Masons on the web

17 April 24

Your Grand Lodge Website

By RW Bro Randall Wilson and RW Bro Terry McCallum

Behind every website you ever visit is a remarkable amount of software. The ease and usability of the website depends hugely on the quality of that software, and the research that went into what the software was required to do.

Like so many things we use in life, we pick it up, we use it, we put it down, without a thought of the work that has gone into us being able to complete that simple task.

Thanks to the generous cooperation of RW Bro Randall Wilson, Project Manager for Grand Lodge’s transition to our new website, I can perhaps cover some of the changes to Grand Lodge’s website and the reasons for them.

History

Until 2022 we used the iMIS System. The license cost was very high for the service we were receiving, and the cost of changing or fixing things was also very expensive. The database was so complex that enhancements were far more difficult to implement than they should have been.

Worst of all, as our membership expanded, iMIS could not accommodate our growing needs regarding service and capability. iMIS had to go, and be replaced by a more modern, manageable and comprehensive system.

The Change

In September 2023, UGL implemented the new Combined Management System (CMS). Like all major changes, it didn’t come without a few hiccups, but as time passed the wheels wobbled a little less, and the system soon became a more stable and robust entity than its predecessor, all with the following major benefits:

• UGL owns it! No license fees for the core system – ever. This will be a huge saving over time.
• The highly complex set-up of 992 interconnected databases with iMIS was reduced to just 17 in CMS.
• This reduction in complexity means a much faster and cheaper implementation of enhancements when required.

New Features

UGL’s website now provides features that simply could not be provided on iMIS.

• Rank assignments: Content access restrictions: For instance, an Entered Apprentice Freemason cannot access Fellowcraft Freemason content. EVERY member was manually reviewed and assigned a rank. More than a hundred volunteer hours were used for this.
• Role assignments which have term dates: (ie: begin-end dates) for easier handover at Installation time for both UGL and Private Lodges, controlled by the Executive Officer return eform.
•  ‘Find a Lodge’ capability: This is available to both Members and the public, and has amazing features. To enable Find a Lodge, more than a hundred hours was spent manually updating the lodge records, associating each one with a property. The property records were also manually updated with the correct street address, including geocodes (longitude and latitude) for precise locations on maps.
• A map of where the lodges meet.
• For the FIRST TIME, a ‘landing page’ for every lodge. Yes, every lodge now has a webpage.
• The ‘landing page’ has detailed meeting and installation dates, times and exceptions.
• The lodge can have a picture and description (controlled by the  Secretary and Assistant Secretaries)
• The lodge can provide multiple ‘news’ items (like a blog), containing one picture and description, with an affected date and the Secretary’s and Assistant Secretary’s ability to edit and delete the individual news items. This is a great feature for promoting social and charity events, interesting topics, accolades for Members Initiated, Passed, Raised, Conferred and Anniversary celebrations! In the previous iMIS system, the Find a Lodge capability used the Secretary’s home address as the lodge address, publicly exposing the Secretary’s personal details. This has now been fixed. Also, we have now implemented the ability for the secretary to create a lodge generic email address to keep their personal email address private. The lodge generic email address (e.g. [email protected]) can now be stored in the lodge record. If the lodge email address is empty, CMS will use the Secretary’s email address.
• The Lodge Monthly Return (LMR) has been enhanced with the capability of enabling FCF, MM and Mark Man ceremonies performed in a lodge other than the Member’s mother lodge (known as the visiting lodge). The secretary and assistants of both the visiting lodge and the mother lodge can now do the LMR for these individuals. Also the new LMR has simplified the strike-off, call-off and deceased record updating.
• Background enhancements are in place for the Capitation process as we are including the Member’s details in the actual invoice to the lodges.

Looking ahead

Future enhancements in the planning stages include:

• Subscription billing for fees, dues and Masonicare charitable contributions
• RSVP for the Lodge South
•  Create a smartphone and iPad app
• The ability to subscribe and pay for The College of Masonic Studies courses (both online or on-site)
• The ability for a secretary to export their lodge’s membership information to a spreadsheet.
• Enhancements for a secretary/assistant ordering of certificates for their members (this includes complete automation for specific certificates)
• Generic email addresses for all Lodge Secretaries
•  Members and lodges will be able to choose to opt-in to payment methods and generic addressing (i.e. not mandated when available).

Payback on the CMS investment is expected in 3–4 years and to date we have only spent $2,700 in additional enhancements. Our CMS, being a better architected system compared to iMIS, and many hundreds of donated volunteer hours, are giving Members a very good return on investment.

The Grand Secretariat and the Board of Management are listening to your discovering problems and recommendations, and are focused on fixes and enhancements as we also work on the future projects.

Freemason Magazine April/June 2024, Pages 18-19.