we'll be replacing the Classmate Profile subscriptions feature with a much improved feature we call "Notify Me!", and when that hits the streets we'll begin implementation of the new designs and flyout system. Frankly some delays in programming have been a little disappointing to me but nonetheless some great new features starting with the new Reunion Planner next week are just around the corner. Hang in there the team here is working very hard on things every single day.

There is no doubt that the CC crew is working hard and, as a person who works with companies like CC for a living, I will go so far as to say that you have been the most customer oriented group I have ever worked with.

That being said, it is not unreasonable that some of us are getting a little impatient. Delays are not unexpected, and they are understandable. But it impotant to keep sight of the fact that literlally thousands of people are making plans, sharing those plans with their classmates, and making committments based on what we are told by CC.

At the top of this thread, you said that major updates would be made between April and the end of the summer - a period of 5 months that ended 5 months ago. Certainly some time during that period of time your team recognized that there would be substantial delays. I don't mind the delays nearly as much as I mind having told my fellow volunteers that changes were just around the corner for month after mnonth.

Be open and transaparent and I think your customer base - including me - will continue to support you in these forums and by making up-front financial payments that go way beyond the industry norm. Leave us hanging out there having to explain why we paid years in advance but still don't have a clue when changes that WE promised will happen and that support will be a lot harder to come by.

We understand that the delays are frustrating, believe us, they are frustrating to us as well. Nonetheless, we are making progress and are close to a couple new releases very soon. We will continue to work hard to provide improvements as soon as we can.

Thanks for the new editor. It’s much appreciated.

I just looked for an announcement about this new editor. Didn’t there used to be a Forum called something like “New Features”? I don’t see it now. How do we find out about new features?

Stan’s Feb. 2 post mentioned the delays in new features that have been promised, but his main concern was the lack of communication about changes in the timelines on these features. Some of the other posts in this thread also voiced this concern. No response from CC about that only reinforces the point.

It is taking longer than expected for the new code to be delivered. Sorry.

The single largest unanticipated delay we had was the new editor. I could write a whole post just on that alone. The bottom line on it was it was ultimately determined that a huge portion of the underlying system structure itself had to change at the same time of implementing the new editor in order to allow other upcoming new features to operate as efficiently as possible. By linking the needs of several unreleased features to the launch of the editor the timeline for the editor was moved back significantly. And that in turn moved the timeline for everything after it back. I'm very sorry for this again. On a positive note, the new structure will actually go a long way toward avoiding future delays in other new features.

There's also many other behind the scenes activities happening right now I don't think have been mentioned at all yet. Many, but just a couple examples, other structural changes are upcoming like a new Classmate Profile edit page, where there's not only new things that can happen on that page, all of it becomes controllable from one specific place rather than having variables all over the system that control the display of that page. For instance you shouldn't have to go into your In Memory section to affect something that displays on the Classmate Profiles page. Every variable there is being moved to one place. We're also looking at the process of virtualizing the system and getting off the 6 physical servers currently running Class Creator. Future needs demand this flexibility and there's enough information on this too to fill a separate post.

The new Reunion Planner should be launched this week, giving people the tools and variables they've been missing to do all the things they really want to do. With the new editor now on the streets we made this our next big focus. When this goes live we'll be turning to the now long anticipated Notify Me feature. It's actually done for the most part and already runs in our own internal admin every single day. It just couldn't go live to the public until the new editor and underlying structure had changed to allow it.

There's other new things after that but I think the most heavily anticipated new feature is the new designs with flyout mentus, which we'll be working on immediately after the release of Notify Me. The designs are all done, the flyouts and dropdowns all work beautifully etc., but this one will take some additional time for Programming to integrate. This should be the last of the major 3.0 features. During this we're also looking at Facebook ties and other social media connections right now.

Folks we badly missed the timeline on some of this, particularly the new editor and all that went along with that as we plan for the future. I'm very sorry for that. We of course try to be as accurate as we can be with timelines and on this one we simply errored in our calculations for what was ultimately going to be necessary. In general the grass-roots nature of Class Creator itself was one of the main issues. Rather than a solid plan from the start, I'd say the majority of Class Creator features in the system today were all added based on user request after the initial plan. That's how things like variables that affect the display of the Classmate Profiles page wound up scattered about the system. A little thing here to meet somebody's needs, a little thing there to meet somebody's needs, next thing you know you have a setup that no longer meets the usability standards you see in the rest of the system. Then you get rework across numerous areas of the system that all affect the display of 1 lone page, and all of that just takes some major cleanup. Again though, the process we went through creates a setup that will allow us to work more efficiently in the future. That's the upshot. Until the rest of the features like the Reunion Planner, Notify Me, and most importantly new designs with flyouts and dropdowns are implemented I understand there will still be frustrations. Believe me, none of us are happy about that. The staff will be here working hard every single day until all of these and more are out the door.

Thank you for your patience, understanding and support.

Lane Yoder wrote:

The NEW FEATURES forum is now back online. Thanks for reporting this.

Looks like this topic is on everyone's mind - including mine.

First, I would like to note that I am not employed, a consultant or even a volunteer for CC. I consider myself a volunteer for YOU...my fellow admins... on TAP. That shared...

I thank Brad for sharing today. He confirmed what I had been thinking over the past months. Now I can't help but wonder what may be ahead for our sites... past 3.0. I best not dwell on it that long, as I'd like our sites to have the biggest and best bells and whistles that would 'knock the socks off' the diehard social networking site inhabitants. (Do I hear laughter? I expect it from a few... you know who you are. )

Have a great week, everyone! Share a smile each day... it is the best thing to catch from someone else.

Oh don't even get me started! Not wanting to build up expectations just let, but I'll briefly say a talent company licensed some of our code for a 1 time non competing use. A nice deal for us but the real benefit of that is we can actually use all the code they're now creating on our stuff. A real win/win partnership. So some seriously cool stuff is being made on that end that will ultimately be available here as well. Obviously over time technology changes significantly. There's many things we're able to do now that were simply not possible before. Not just on the front end for what all of you guys see, but on the back end too, which has the effect of us being far more efficient. Just one case in point, in the new system the programming itself allows the DESIGNER to add new designs to the system directly without any involvement from the programmer whatsoever. Where we get held up more than anywhere else is on programming. So the more we can "program out the programmers" so to speak the better. When the designers themselves can sit out there and add things to the system to better meet everyone's needs we've eliminated a frequent roadblock. So this has been one of my personal as well as team's focus right now. Anywhere we see bottlenecks I'd like to program out wherever possible. We're a relatively small team still so these types of improved efficiencies will allow the same team to do more. I'll give all of you a link to the system I referenced above when it launches (probably May) so you can see the types of things that are becoming available to us.

Brad,

While your challenges of growing from a small shop to a more substantial entity and piecing together upgrades/features versus starting out on a more substantial platform that is less dependent on programming are certainly understandable - the enormous delays do not add up.

I am writing for my own purposes and don't know if others share this concern or not. We are considering doing an all school hub site and then helping all the classes set up their individual sites. However, it makes us very nervous that CC has been so long in making changes/improvements and the question is asked whether you will still be in business after we invest hundreds and hundreds of hours in developing these sites.

It is a valid question and in light of the delays that don't really make sense (I am an engineer and employ programmers) I would like to know a real time frame for rollout of these changes. If you give us a realistic time frame and miss it by a week or two no one will care. But the generalized "It's in the works" doesn't pass the sniff test.

Sorry for being so forward but I don't want to convince a bunch of people to invest tons of time into a straw house. I am sure you understand.

And as before, I am available to help.

Thanks,

Greg

I certainly understand the concern Greg. Some of this would simply be difficult to understand without being right here. Class Creator had a very "grass roots" start. I.E. we put the system out there 5 years ago with one programmer doing all he could to accommodate everything. Frankly it didn't set a good structure to accommodate future growth and a multiple programmer environment. Through many meets we decided to make numerous structural changes to the system that would allow more people to work on it harmoniously. Those changes were enormous. Even changing lone parts of the system like the Reunion Planner were enormous. In fact those changes are rolling out right now. That too took longer than expected as 6 schools still using the very first Reunion Planner that had ever come out. We ended up having to write an extensive export tool to get those folks out of that system and into the brand new one so we didn't disrupt their live reunion. So many of these changes really are coming out right now. The Reunion Planner is critical to everything we do so getting this out there alone is huge. Multi event reunion planning and a whole host of other things in there are now possible. Survey Maker and Profile Generator are also updated with this update and much easier to use. And Notify Me is next on the list, which we believe will allow Admins to create more frequent visits by Classmates.

Many of these delays will directly result in better efficiency in the future. Getting here has been a little painful admittedly and believe me I wish it hadn't taken this long. I am very optimistic about where we're going now though. This needed to be done. No worries about Class Creator in terms of stability by the way. We're a 100% debt free company. That's just how I've always run it. We have thousands of sites here with more coming on board regularly, not to mention we have spinoff systems coming up so we won't be solely in the Classmate market anymore. Very exciting stuff happening here. Growing pains hurt sometimes and we've certainly learned a lot by what happened in 2011 but I'm really more optimistic than ever about where we're going. We have a better structure that makes things far easier and frees us from the past. In fact one more case in point on that, after Notify Me as we begin working with the new designs it's not just a matter of implementing the designs into the system like we did in the past. Each new design has a specific framework allowing the designers themselves to create designs that fit a particular framework. So one framework could have 20 designs on top of it. So if we have 5 frameworks then over time we can put 100 designs on that framework without ever bugging programming at all. This is just one of the many things we've done in the structure to remove the dependencies on programming. Programming out the programmer wherever possible makes that much more possible.

There's more like how we'll release updates in the future. Official versions of the system will launch focusing on multiple items within specific areas of the system. We'll announce releases as a group rather than peace meal updates. Allows programming to work more efficiently and allows for a better testing and launch process too. I set out to fix the processes here correctly and we have the right staff here now to do that. So again I'm very sorry we were delayed on some of the later 3.0 features, but I'm absolutely confident we've arrived in a good place. The future is bright.

For those who didn't quite understand what Brad said, the new Reunion Planner (Multi-event reunions), Profile Generator, and Survey maker launched today (last night).

Kyle Erickson wrote:

I was doing some editing and noticed the 'last updated' date and time on the list of pages and wondered.... could it be? I came right over and checked the "New Feature Announcements" topic to find nothing... and here you are having the conversation over here. That's alright! I'm thrilled!

It is almost 4am, Mr. Brad, and now I can't sleep until I check this out! After all... I am more than interested in "Multi event reunion planning and a whole host of other things in there are now possible." If it is what I think, I'm going to be on my way to a happy dance. I'll be looking for donations to set us up for some time!

If you don't see or hear from me by Wednesday, check one of the servers... you'll probably find me between bytes.

ADDED minutes later:
Question about the "Multi event reunion planning":
Might it be that two reunions could be run at the same time?

I read the 'wait until March 2nd,' so I am not going to play with the Reunion Planner until the weekend. But it only works for me on the alumni site if I can run two. I am patient.

Several more things to do in there stay tuned for official announcement when complete .

Brad Switzer wrote:

Getting ready to do the happy dance!

FYI while it is possible to create multiple events within a single reunion now, multi year sites like yours Gwen will also be able to plan simultaneous reunions for different class years. I.E. you'll be able to have as many live reunions on your navigation panel with each being a separate entity as you want to.

Brad Switzer wrote:

Oh my goodness... you have just about made my day, Brad! I say just about because I have to consider that my class paid for ten years and what may come from that point. But I shall overcome all tacky comments because that is GREAT!!!!!

EDIT Addition: What song shall I play for the happy dance when the time comes? Suggestions welcome!

Oh, big question about multiple reunions on a multi-class site:

Payments. Will direct deposit payments go to the right account or checks to the right person for each reunion? I hope that is possible.

Still... love that you've added this option!

Payments will go to whoever is declared to receive them per that reunion.

Brad Switzer wrote:

Big smiles and happy moments! Thanks, Brad!

Now the big question before tonight's TAP Chat... is RP 'done'?

Oh... I have another question on this topic.

Will we be able to give admin access per reunion?

Edit... adding: In chat, just wondering...

Yes different admins will be able to manage reunions for different class years on multi sites. Sorry for the late response I've been dealing with a laptop that went kaboom on me.

Hey Brad,

What's the chance of getting a small "recap" as to where we are on CC 3.0? Something simple, like What's Finished and running then, What Remains to complete the CC3 effort.

Yes. Some of the recently completed 3.0 items:

* Code structure change: Mostly behind the scenes but this affected many pages and allows for much easier implementation of upcoming features.

* Changes to Profile Generator and Survey Maker. Easier interface there now including the removal of the "Update" button making it far easier to complete your work.

* Old editor was removed and new CK Editor added. Much better behind the scenes code management now.

* Changes to the Profile page were made allowing for a restructure here. Too many variables affecting this page are scattered across the system and a grouping of those features is upcoming in a brand new Classmate Profiles management page.

* Software upgrades and backup changes. This is ongoing right now and if we do our job right you won't notice most of it. Makes way for better system stability and additional backup security.

* New Reunion Planner and new multi event functionality. Better functionality in general here now, especially for reunions with more than 1 event and in particular multi year sites that span several class years. We're making some final tweaks there for that group but generally multiple reunions for several class years can be planned by different Administrators now. Different ACH, accounting etc. can be set up separately for each one.

We have many new features planned for this year. I'm not sure how many have been called "3.0" or not but we're currently working on a replacement for the Profile Subscriptions feature called "Notify Me". That's the next big thing that will launch. It involves quite a few ongoing structural changes but when it comes out it will allow members to sign up for specific notifications when various events happen on your site. All of this is opt in so people will be able to decide specifically how they want to interact with the site (or no notifications at all if they prefer). This includes a much better opt in/opt out system as well.

New Designs: After Notify Me launches at long last we'll be working on new designs and making updates to the current designs including dropdown and flyout menus.

There's a litany of other little changes through all of this but those are the big ones for the most part. After the new designs we have social media ties coming for those who want to activate them.

Thanks for sharing!
You are the greatest!

Thanks Brad! Appreciate the update. Sounds like getting along on tasks pretty well now. The light at the end of the tunnel.

Don't forget the 'after' project.........hmm, I forgot the name for that project now. Anyway, the ability for Class Years of the same School to link across to other classes. I now have 4 consecutive years of Anadarko from 1959 through 1962. Can't wait until there is a automatic connection capability between all 4 classes.

I third the motion... Thanks for the update, Brad!