Paul Schantz

Presenters:

• Eric Kim:  VP User Experience, Modo Labs
• Marshall Vale:  VP Engineering, Modo Labs

Kurogo Mobile Campus:  What a Year!

• 3 major releases (2.1, 2.2, 2.3)
• 20+ packages released
• Major work at every level of the tech & product

What’s new for End Users?

• New map module features pathfinding, which uses data from either google maps or campus ArcGIS data.  Does turn-by-turn navigation.
• Tour 2.0:  maps, curated linear paths, with ability to skip stops.  Allows multiple layers of information.  Card-based photos.  Friendlier browser-based management tools for non-technical administrators has drag-n-drop content editing that dynamically adjusts the map routing.
• Indoor maps.  This is driven in large part by our corporate customers, but is frequently requested by our .edu customers.  Find nearest items of interest such as fire escapes, accessibility, info of interest such as A/V in room.
• Native tablet apps.  Split views, native OS controls like iOS popovers, sign-in / sign-out, Android ActionBar control, etc.
• Favorite modules:  loss of customized layout.  With 2.3, users can “promote” modules they use the most.  These items are shown in a “My Favorite Modules” section at the top of the main page.
• Facilities (Report a Problem):  allows creation of tickets.
• Resources Module:  availability of resources such as laundry facilities (integration with a system I didn’t catch).  It connects to a number of different structured data, and can be used by computer labs.
• Performance improvements:  ON THE SERVER:  improved data-source fetching, parsing, and caching; faster HTML sanitization; cache priming on every deploy; faster HTML generation and minification.  ON THE DEVICE:  more granular, persistent, and intelligent client-side caching, AJAX-loaded in-app notification banners for more cachable pages, native app asset cache (requires 2.3 server and apps)
• Federated search now included publisher content
• Typographic improvements to aid readability
• Ongoing accessibility updates and improvements
• Many visual updates and refinements
• More diversity of content presentation via Publisher
• More robust theming
• Comprehensive theming documentation
• Webfonts (support for Google fonts, Adobe TypeKit, Uploaded font files
• Fonts will appear across all platforms, including native apps (aside from navbar & navmenu)
• Publisher Templates:  more flexible and attractive

What’s New for Administrators?

• Redesign KPM for more flexibility during dev lifecycle
• Shopping cart model allows you to select packages before install
• Introduces provider types (git, github, packages).  Github is now a first-class citizen within Kurogo.
• Package Manager 2:  new channels for stable, beta and dev status; can change permissions to only show subset of channels; can change provider type; new Package Server
• Admin Roles:  additional role types; can now restrict a user’s role to all modules, module instance, module type; Example:  can limit a user to only edit a single Publisher module
• List Filter:  accelerator for finding matching items in long lists of components; enabled for data sources, modules, and services
• List Sorting:  select column to sort asc/desc; available in most areas of Admin with a table list; works with filter by
• Deploy Changes:  new in progress status for data sources, modules, and authentication authorities; limits deploying to only Edit and Test targets; limits deploying to only edit and test targets; allows changes to be made to production without deploying unfinished modules; can deactivate modes.
• Additional:  New job worker queue handles many background tasks (2.2), mail service provider for forms (2.1), published status indicator for edit pages; edit UI; new inspector assist in Edit; UI created for many settings which required Advanced Config; Sharing settings config; additional access to server status info & logs

What’s New for Developers?

• Documentation:  thorough update of kurogo core docs for 2.3, class hierarchies;
• Lots of objects!
• Package Manager 2:  new meta-data info in the package format; stable, beta, dev status; more detailed minimum and maximum version dependencies
• Additional improvements:  parse map types; AJAX flash message support; Custom URL Parameters in Data Models & Objects (bookmarks for aggregate feeds)

What’s Next?

• Self service & Enhanced App Assembly
• Quick theme builder:  rapidly change your Kurogo app’s overall theme via the Admin panel; simplified options streamlines the process; builder auto-computes and sets 500+ theme variable from a few settings; 6 color schemes; primary and secondary brand colors; Serif, Sans, or Custom fonts; Upload a logo.
• Marshall gave a quick demonstration of what the Quick Theme Builder can do
• Focus on self service:  full theme editor, fine grained modification of theme variables and asset files; more data sources will allow file upload for situations where live data source available, i.e. CSV for Calendar; improving navigation management; portlet management
• “Longform,” a new much more flexible, more modular content focused template
• Capabilities:  indoor maps (custom amenities, detail screens for amenities, feed support for POI and amenity data); Direct alerts; import/export of Edit content; duplication of Edit content; Banner ads (promote events and activities around campus); Tighter integration between Indoor Maps, Outdoor Maps and Facilities

Presenter:  Stewart Elliot, CEO, Modo Labs

The opening keynote of any conference usually portends the overall content and feel of the event.  A nice breakfast preceded, so for now, at least my stomach is happy.  Let’s see how this goes…

First items:  The conference app itself was made with Kurogo Publisher, and a thank-you to the sponsors:  Apperian, Double map GreyHeller, Radius Networks.  Also, a shout-out to the folks who travelled the farthest and Mr. Andrew Yu, the man who started the whole thing.  Cal State University was well-represented with five campuses sending reps to the event:  CSUCI, SacState, Fresno, East Bay, and of course CSUN.  Cal State has eight campuses using the platform.   PHSC:  Pasco-Hernando State College from Florida is also here (Dr. Melissa Harts from PHSC is actually sitting next to me as I type this – her presentation later is “What’s the Point?”).

Modo Labs is 5 years old this month!  One of the overall goals of the platform is to enable non-technical users to “do mobile” without having to code, i.e. publishing.  2.3 is out now, and 2.4 is coming in a couple months.  We’re proud to be able to deliver new iterations quickly.

“The Race to 2.0”

Fresno State beat Notre Dame to version 2.0 by 2 hours, so Cal State gets bragging rights as the first to implement 🙂

Modo Labs

Becca is new director, and changed a number of items:  logo, web site, etc.  The Modo Labs “ball” idea has been likened to an 8-ball, a bowling ball, and a party ball.  Modo’s new logo is a building block / chevron.  Modo = “the way of”  Visit the new web site here:  https://www.modolabs.com/

We want all universities to bring in students to develop on our platform, whether they have coding skills or not.  We urge our customers to do this.

The New Frontier

Where is the demand coming from, what are customers asking for?  In big demand are micro sites and multi-sites.  We’re helping one of our customers scale up their installation to 400+ different experiences.  In this case, crowd-sourcing becomes very important…how do you get people handle the challenge of managing all this stuff?

Modo Labs

Only independent company in this space, we’re growing 100% year-over-year.  This has allowed us to strongly reinvest in our product.  We also have customers in very large enterprises, hospitals and other verticals.  We recently moved into a new facility that is twice the size, the space itself was designed by Eric Kim.  We’d be happy to host you and your folks if you’d like to come visit us (and play foosball…it’s a big thing in our office).

It’s Just a Pen

Slide featured a Blackboard pen.  When we entered the market, Blackboard was our biggest competitor, with about a 70% market share.  Our product has grown by leaps and bounds, and Blackboard is now about 40%.  Ellucian is really big in this space, too (and experiencing challenges from WorkDay).

Why the pen?  We need to be humble about our product.  Competitors can easily move into this space and change the market in unpredictable ways.

After an uneventful flight from LAX to O’Hare and a two-hour drive, I arrived at Notre Dame University yesterday afternoon about 4:00 PM local time.  The Kurogo folks put on a nice mixer at the Morrison Inn for attendees last night from 6:00 – 9:00 PM, and I got an opportunity to meet a number of folks from around the US and Canada who are using the platform.  I’m eager to see how people are using and extending it to meet their campus needs!

The facility that we’re using for the event is the Notre Dame Innovation Center, which I’ll post picture for in a future update.  A very cool space, it’s really ideal for meetups, hackathons, and incubator-type activities.  I wish we had one of these at CSUN!  The reception desk of the center has a whole set of “that was easy” Staples-inspired buttons.  If you’re wondering, yes I pressed every one of these 🙂

This conference is a number of “firsts” for me:  first time at Notre Dame, first time at the Kurogo conference, and first time at a mobile-focused conference.  I’ll do my best to capture what’s being presented here, along with a bit of the event’s flavor.

Watch this space!