Software Updates – November 2021

Updates to Every Voice Engaged – Nov. 2021 (version 1.9.6)  

November brought new updates to the Every Voice Engaged platform. These changes include further development of digital issue guides, security upgrades, and backend architectural improvements to allow EVE to optimize for mobile access and several other enhancements.

Digital Issue Guide (beta)

As part of our efforts to develop ways participants can experience deliberation outside of a forum, we’ve developed an interactive new format for issue guides online, which now includes issue guide thumbnails and other images in addition to the PDF of the issue guide. We’ve also set up a demo environment for this feature to ensure fidelity to prototypes and enable more robust testing.

Architectural Improvements:

We have completed a large project modernize the platform’s backend so that it can support a number of feature requests from users (mobile optimization, adding audio/video capability, changing galas to improve functionality), which included designing a global architectural plan for redeveloping the majority of the platform’s user interfaces while simultaneous maintaining all site functionality via the iterative development and integration of a number of microservices. The first microservice, our “development pipeline” is now complete, tested, and ready to be used to launch a number of future features.

Invitation via email (beta)

As part of our efforts to enhance the moderator/convenor experience, we’ve developed a backend microservice for sending invitation emails to participants, to be connected to the front end and fully launched in December.

Kubernetes Update

As part of other tasks agreed to by both parties, including recommended security updates, we upgraded to Kubernetes v1.16.

The following changes are included in version 1.9.6 of EVE: