On the search for my next gig, in 2015 I longed for a different way to job search. Having worked recently with a startup to help them with their technical recruiting on Hired.com, I was inspired to imagine a new job site catering to values-driven, heart-centered businesses and employees.

With the intention—or at least the possibility—of building and launching the site myself, I designed full mockups for a product prototype. While the project never entered into a development phase, the interactive mockup on InVision provides a tour into the the central functionality I scoped out.

Interactive Mockup

The employer/business side of the site offered features to manage your account, craft a company profile, and search for candidates meeting your needs.

Much of the functionality was inspired by Hired.com because I’d been impressed with their new model for digital recruiting. I then overlaid that model with design and concept improvements that would allow for a different audience to connect and utilize the tools.

The candidate side of the website offered similar functionality, prompting candidates to define and share their values in the workplace.

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I worked with GiveLight for several years as a volunteer, assisting with their design and technical needs. For the 10th Anniversary Gala, I was enlisted to develop the visual concept for the event.

An early version of the board’s vision was branded ‘Light Upon Light,’ for which I created this design for a Save the Date postcard, building upon the organization’s branding, ties to Islam, and intended Moroccan theme for the event.

As the event date moved closer, the name for the event was changed to ‘Little Stars in Our Universe,’ bringing the focus back to the children whom the event would support.

I developed a new visual concept for the title and produced assets for both digital and print distribution—again bringing in elements of GiveLight’s logo and being mindful to dress the children in culturally appropriately attire, given their international network of orphanages in Muslim communities.

 

I also put together a print version of the Sponsorship Packages Menu.

At the project’s end, I handed off the assets to other volunteers so they could continue building upon my design for additional event needs.

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I kept hearing from young men in their 20s that they were constantly forgetting to close out their bartab at the end of the night, schlepping back the next day – hungover – to pick up their credit card. When the iOS SDK began to offer the capability to monitor location in the background, using local notifications to alert people about places of interest nearby, I decided to look into offering an app for these thwarted bar goers.

The app featured a basic edition that also allowed users to track their spending and consumption according to customized limits, receiving an alert when they’d exceeded the mark.

The greatest challenge here, of course, was in packing the app with full functionality and flexibility, while keeping it intuitive and easy to use for bar goers imbibing for the night.

A PRO in-app purchase add-on provided customized location menus, custom drinks, and a tab history with statistics.

As a solopreneur in this endeavor, all product design, content, graphics, video promotions, and marketing materials fell to me to produce.

The website

The Results?

While I got a lot of positive feedback from users and bartenders, my marketing chops (not my strong suit) fell short as the App Store grew and competition increased. I maintained the project for several years before shutting it down and removing it from the App Store permanently.

Best compliment I received on this app? A customer in Belgium wrote to me to make some suggestions and eventually ended up letting me know that he found the app so useful that it wound up on his home screen. That’s worth a lot in the app world!

✪ Featured in the App Store under Apple’s “What’s Hot” list for Lifestyle in April and May 2012

✪ “This thoughtful little app does much more than your plain old calculator app does and you will put your mind and wallet at ease.” ✭✭✭✭✩ — AppAdvice.com

✪ “BarTab Keepr might be the best buck you spend, except for penny beer night.” — www.collegekegstand.com

✪ “BarTab Keepr by AE’G-wiz is a great application for those heavy nights out on the tiles.” — www.product-reviews.net

✪ Named one of “5 Great Beer Apps to Kick-Start Your Summer” — www.wisebread.com

✪ Featured in the App Store under Apple’s “What’s Hot” list for Utilities in June and July 2011

✪ “The last thing you need while you’re out having fun and having a few drinks is an app that is difficult to use. The BarTab Keeper isn’t like that. It is quite user friendly.” ✭✭✭✭✭ — George Norman, FindMySoft.com

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The Background

The initial concept for this project emerged during an analysis of the Napa Valley Vintners’ existing public website at napavintners.com. In 2017, the Marketing and Communications departments at Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) launched a new campaign called Cultivating Excellence across multiple channels to reach and engage consumer audiences.

The Motivation

In support of the Cultivating Excellence campaign, several expedient changes were made to the homepage of napavintners.com. Already serving multiple audiences, including wine trade professionals seeking education and networking opportunities, Napa Valley community members engaging with NVV member winery programs and events, and wine retail professionals seeking access to exclusive wines, adding a consumer audience to the site made the cracks in the strategy of "one site to serve all needs" more apparent. With considerably different audience objectives, the existing website’s information architecture was proving unwieldy and ineffective for visitors.

My Role

As Web Manager for the NVV, I was involved from the inception of the project, first raising the issue of competing audiences and meeting regularly with department directors to form a consensus around an appropriate solution. After a year of fitful progress—due mainly to the challenges of scheduling for all the interested parties—we pared the NVV team down to three: myself, the VP of Marketing, and the Head of Creative Services. I then served primarily as a technical and product manager going forward, working to ensure a user-centered product design that met the goals of NVV’s Communications and Marketing teams.

The Process

 Outlining Requirements and Objectives

Knowing that meeting the needs of our audience was one of our greatest challenges going into this project, my first task was to work with the project team to succinctly define our intended audience and the services we wished to provide them.

It was immediately clear that we were talking to people interested in wine.
What else did we know?

Using research and survey data gather by the Napa Valley Vintners, we asked and answered the following questions about our target users:

• How much do they know about wine?
• What makes them choose one wine over another when purchasing?
• How are they most likely to find our website? i.e., what information will they be seeking?

We needed to be equally clear on the NVV’s goals for the new site. And we knew that our primary objective was answering one question for our end-users…

Why buy Napa Valley wine?

The answer to that question was one NVV had already answered through earlier campaigns:
Because every bottle of wine tells a story. The story of what makes the Napa Valley—its wines, its people, its place—unique. A story of excellence and innovation.

Of course, it was also apparent that as a luxury brand, the site would need to pair the aspirational with the approachable, constantly mindful of where the brand was landing between exclusivity and inclusivity.

We knew early on from our team discussions surrounding our target audience that a key component to a successful website would rely on presenting varying levels of information, based on the end-users’ interests. We needed to offer non-technical information to those interested in learning the basics, while also offering opportunities for our visitors to learn and grow into confident wine enthusiasts, armed with the knowledge they craved to make educated wine purchases.

• Objective #1: Answer the question “Why buy Napa Valley wine?”
• Objective #2: Tell the story of Napa Valley’s wine, place, and people.
• Objective #3: Create a brand that feels simultaneously approachable and aspirational.
• Objective #4: Educate our visitors so that they feel confident and informed when choosing Napa Valley wines.

 Information Architecture

Now that we had our top-level objectives in place, I began work on the information architecture for the site. Working with our in-house team through several rounds of reviews and brainstorming, we defined an outline for the website with key topics and messaging for each section, paying special attention to define broad concepts that could then be expanded for greater detail, depending on an end-user’s experience and interest.

 Researching Partners

Next, in collaboration with the Head of Design Services, I created a Request for Proposal (RFP) and began extensive online research to identify top-notch design agencies who had the aesthetic and skillsets we were interested in for the project.

• Highly skilled with interactive design
• Expertise in innovative ways to disseminate information
• A lush but simple aesthetic that doesn’t feel arrogant

 Defining the Brand

With our new consulting design agency on board, we began meeting to visually and conceptually define the "Cultivating Excellence" brand, defining logo components, a palette, and mood boards.

 Reviewing Content

Working from the original outline and key messages we’d established earlier in the project, our consulting writers began to shape the voice and messaging for the website. I worked with NVV’s Vice President of Marketing to carefully review and edit that content for accuracy, consistency, and engagement.

 Technical Specifications

As part of my role as Web Manager for the Napa Valley Vintners, I had outlined a 5-year plan to update and consolidate our technical resources into a modern and consistent set of libraries and platforms. This website was the first opportunity to begin implementation and therefore required clear specification for the consultants working to build a front-end framework for the website.

Based on the existing codebases and the experience of NVV’s in-house technical staff, we’d decided to build all future projects using PHP, Laravel, Bootstrap, and jQuery. Additionally, we would be leveraging our existing database and server resources hosted on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

Our consulting designers for this project would build the front-end for each of the main sections in the new website, and then I would rebuild that infrastructure into a Laravel backend that connected with our existing database to expand the site functionality.

Development

 Data Architecture

With high-fidelity design prototypes reviewed and approved for the project, I had a full understanding now of what content and functionality would be included on the website. It was time to begin evaluating how that functionality could leverage our existing data structures and what modifications or new resources would be required.

I outlined all of the data models pertaining to the site and mapped out the schema that would serve each.

Working now in Laravel, I created migrations and seeders for all of the pertinent data, ensuring that our final launch would pre-populate our site content as well.

 Backend Services

Working with Model-View-Controller and object-oriented patterns, I integrated the static front-end originally produced by consultants into the final codebase. I then connected critical dynamic components like features, events, and articles to the database, and further integrated the front-end libraries into Composer and npm dependencies.

 Designing New Components

Next came designing and building additional content and components. Rather than continuing to work with consultants on all the design pieces needed for the website, our team chose instead to define core functionality by consultation and then I would continue the design work for the rest of the functionality desired, working in collaboration with the NVV Head of Creative Services as needed.

This included refining the interface for the Winery Map and Trip Planner, envisioning the look and components for dynamically-built and launched campaign landing pages, and—most critically—making sure the website was compliant with W3C Web Accessibility standards (WCAG).

I also was responsible for sourcing and editing all of the photography for our initial article library, as well as styling the content and presentation formats for our existing articles and itineraries.

 Web Content Accessibility

As part of NVV’s initiative to support and encourage web accessibility in the wine industry, a technical objective to meet or exceed web content accessibility standards was implemented for this project.

Having taken a few online courses on the subject, I still didn’t feel knowledgeable enough to ensure we were meeting our goals in this regard, so we sought out the expertise of a web accessibility consultant. However, finding such expertise proved to be difficult and when we did finally hire someone, she failed to meet her obligations to the project.

Anxious to launch the new site, but stalled by our inability to move forward with accessibility, I dug in again to fully audit the site for accessibility issues. Identifying the core guidelines (WCAG 2.0 Level AA Compliance) that we wished to adhere to, I worked through the entire site to address problems for web users with disabilities.

Most of the work involved correctly labeling and identifying information in the site hierarchy, implementing semantic markup, enriching javascript components to communicate real-time and appropriately with assistive software, and evaluating (and improving) the visual contrast and legibility of the design components.

 Custom Content Management

The final stage of development was building a custom Content Management System (CMS) interface for the dynamically-driven portions of the website.

Again working with PHP and Laravel, I used the AdminLTE3 Bootstrap Template to build a new home for core staff functionality, including role- and permission-based access.

 Launch Plan

Our final phases for the project included developing a comprehensive launch plan in coordination with the Communications and Marketing departments. For my part, I served as an advisor to suggest considerations and strategies for a successful launch.

• Email Announcement
• Social Media Plan
• Rebranding for existing properties
• Introductory campaign with the option to purchase a virtual wine-tasting

The Big Reveal

The website was launched in December of 2020. After years of planning and programming to create it, the site felt like a breathe of fresh air for the Napa Valley brand and immediately received positive responses from industry partners and website visitors alike.

However, my favorite compliment came from my grandpa who declared it “one of the easiest sites he’d ever navigated.” I considered that high praise from a man who used technology both personally and professionally, but had entered a phase in life where navigating online could be daunting, if not dangerous.

Outcomes

Today, the website continues to be an important tool for the Napa Valley Vintners, steadily growing its presence and still evolving. The COVID-19 pandemic altered so much of the business operations for NVV, as it did for everyone. While the project was launched late 2020, it was nevertheless impacted by the shutdowns in tourism. As restrictions lifted, the efficacy of the site re-emerged and NVV staff began again to give new focus to the site’s use and promotion.

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The Background

Since 1981, the Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) has been hosting an annual event called Auction Napa Valley in support of non-profits caring for the health and well-being of the Napa Valley community. A key component of that event was the Napa Valley Barrel Auction, a futures barrel auction beloved by attendees for years. In 2015, before I began working with the NVV, staff began overseeing the development of a new digital bidding experience to replace the in-person bidding with physical leaderboards associated with the auction in the decades prior.

The Motivation

My first introduction to the Napa Valley Barrel Auction as NVV’s new Web Manager was in 2016 with the launch of their brand new bidding website and mobile apps developed in partnership with consulting software engineers. The event was marred that year by technical problems that shut down bidding for several hours while remote developers tried to find the problem. For an already wary audience of bidders non-plussed by the introduction of technology, the challenges painted the venture a failure.

My Role

My task, then, immediately became to take over as Product Manager for the bidding ecosystem to ensure that our quality and performance metrics would be met at the next year’s events, wooing bidders to embrace the technology and improve auction participation in future years.

The Process

 Defining Requirements and Objectives

The first step was working with NVV staff to fully understand the unique requirements and rules of the Napa Valley Barrel Auction, as well as the conventions and norms that bidders had learned and enjoyed over years of attendance.

Meetings with the Chief Financial Officer, IT Manager, and consulting engineers all served to map out the existing product’s intentions, as well as where the product and the process were falling short.

I immediately identified that a key weakness was that the consulting engineers weren’t provided clear specifications and often made assumptions that did not align with the core requirements of the app. To solve that issue, I knew I’d need to take an active role in overseeing and reviewing the work as it progressed, as well as providing comprehensive wireframes, mockups, flow-charts, and design assets as needed.

 Strategy and Specifications

Working in tandem to redesign the event registration website for the event, I was able to map out user flows for attendees and bidders based on an end-to-end experience.

With new features to introduce like early-access and remote bidding, we needed a solid understanding of how to correctly direct traffic across multiple online properties according to the current schedule of events. It would also be pivotal to educate our bidders on how to access the new technology, use it, and benefit from it, while keeping the interface as intuitive and familiar as possible.

We’d found that one of the biggest barriers to people using the new app or website came during login: many of the auction guests didn’t know their own login credentials and needed assistance getting access to the bidding interface.

I went to the drawing board to think of ways to simplify the process for our support staff and guests alike. The solution involved introducing a new “kiosk” mode for our apps to allow administrators to quickly login on others behalf with a paddle number and 4-digit PIN, letting guests bid quickly and easily on-site without credentials.

Taking this and other new features into account, I set upon writing out documentation for the new and existing functionality to be launched for next year, being sure to include schema and logic-flows for key components that could be misinterpreted by our consulting engineers.

 Design and Mockups

I then began mocking up high-fidelity designs for every page and component of the application, including interactivity states and session timeouts. The result was a series of interactive prototypes built from photoshop files to outline functionality and flow for the web and mobile app experiences.

Explore the entire prototype online at InVision:

Web Prototype Mobile Prototype

 Project Management and Technical Reviews

With the design and UI now in place, our consulting engineers began development on the new applications, carefully referencing the specifications documents I had provided. I met regularly with them by phone once a week to review progress and address outstanding questions, collateral, or confusion. Then I worked directly and daily with the lead developer by instant messaging to keep momentum on the project moving forward when any barriers arose.

Since the engineers on the team often struggled with css, I would periodically do code reviews from our shared git repository to offer suggested improvements and modifications needed to meet the specifications. We often collectively found it easier to speak through code, so I would provide CSS, SQL, or pseudo-code resources to outline the desired outcome.

 Testing and Quality Assurance

With numerous rounds of testing and quality assurance performed by me personally during our development phases, once I felt we’d addressed outstanding bugs and issues, we moved to testing with a larger audience.

Because the Napa Valley Barrel Auction happened just once a year with high-profile guests and high-stakes consequences for any major technical issues, we often found it important but difficult to test the application at scale. Working to resolve this to the extent possible, I planned—with Napa Valley Vintners’ endorsement—a testing party for staff and community members to engage with the app before the official event launch.

Staff were encouraged to invite friends for a range of devices and aptitudes, offering them an evening of food, fun, and pretend bidding.

I planned the party to entice and engage, while focusing participants on key components of the applications and thorough testing. To accomplish those goals, I created competitions and prizes for different testing categories and gave each participant a testing checklist to complete with feedback.

With testing results and user feedback in hand, I compiled all the notes from our testing party in order to prioritize and allocate our remaining development time to address the biggest issues. I then turned my attention to developing documentation and training materials in support of our technical volunteers who would be assisting bidders at the event.

 Product Launch

Early-access and remote bidding meant that our new application would be launched prior to the in-person event later in the week. A surprising benefit of that approach—in addition to offering more bidding opportunities to interested buyers—was that it helped the technical team address critical issues or bugs ahead of our full-scale bidding windows.

Subsequently, we were able to walk into the final day of bidding with confidence that the software was operational and bug-free. However, bidding at the tasting event still meant installing additional technology specific to the auction experience: kiosk stations and leaderboard displays. Waiting for our venue to be available 24 hours ahead of check-in, I coordinated with our Event Manager and contract crews to install several dozen digital leaderboards and kiosks for the auction according to our previously planned Barrel Room map.

Having experienced network connection errors that proved difficult to replicate in previous years, we also implemented a failsafe by installing a control center for all leaderboard panels to be monitored and refreshed remotely during the event. We then worked closely with our internet provider for the venue to ensure that we would have the necessary bandwidth allocated for the thousands of devices that would be bidding on-site.

 Event Support and Training

Being the person most familiar and knowledgeable about the bidding apps, I was the technical point of contact for the day of the auction, leading a team of technical volunteers in helping bidders on-site.

I worked by phone and instant messaging to be in touch remotely with our development team in Chicago. And then I worked on the floor of the auction to provide guests services like bidding and login assistance, bid retractions through an administration panel, and helping our volunteers to address any questions they could not answer.

Leading up to the event, I coordinated with NVV’s CFO to assign permissions and PINs to all of our volunteer team. And I developed event signage, training materials, and troubleshooting protocols for distribution to the entire staff.

Outcomes and Iterations

The launch of the new bidding system was a success in 2017. Adoption and bidding both increased with no major technical difficulties repeated from the previous year.

At the auction, I heard from multiple guests who were both pleased and a bit surprised by how easy bidding was…at times too easy. (In the sense that they got wrapped up in the fun of it and purchased more than intended!)

Each year of the auction, I noted feedback and issues that we then worked to address and improve upon the following year. By the time the auction ended in 2019, we were working with a highly productive bidding model that was increasing participation across multiple metrics and had resulted in record-breaking earnings some years.

The COVID-19 pandemic put the auction event on hold indefinitely in 2020. When the event was resurrected a year later, it took a new form as Collective Napa Valley, and the auction bidding technology was outsourced to the technology team at Sotheby’s—who referenced my original interactive mockups to define specifications for their own custom app for the event.

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The Background

Following a hiatus necessitated by the COVID-19 restrictions on large gatherings and events, Auction Napa Valley (ANV)—the charity wine auction hosted annually by the Napa Valley Vintners for over 40 years—was re-imagined to become a membership-based philanthropic collective, offering exclusive access to year-round events and benefits throughout Napa Valley. Positioned to engage more wine enthusiasts and ready to begin fundraising again for local community non-profits, Collective Napa Valley would need a new model for customer relations, event sales, and ticketing.

The Motivation

The technology that had shaped and supported the ANV event could not meet the new model’s requirements and priorities, so the Napa Valley Vintners needed to move quickly to implement a new technology stack in order to meet ambitious deadlines for the next event in 2022.

My Role

Tasked with researching and implementing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and a flexible events ticketing system in less in six months time, Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) staff immediately enlisted my help as a long-time collaborator to keep the project moving quickly and efficiently through the entire lifecycle of the project.

The Process

 Defining Requirements and Objectives

Working closely with the NVV in-house lead, my first objective was to define a list of requirements I could use to evaluate CRM products on the market. I then began research online to identify the top contending products available, based on their usability, feature sets, and cost of operation.

Considerations

• Intuitive interfaces would ease onboarding and adoption for non-technical staff
• Widely supported CRM systems would ease the burden of support and development for future projects
• The CRM would also need to be paired with an events registration and ticketing system with a full-featured portal that could be customized to match Collective Napa Valley’s branding

 Research

The research phase began with simply educating myself about Customer Relationship Management systems so that I could knowledgeably evaluate their value and potential for Collective Napa Valley.

Searching online to identify a list of viable CRM products, I began to collect and collate common features that would be of use to Napa Valley Vintners staff. From that list, subsequent discussions with NVV staff, and a foundational understanding of the company’s culture and event requirements, I was able to define an ideal feature set by which I could evaluate each product individually.

 Product Evaluations

Once I had gathered the data on features and products, I met with the NVV staff lead on the project to review my worksheets and winnow down the list of candidate CRMs in order to schedule interactive demos with their respective sales teams.

We chose to focus on four competing products based on those that could best meet project needs and began requesting demos immediately.

One of our top candidates was eliminated when they informed us that that did not work outside of the Arts sector. The three remaining candidates went through multiple rounds of demonstration and Q&A with their product teams.

What we found was that robust functionality often came at the cost of an intuitive user-interface, while those systems that embraced a more modern approach to software design patterns were limited by small development teams struggling to implement full functionality.

While no perfect product had presented itself, we were too pressed for time to commit to products that couldn’t be built upon and customized expediently.

Ultimately, we chose the platform that seemed to offer the best compromise for our immediate and long-term goals:

• A navigable interface that could be learned through special training sessions with consulting experts
• Feature-rich functionality built specifically for non-profit needs surrounding fundraising, events, and CRM
• Microsoft Dynamics Partner developers to shepherd our development and customization efforts to launch
• A budget-friendly pricing system that leveraged our existing Microsoft services and subscriptions
• A scalable and competent team of consultants willing to meet our aggressive deadlines

 Partners

Eager to start development, Napa Valley Vintners hired Microsoft-accredited development partners, Boyer & Associates, to install and implement their Microsoft Dynamics Fundraising and Engagement services with an accompanying member portal.

We also introduced additional NVV staff to the team now that the product plan was in development. In total, there were three members representing NVV’s technical team and two NVV staff members in charge of the Collective Napa Valley program.

On the Boyer team, we worked with a principal architect, project manager, business analyst, and account manager.

All came together collaboratively to define the product customizations and data migration plan.

 Planning

As a team, we outlined three stages of development and release:

The first phase would launch in three months and would focus on building the CRM administration panel and migrating data from NVV’s existing database to the Fundraising and Engagement app, as well as releasing a supporting website to gather interest for Phase 2.

The second phase would launch a month later with the ability to process memberships through the website portal.

The third phase would launch three months subsequent to announce event information and sell tickets for an upcoming event in June 2022.

 Design and Development

Phase One

I would be in charge of all web and interface design, working with the Boyer team to build out the new member website and portal.

As the Microsoft Dynamics and Power Pages platforms were new environments for me, I spent time reviewing the capabilities and limitations of the portal templating system. I then began designing high-fidelity mockups for the website interface based on brand work done by a consulting designer, as well as previous work I’d done on brands for other Napa Valley Vintners’ properties.

The Collective Napa Valley Program Director provided me with content outlines for the site, which I then developed visually and returned as an inventory of copy requirements for the site before launch.

Although we’d hired consultants explicitly to help us build the technical infrastructure of the website, it became obvious a few weeks into the project that the product was new enough that the consulting team wasn’t able to offer much expertise on programming for the front-end. Development then became a process of learning through trial and error for me, working to adapt my existing knowledge of HTML, SASS, CSS, Javascript, and server-side languages to the new environment.

Since the product was largely targeted towards organizations with fewer expectations of customization, I found the provided infrastructure outdated and limiting. However, I was able to overlay upgrades to the underlying Bootstrap libraries to improve programmability. And from that foundation, I was able to build the key components and style library for the website.

Phase Two

Phase Two pushed farther into building the technical infrastructure of the project, requiring a deeper understanding of the platform’s ecosystem.

As I continued to work closely with Boyer staff, my understanding of and familiarity with the platform grew, both front- and back-end. Learning quickly, I began to take on updates requested by NVV Staff to facilitate data integrity and accessibility.

I also developed an excellent working rapport with our consulting developers, which allowed us both to consult and advise each other on the project specifications and requirements.

I began work throughout the platform to build processes and data architecture that met the needs of the project. I also began writing up feature requests based on internal meetings with NVV team members, translating their requirements into technical specifications for the Boyer team.

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Phase Three

By the time we entered Phase Three of development, it was clear that we needed to shift our team structure to allow for streamlined project management of the remaining functionality. I took the lead on the NVV team, working as liaison between the non-technical and technical teams to scope out the remaining project.

I had also, by this time, become a knowledgeable member of the development team, offering insight into the project architecture, data infrastructure, and programming capabilities for the entire system. That experience allowed me to craft a detailed specifications document for our final phases in building out the event registration and ticketing systems.

From there, I served as a technical advisor and developer for the events and ticketing systems: programming new functionality, designing all the front-end interfaces and UX flows for the system, and competently explaining the complex requirements of NVV events and their technological consequences.

 Testing and Quality Assurance

As the person most familiar with the product specifications and requirements, I led our shared efforts to ensure a consistent, quality product ready for launch.

We would collectively test in online sessions with the development and program teams. I also would define all the test cases and scenarios to properly ascertain that functionality was solid, reviewing various user-flows and patterns to establish testing procedures.

 Product Launch

A core member of the development and product team, I worked extensively with Boyer and Associates consultants to outline our launch plan, including resources to be moved and tested, as well as debugging unexpected errors in the production environment.

With a difficult launch that took a very long weekend of troubleshooting to meet our final deadline, we successfully released tickets for sale to the Napa Valley Barrel Auction Weekend in April of 2022.

 Event Support and Training

The team focus turned to sales and support for the upcoming event. In my capacity as technical lead and product manager, I began working with NVV Staff to train them on the tools and procedures for managing events in the CRM.

We also continued development on a ticket scanning app to be used on the day of the event for registrant check-ins and parking, working with Boyer and Associates to wireframe and then prototype the end product.

 Documentation

After all development work was completed, I began documenting core functionality and infrastructure for the NVV and Boyer teams. This work formed as a reference for development and training, moving forward with new project leads stepping in to manage the product long-term.

Outcomes

On an exceedingly ambitious timeline, we were able to launch a robust and scalable event management and ticketing system, capable of handling Collective Napa Valley’s primary seasonal events. With the first year’s development work completed, I was able to return to the website to refactor the logic and code for greater flexibility/extensibility, allowing me to hand off all event configuration and support to NVV staff in 2023.

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Background

In 2016, I began working with a consulting engineer who had previously programmed the existing platform used by the Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) to manage their event ticketing for an annual wine auction event.

The event was a high-profile and highly successful endeavor that required custom technology in support of its complex registration and ticketing system.

Each year after the event, staff would evaluate the system and bring me a wish list for new features or improvements.

My Contribution

Working as the NVV Web Manager, my role was to manage the product and development resources moving forward, design an improved UI/UX, define and provision all technical specifications, program new feature functionality, and set a high standard for quality assurance.

Environment

The project was developed in Ruby on Rails and deployed to a custom configured nginx virtual server hosted on Azure’s cloud platform.

Components

While UI/UX improvements to the functionality were on-going, major development projects included designing and developing an on-the-fly package builder for custom registrations, reprogramming the registration interfaces, and improving reporting.

Dynamic Registration Packages

One of the ways in which the existing system was most encumbered was the lack of versatility in it’s package building options. Each year I would have to personally configure the standard packages for sale through the event website, using tools provided in Auction Central. However, a large percentage of packages sold each year were individually customized to particular guests, which the system was not equipped to handle.

The problem created any number of headaches for those trying to use the system efficiently to make in-house purchases on behalf of registered guests who had called for customer service help.

To address these issues, I scrapped the existing interface to re-envision a new package builder flow that would allow for on-the-fly customizations at the time of purchase. I then worked in tandem with consulting engineers to program the new functionality within the RoR codebase, paving the way for a full codebase update that increased modularity and scalability.

Promo Codes

Another sore spot in the annual registration process was providing complimentary tickets to partnering organizations every year. Without contact or billing information, we were unable to process registrations in-house. So I enriched the promo code system in Auction Central so that codes could be distributed in bulk to partners, who could then use the code to register their own participants.

The codes were designed to be versatile and secure, allowing staff to assign codes to particular entities and enable specific purchases or customized pricing based on the provided promo code.

Reporting

Last but not least, as my experience with the codebase increased, I took on more of the feature programming myself. One such project was enhancing the registration reporting module to include more accurate and useful data, across more metrics.

The reports specifically included visually highlighting inconsistent or concerning data so that managers could investigate any issues thoroughly.

Outcomes

With continual development and progress instituted, Auction Central was an ever-evolving system that was constantly adapting to new project requirements and improving as a tool used widely by NVV staff. The innovations in dynamically building packages at the time of purchase, in particular, had a significantly positive impact on event operations—drastically reducing the amount of time technical support was needed to resolve specialized purchases.

In 2020, the event that Auction Central supported was put on hiatus indefinitely due to pandemic restrictions. When the program returned two years later, the model had been changed enough that rebuilding or maintaining the current infrastructure no longer made sense, so the codebase was archived offline.

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Background

In 2017, staff at the Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) were dependent on an old email templating system that required Internet Explorer functionality no longer maintained.

A class of emails termed internally as “Segmented Emails” were sent by opening an HTML email template in the Internet Explorer browser and using the option to “Save as Email”—functionality that was rapidly becoming hidden and less unavailable—to open, edit, and send the email to a selected group of recipients via Outlook.

This approach had several clear draw backs:

• Though a familiar pattern for the staff who had used the system for years, it was a tedious process that required multiple memorized steps and some general understanding of HTML.
• Email responsiveness for mobile platforms was lost once the HTML email templates were sent by Outlook.
• The core dependency on the Internet Explorer browser was unsustainable and fast approaching expiration with the introduction of Microsoft Edge.

My Contribution

To resolve these issues, I began work on a new customized templating and email send system to be used entirely online by in-house staff.

Environment

Working within an existing website built on ASP Classic VBScript and JavaScript infrastructure, this project also relied on Bootstrap UI components, CSS, HTML, and jQuery. I then integrated those services with the SQL Server backend via AJAX and JSON, and implemented a TinyMCE editor.

Components

Template Library and Manager

I started by evaluating the existing email templates for repeatable patterns that would allow me to break down elements into suitable data points for customization across different templates. With a new table schema in place, I then reproduced and updated each of the existing templates into the Azure SQL Server database.

Email Customizations

The next step was building the web interface to manage and edit both templates and individual emails going forward. With role-based permissions, I was able to implement the editing functionality for both templates and emails in a single shared interface.

The new UI offered automated options for customizing font and background colors, toggling layout options for template elements like branding and social media links, and enabling template specific features like custom footers or an image column layout.

Header Image Library

I was able to tie the Segmented Email header image options to an an existing Header Image Library which was used for other member newsletter emails. Improvements to that library included adding indicators for the number of times the image had been previously used, plus tools that allowed managers to archive images so that they could no longer be selected while composing a new email.

WYSIWYG Editing

One of the improvements this new approach offered was in providing a “What You See Is What You Get” (a.k.a., WYSIWYG – pronounced “wizzy-wig”) editor. Implemented via the highly supported and maintained TinyMCE project, WYSIWYG editing offered a real benefit for non-technical staff using the new email system.

In addition to the configuration tools offered out of the box by TinyMCE, I added several custom plugins to the editor to manage additional versatility and intuitive input, including:

• A custom color palette conforming to in-house branding
• Custom styling for font blocks and headers
• Four custom input tools to insert pre-defined email segments into the email body
• A reset button returning the email body copy to its unedited template state

Email Testing and Delivery

A browser preview and test email system were additional improvements of this new online system. Users could now preview their HTML email in browser and send a copy of that email to themselves or any other staff member.

Once the email was ready to be sent, users could paste a custom list of email addresses into the editor, and then at the click of a button, the email would be sent in batches via SendGrid’s API Header to recipients for final distribution.

Tracking Summaries

By leveraging an existing tracking system built for a different in-house email system, I was also able to add tracking for these newly minted Segmented Emails. Using regex patterns, I would search and replace all links by wrapping them first in a tracking link which recorded opens and interactions before forwarding readers on to their final URL.

In-house staff could access reporting for sent emails via the Segmented Email dashboard, tracking button and link clicks to gather metrics on what content was engaging their recipients.

Automated Reminders

Finally, I implemented automated reminders sent out via email to all staff who had abandoned emails in the Segmented Email system. Each month, a Scheduled Logic App in Azure would run to evaluate what drafts had been left unedited for a month. Those abandoned drafts were then collated and sent to their respective authors, reminding them to clean up drafts that were no longer needed. A summary email would be send for all abandoned drafts to the Web Manager on staff.

Drafts older than a year would be automatically removed from the system using soft deletes.

Outcomes

Today, the Segmented Email system is a widely adopted tool used by all Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) staff. Allowing for targeted emails to specific and custom audiences that do not fit within the role of a traditional mailing list, it fills an important gap in NVV’s email strategy.

With additional Azure service changes recently announced, I will be porting the system in 2023 to a new PHP/Laravel codebase and user interface to address long-term viability and support on Azure’s Web App hosting services.

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Background

A little known fact: I wouldn’t be a programmer today if I hadn’t first been an Archaeologist. Working through college and my early career as first a Lab Technician, and later, as the Laboratory Director for employee-owned SWCA Environmental Consultants’ Tucson office, I began programming our company databases to improve efficiency and organization.

When I began working in the lab to learn the procedures, I eventually realized that much of the data entry we were required to do duplicated efforts. As my knowledge and credibility at the company grew, I began to look at ways to build a comprehensive database system that would only require data entry once, capable of producing all the subsequent reports and forms required for curation from a single dataset.

Environment

Artifact and photography data for the company were stored in different Microsoft Access databases prior to development. The forms and reports required by the local museum for curation were provided in document form and filled out either by hand or manually on a computer.

My Contribution

To streamline the process, I designed and built a single Microsoft Access database that could be replicated for each project site. The new system would leverage shared data about the project to pre-populate repetitive data across all forms and centralized all project management to a single data archive.

To accomplish those goals, I taught myself incrementally how to program advanced features in MS Access using VBScript for Applications (a skillset I then went on to apply to Excel spreadsheet customizations as a Fundraising Campaign Director and to web development with ASP server-side scripting for personal and professional use).

Components

Artifact and Sample Data

The heart of the lab’s operations, each artifact and soil or pollen sample that was excavated, collected, or documented on-site would come to the lab for processing and data entry. The provenance and material data recorded would need to be translated from hand-written records to data worksheets within the MS Access database.

With the newly integrated system of data entry, at least a third of the repeating data columns could be pre-populated from centralized data.

Image Data

Similar to the artifact and sample data, each photograph taken in the field would be collected with provenance, subject, and photographer information. These records would then be transferred to a database.

While once stored in a separate database entirely, the new system allowed for all data in the project to be captured through a single portal, allowing for lab techs to reduce their level of effort by removing data columns that were common to all formats.

Box and Artifact Labeling

A part of preparation for project curation at the local museum or institutes included correctly cataloguing, labeling, and organizing all the artifacts and samples for the project. Artifact and box labels each had their own unique requirements. Prior to developing the new system, our procedures would print hundreds of blank copies for box labels, filling them in by hand as needed.

To improve this process, I added those same label templates to the new data system and then populated them with the necessary data. Boxes and artifacts could now be labeled by printing out the forms and distributing them as needed.

Curation Forms and Reporting

The final process for the archaeology lab was preparing all documentation and reports according to specifications laid out by the governing bodies and curation institutes. By moving these forms into our data system, we were able to automate all the reporting curation procedures by simply printing out the required forms for each project without further data entry or oversight.

Outcomes

The lab’s efficiency was vastly improved with this system and I shared the database with the Laboratory Director in the Phoenix office as well, moving toward a company-wide standard for all of SWCA Environmental Consultants.

Years later, I was visiting friends at our old SWCA offices when I was introduced to the current Lab Manager. She immediately knew my name and told me that she refused to update her lab computer because she was still relying on the data system I’d built 15 years ago. It was truly gratifying to learn that the system had withstood the test of time that long without further upgrades or maintenance.

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