Here are PICs of our staff: www.nachi.org/staff
Here are some of the things the projects they’ve been working on:
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- We launched a new admin panel for the Buy-Back Guarantee program. You can now search guarantees, issue refunds and update addresses
- We imported all old FetchReport reports (from before 2015) and made it easy for members to claim reports that they uploaded using a different email address
- We added a new My Education Records dashboard that makes it easier for members to access and understand their records
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- We updated the licensing system to handle new Quebec licensing changes
- We updated the education page to make it possible to link to specific approvals
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- We added the
Account IDfield where appropriate to admin panels, notification emails, etc. - We made past-due notices on the dashboard more prominent
- Staff can now delete account addresses
- We updated most of the site to replace “NACHI.TV” with “InterNACHI® Webinars” — if you notice NACHI.TV on a page, please let us know.
- We fixed an issue where dates were showing as invalid in the mock inspections tool
- Chapter events will not move to “Past Events” until a day has passed
- Staff can now upload custom social images for articles
- Staff can now delete articles
- Chapter events now show the correct timezone
- We improved the billing page with clearer language and better UI
- We added new multi-inspectors features, including multiple managers, a better UI, and better handling of downgrades
- CPI members can now download a NAHI CRI certificate
- Nick’s open source can now be used by guests so long as they’ve never had a billing plan in the past
- Fixed an issue where some events were getting saved with the wrong time zone information
- We improved Buy-Back error messages to reduce confusion for members adding Buy-Backs thru partners like ISN
- We upgraded our servers to the latest versions and implemented new browser features that will keep the site fast and secure
- Launched a new course for Illinois licensing purposes
- Improved the “downgrade” workflow to make it clear that some perks (like legacy pricing) may be lost
- Made it possible for staff to change a member’s display name
- Added a handful of billing and subscription improvements
- Added time zones to webinar pages
- Added a welcome email for TPREIA members
- Added some SEO improvements to our “find an inspector” searches
- Added underlying support for multilingual exams
- Removed some references to the convention
- Applied changes/improvements for member services
- Improved multi-inspector management tool
- Company managers can now access listings for everyone in their company
- Improved chapter admin
Record Locators are codes that look something like — this 12-character (although sometimes longer) code will make it a lot easier for our members to refer to things in a way that is easy for us to look up. Right now, the Buy-Back system is the only thing using record locators, but expect to see them popping up more in the near future.
Our hope is that these codes will make it a lot easier for staff to provide support to members (“Can you tell me the record locator? It’s listed at the bottom of the page.”).
- We cleaned up the members-only dashboard on mobile, making it much easier to browse the site from a smartphone
- We’ve added a new warning to pages that are only visible to staff, to help prevent accidentally sending out links that aren’t accessible
- We fixed some layout issues with the InterNACHI ID cards
- We updated the find and InterNACHI® ID page
- We improved the coupon admin tool
- We added a way for company managers to view to course progress for the inspectors in their company
This most recent release was a return to our normal development workflow. Most issues related to security and the exam have been addressed. We’re running a public beta of the exam and all the new security features are live and working well.
Items completed during this cycle:
- Prep work for updating the exam admin system
- Prep work for launching the Spanish version of the online exam
- Updated and improved the online affidavit
- Bug fix for password reset functionality
- Added a “trusted host” configuration as a result of a report from our bug bounty program
- Improvements to the two-factor authentication system
- Published an updated version of our training card app
- Improvements to multi-inspector admin tools
- Updates to insurance application
- Updates to health insurance portal
- Added “special interest” chapters to the chapter system
We also saw a lot of interesting feedback from the bug bounty program that was launched in the previous two-week cycle. We received 28 bug reports in total. Of those, 18 we rejected (many of them were not legitimate bugs) and 7 resulted in us fixing a bug and paying a security researcher. One of the bugs that we paid out resulted in us submitting a patch to the underlying software (the bug wasn’t in our software, but instead in a very popular open source project). All-in-all, the bug bounty program has been very helpful in finding potential issues before they become real concerns.
This development cycle continued to focus on security and the exam system:
- Introduced a “bug bounty” program that lets security researchers notify us of potential security issues and get paid for that work
- Added additional features to two-factor authentication
- Updated our SSL certificates
- Improved the login panel in the menu bar
- Improved our internal logging to make it easier for us to respond to issues
- Improved the “exam session lookup” tool
- Added more tests to the exam system
- Added better handling for multiple choice questions
- Added better handling for skipped questions
In addition to the security and exam work, there were a number of small fixes and changes:
- Improved the way admin pages are generated
- Added convention certificates to the dashboard
- Better handling of international postal codes
- Added a “proof of payment” form letter for non-CPI members who need proof to receive a discount with a vendor
- Improved the “new vendor notification” that’s sent to member services
- Added the ability for admins to delete a Buy-Back without issuing a refund
During this development cycle we were made aware of a potential security breach. We ended up spending nearly all our time investigating, mitigating, and implementing fixes related to that:
- All application keys were changed
- Two-factor authentication was added
- Better password security rules were added
- New login checks were added to prevent someone from logging into a staff account without explicit approval
- Moved the vulnerable application to an entirely separate server with very strict restrictions applied
We also completed some of the planned work for this cycle:
- Prep state roster files for convention attendees
- Allow coupon codes that are less than 10 characters long
- Improve the mobile UI for the exam system
- Add more tests for exam system
- Collect more audit data for exam system
- Show webinars on dashboard calendar
- Improve how FetchReport looks up people by email
- Added summary email to exam system
This development cycle was almost entirely dedicated to the new online exam system. Much of the work during this period stretched into future cycles. That work, plus some other non-exam items:
- Improved “unit testing” to ensure that the exam system works as expected
- Added browser tests that automate running thru an exam to ensure that everything works in different browsers
- Added a “component library” so that developers and quickly pull in UI components where needed
- Finalized the online exam UI to get it “beta-ready”
- Improved webinar system to allow for more registrants
- Audited exam security and added additional checks
- Added a delay for submitting the same address to the Buy-Back program to help prevent double-submissions
- Added a way to look up specific inspectors by name (rather than just searching by location)
- Added printable student IDs
This development cycle was a mix of lots of little improvements and changes:
- Improved the way icons and images load on the site
- Worked on the new version of the online exam system
- Improved the bbsystem import process
- Improved our “CAPTCHA” (prove you’re not a robot) implementation
- Added better handling of trial periods when showing the “next payment” timestamp to staff
- Worked with Owens Corning on updates to our API integration
- Improved how the Buy-Back system handles updated contracts
- Improved the UI for the online agreement system
- Updates to our insurance application
- Improvements to how we track changes in membership over time
- Upgraded the underlying software that runs the website
- Improved messaging around who can download InterNACHI® logos
- improved the “participating inspectors” listing for the Buy-Back program
Much of this development cycle was also focused on under-the-hood changes that were necessary for planned features. In addition to that:
- Improved our “deploy” process so that we can get changes live on the site faster
- Improved the webinar system in preparation for the online convention
- Fixed state logo image links
- Added social images to the gallery
- Added a way for designers to upload files for members to download from their dashboard
- Automated the chapter events calendar
- Moved some old code from our “legacy” host to our modern system
- Updated and improved the time slot estimator tool
- Addressed Dialpad issues
Much of the work in this development cycle was laying the groundwork for multi-inspector changes. On top of that, there were a handful of other changes:
- Imported Spanish translations for the Online Inspector Exam (this is in preparation for adding a Spanish option, which is not yet live)
- Improved the way we display events on the site
- Texas Convention prep work
- Send students an email confirmation when they submit an essay
- Addressed “past due” notices showing incorrectly for a small subset of members
- Rearranged the company dashboard for multi-inspector companies
- Started importing InterNACHI®️ Forum - InterNACHI®️ Forum - A community for home inspectors to https://forum.nachi.org/ — this is a long-term project that will eventually mean we can remove the old bbsystem URLs without losing any SEO benefits
- Addressed some browser issues related to cross-site security
Most of the work in this development cycle was around the new exam system. We laid much of the groundwork and structure, and set up a roadmap for releasing the new exam system. A few other small fixes and changes:
- Updated videos and COVID notice on homepage
- Fixed an issue with the gallery when a category had no images yet
- Fixed our asset pipeline to address issues members were having when browsing the site in Google Chrome
- Improved the way Buy-Back settings were managed
- Improved our API integration with Owens-Corning
- Addressed state licensing issues (QC, KS)
- Fixed missing ID photos
- Multi-inspector improvements
- Invoicing improvements
This cycle focused on cleaning up and removing files from our legacy codebase, as well as some work on the Buy-Back system.
- Removed Porch integration from the buybacks
- Consolidated how exams chose questions and graded the answers
- Removed unused certificate code/files
- Changed the school certificate so that “guest” users could download the certificate if they had been a member in the past
- Reviewed and fine-tuned new Exam Admin frontend