TL;DR
(Begin at UPDATES for issue. I am taking time to clarify the overarching problem as it is not simply code overall)
Before I begin, I want to thank the folks whom have spent time on the Projects. I really do appreciate all of your effort. So, I work with a nonprofit out of Nevada. We looked at Microsoft Nonprofit Cloud (MNC) because of the obvious dual tracks going on: Free O365 and Free Azure, etc. for the MNC. When we kicked off in July/August 2022, we had a war on our hands. When it came time to pay out $20,000+ to a firm known as a third party service provider (TPSP) in order just to use the MNC we said no. And after a lot of heel dragging, we were given custody of the licenses needed for Azure (and other) deployments.
In the latest SBA.gov Report, over 99 percent of nonprofits have fewer than 500 employees, and these firms represent 45 percent of nonprofit employment. The median employment of a nonprofit employer business is about 4 employees. The Microsoft Grant Package, while good spirited, is really where the world is problematic. What I mean is that there was no requirement to get entrenched in contracts with and to pay these third party consultants. And $20K is no small feat to come up with when you have zero employees. The hype put out there about how the Microsoft Nonprofit Cloud (MNC) would change worlds was probably true if you attended SXSW or had millions of dollars to jet set around tooting your own horn. There was no way we were going to pay when we did not even have a budget for mail. I have a background in IT coming from both the Cloud as we use AWS ande via tons of WordPress deployments. The former is for a Podcast Project I have had for years and the latter is from multiple website builds. As a former Intelligence officer in the US Navy, I also have a background in the investigative process, collaboration, and the need to get to the truth. I have been working with Linux for years, but Microsoft I have very little knowledge about. To say that there is ZERO help is an understatement. And for the following 68+/- days, I wish I never had heard of Microsoft. To that point, here is how the mess went down.
I want to add a couple of other items here. There are folks all over the Microsoft Tech Forums begging for help! The disaster which has become the MNC, is not simply one that grew overnight. Take, for example, the inability to remove the sample data. This should be an easily extricatable situation, but it is impossible. If you do not want to nearly destroy your dataverse, most folks have resorted to simply unlisting the data. This is the epitome of insanity! Look, when one of the Lead Posts is entitled, Who has successfully deployed and configured Microsoft Cloud for Nonprofit solutions? you have a serious problem. Closing out the commentary are three (03) important issues I need to include:
- There are very few products that Microsoft has which are jiving with Linux as I operate Ubuntu 22.04. Teams is a certified disaster and I can report it is IMPOSSIBLE to screenshare. This is a HUGE issue as Azure and other products are, at the end of the day, Linux code;
- Offering a handful of business licenses and an Azure spin up IS NOT a Grant Donation to an IRS 501(c)(3) Nonprofit organization when the costs of the MNC easily eclipse $20,000+ on average. And as TechSoup is now adding a surcharge on the licenses on a per month basis, the reality is that there would be no better time than NOW --- TODAY!!! --- to actually put together a layman's version of how to deploy the necessary GitHub products, set up a no nonsense method of deployment from GitHub (if it is the cutting edge version), and on Day 1 of entry into the Microsoft Nonprofit program, assign an Ombudsman to deal with the inordinate amount of insanity which came with the Grants; and
- Unlike many around the Microsoft Water Cooler, the problem with free is that it generally ends up costing money. I took a big risk here today and as a journalist, I will continue publishing on the issue. The reason for this is because there is a tremendous amount of money tied up in this "free" endeavor. And to the point that, "Gee, this is a free GitHub code project," that doesn't fly anymore. It's not free because folks are getting paid by Microsoft on the code and deployment. They are also being paid on the procurement side of things. The only place I am at a loss to find paid staff is within a phone's reach of the problem. And that is a HUGE problem when extremely small nonprofits buy into the party line of the MNC deployment. I appreciate the time and am hopeful that I am allowed to speak my challenges candidly and without reprisals from Microsoft and others, but at the end of the day, they need to be published so that they may be corrected.
UPDATES
I had the MNC installed relatively soon. And while it looked pretty, the reality was it a ticking time bomb. I am not exaggerating here. I lost a quarter of a year on this mess and for a startup NPO, to do this in the first quarter is a death sentence. Within several weeks of installing the MNC, a large set of updates came along, including the Volunteer Management, Volunteer Engagement, and the Volunteer Management Application. These three I will name VMEA. To that point, the time period was around the end of September 2022 or so. Almost all of the updates pertained to the library of Dynamics 365 apps necessary to power MNC, including a Portal update. The VMEA trio were the problem. In fact, so large was the problem that for 68 days +/- 3 Teams of Microsoft Tech Support (MTS) could not figure it out. No one on ANY OF THE MICROSOFT Forums had any clue to do anything more than demand an acknowledgement of their being correct as I guess they get prizes or something. Honestly, it is Gamification and not a good idea, but hey, I thought getting MNC was a good idea.
I am not sure where Microsoft first began working on Tech Support, but I can say with a high level of certainty, that they have no idea what they are doing with, at minimum, the MNC. So, let's call that Problem #1. Solution? Set up a Strike Team to deal with MNC and more on point, create a drop and drag sequence to deploy the GitHub Project and kick an option to upgrade when available or not. BUT HAVE THE OPTION THERE!
Other things began to come to the surface. First, when MTS came around --- and bear in mind it took three (03) different Teams over the course of an additional month --- they could not figure out how to deploy SR tickets nor incorporate those into the Platform. I was fielding multiple re-hashing events from other issues that had no bearing on this issue. In fact, by the time the MST had spun up two (02) dataverses on our Azure, we finally pulled the plug. With #GivingTuesday rapidly approaching, we had to shift gears and deleted the old dataverse, SQL, etc. Interestingly, the Sharepoint websites all remained even after we deleted the dataverse which housed the MNC. So, I guess that is Problem #2. I have no idea how to fix that.
The same issues we experienced before, are beginning to creep up again. For example, the VMEA set are still unable to update. I mention this because the old version (months ago) when I was asked to update is the same now: Volunteer Management Anchor
1.1.3.0; and Volunteer Engagement Base 1.1.3.0. So, either Microsoft has jacked up the system in an extreme way, or there is a problem somewhere. Another issue here is that there is NOWHERE to go and read up on what the current versions of ANYTHING should be! So, I guess this is Problem #3 and there is no solution here.
Finally, and this is a HUGE issue! If you want help on any of this, it is IMPOSSIBLE to ask any questions or request any information on ANYTHING if you are a Microsoft Grant Recipient. This is not an exaggeration. I have multiple emails and tickets on this. How the game is played is that Microsoft attempts to route you to the TPSP discussed previously --- the $20K man.
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