Update on Logbook of the World Technical Debt

This is an update for the Board family only.
Please allow us to provide a similar update to the Logbook community directly by not sharing this information at this time.

We have hired two new programmers to work on LoTW. Finding qualified individuals required significant time and effort and several different ways of identifying candidates. At the meeting of the Logbook Study Committee (LSC) in mid-April, it was apparent that there were three qualified candidates for the new hire. We had also realized that some of the technical issues were soon going to require an additional programmer, and that IT Manager Mike Keane's time was much less available than we had anticipated. We reasoned that if a second hire were added at the same time, there would be a substantial boost in capacity to deal with our technical debt, but with little incremental requirements of training time from Mike Keane, since both programmers would start at the same time. The group decided to request the additional hire.

A&F Chairman Greg Widin brought this issue to the A&F Committee at its meeting the next day, and based on the above considerations, and a review of the financial implications, A&F approved the addition of the second hire. Both new programmers started today, May 5^th.

At July's Board meeting, the Board also authorized purchase of consulting services for some specialized needs. Very capable consulting firms were identified by Director Norton and Director Weaver, and non-disclosure agreements have been put in place with them both. Discussions are underway to obtain quotes for the work to be performed.

In addition, Vice President Fenstermaker identified an individual with extensive experience in software test, which is an area of need for some other aspects of LoTW work. This person has been contacted, but the tasks will only be required later in the year, so detailed talks on this subject have been held for later.

Two additional activities are being undertaken to improve communications with the user community. The LSC has decided to use the Yahoo group ARRL-LOTW as a semi-official support forum. The internal ARRL forums require that all participants be ARRL members, which make them inappropriate to support Logbook, many users of which are not League members, especially of course DX stations. Also, a new Help area has been created on the Logbook site, and will be populated with a variety of help resources that explain how to accomplish common tasks, and that provide this help outside of the Logbook login, since getting that login is often a process for which Help is required. We also identified a new type of "Technical Specialist" appointment, which would be a member-volunteer trained and qualified to provide user help on LoTW, via the user group; further discussions with MVP will need to occur before we are able to begin this service. Note that this extends the traditional Section-based Technical Specialist appointment.

Also of note is that TQSL 2.0.1 has just been released. This solves many of the problems users have had with certificates, and the support folks at ARRL who answer Logbook help lines are very glad to see this update. The TQSL updates have been well accepted by LoTW users. By its improved user interface and help, TQSL 2 has greatly reduced the problems and frustrations that users have been experiencing. This TQSL activity is planned to continue.
73,

Greg Widin, K0GW

Logbook Study Committee Chair

2014 A&F Chair

Logbook Study Committee members--

Dave Bernstein, AA6YQ

Mike Keane, K1MK

Rick Niswander, K7GM

Dave Patton, NN1N

Barry Shelley, N1VXY

Greg Widin, K0GW