Event is we have increased. We have requested an additional commitment to the previous commitments of the partner program to sponsor the Open edX conference at the at a minimum at the contributing level, which is a $5,000 level. Now, some partners sponsor at higher levels and of course, you can sponsor at higher levels to obtain the associated benefits with that. However, the $5,000 level will give you a demo table at the conference as well as to complimentary conference tickets. So, that is that is one of the the changes that has been integrated will not go into effect until next year 2025. Sorry, let me quickly let in the other people Hi, everyone. Good morning.
So good to see you,
everyone. Good. How are you in need?
That alright, I was just speaking with Esteban before this call. Yeah, okay.
I was just communicating to the group that we have integrated a change to the Open edX partner program one additional requirement that has been added is for every open edX sponsor starting in 2025, to sponsor the annual Open edX conference at the at least the contributing level which is $5,000 level, and the benefits are outlined in the sponsor. perspective in regards to what comes with that, including benefits as you will have a demo table at the conference as well as two complimentary conference passes.
And I sent out the amendment notification last week to all of the Open edX partners. So I just wanted to to make sure nobody had if you had any questions, you know, you can either respond directly to the email notification that I sent out, or if you have any questions in this forum, let me know. But as I said, this is not going into effect until 2025. But I just wanted to flag it. Yes,
yes. So thank you for sharing this. May I ask what was the rationale on the on the request on this change as the idea or some context of why this has changed? Question. And the other question is question comment. Just thinking out loud. It's being fixed. So being a fixed fee. It's not the same impact on right on partners that have a bigger revenue per year, let's say so it's a higher impact on on smaller apartments right. So is there something so I would like to understand the context of the change and also being this bigger impact on on smaller Parliament's if there is on the side are complementary today's like, how can I say like some kind of measures so that the smaller don't remain small and the bigger don't become bigger, basically.
Yes, yes. Very good questions. Thank you, Esteban. So one of their rationales is, as you can see here, we have three on the Open edX marketplace. We have three types of providers, we have the highest level partner, which is located at the top of the marketplace. Following that we have the verified provider tier, and then all other marketplace providers. Below the verified tier. Now, for both the verified providers and the Open edX partner providers. We check customer references within the past 24 months for Open edX configurations. We also ask that each of those tiers commit 10% of their open edX dedicated teams engineering capacity back to Open edX comments. The only other difference between partner and verified providers that partners are required to share financial information upon request from ExIm collaborative related to the sales of Open edX related services or products. Now that was the only differentiator between the verified and the partner tier as a result of this low barrier to entry if you will, the partner listings have become quite saturated. We went from five partners to now 14 partners in the marketplace. And this also will have a direct impact on the lead distributions because our partners for example, get most of the direct leads, followed by verified providers verified providers also receive direct leads but the majority of direct leads go to the partners and then partners have the additional benefits on the marketplace by being seen first as customers navigate through the site. So so that was one component. The lack of barrier to entry as it relates to the distinguishing factor between the two programs verified and partner. The other thing is that, historically speaking, the Open edX conference has always run at a loss for us as an organization. So actually, the cost per attendee for conference is higher than what the ticket price is that we're charging. And as a result of that, historically, we have run a loss. And so it is beneficial for Open edX partners to support the annual conference not only do they have the ability to dammit demo and exhibit their services, but it will help by promoting promoting the product and increasing the adoption rate. It makes sense for partners to participate in terms of exhibitions at the event. Furthermore, we did the annual conference, we want to have the ability to sponsor NGOs and students who may not who may be interested in attending the conference but may not have the financial funds to do so. With this conference, for example, that's coming up in July we received a lot of requests from nonprofits, NGOs, and students, financial assistance requests that unfortunately, we had to turn down because the lack of sponsorship funds and as a nonprofit institutions, it is important for us to also aid in terms of the social good and we feel that our partner network can assist us in doing so which will in turn is just the overall app tech community that wants to be engaged whether they have the necessary resources or not. Now for partners that are smaller size, that are unable to make this kind of a commitment. We can we will of course other than to return back to the to the verified tier but one of the things that we noticed, rather than going from the marketplace tier to the Verify tier institutions completely just skip the verified step and move right into partner because the minimal differentiator between the two programs. To Esteban does that kind of answer your question? Could
you repeat that the last one that I had some problems with?
Yes. The last part I said is that organizations that are listed in the marketplace, if they are interested in both the partner and verified provider to generally you know, as an organization, you may look to move up to the next tier which is verified, however, because the requirements are not much different. Between those two tiers partner and verified, they oftentimes skip the Verify tier. And we'll jump right to the partner Tia. That's why the partner levels are quite saturated now.
Yes, sir. So thank you. Thank you for explaining me the rationale. So I still have my concerns. Because I don't want to take it personally but I will in this case, because I think it applies. So, next, so we will be in an already paid sponsorship for the next event. Right? The smallest one available, right? Which for I mean, if you see our annual revenue is isn't substantial. Investment, right? If you compare the annual revenue of larger partners, that in this case, they haven't paid even the smallest. And also, they also have like financial contributions from accident. It seems a bit unfair right. So what I am saying with this is that if we set this like unique threshold for everyone, beggars will continue to grow bigger and smaller partners will continue to struggle in some cases. So I think we should think together in some kind of more fair scenario, right? Well, I just realized this is news today. So I'm gonna think of some some ways to do that. I think again, we should, we should work for a striving community, not only for bigger partners to grow bigger, and smaller partners continues to struggle. That's that's my first impressions question on this Yes.
Thank you, Esteban. That's really good feedback. And I like your proposal regarding the funded contribution projects. So you bring up an interesting idea is that the funded contributions that we make available to partners? Perhaps we can add it, if I understand you correctly, perhaps we can add that as a benefit to all partners. In that sense, since they have to make the financial contribution at least they are part of the funded contribution projects as a result of that, which I think is a very very good proposal, and I can make that proposal internally.
Yes, that's, that's that's one the first thing that came to my mind. Because again, this year, there are big partners that do get paid right to to work on some stuff. The selection process or family contribution, I think there's room for improvement over there. But anyway, I think we should find a way to make it like, like, so that everyone contributes, in a way they can right of course with with restrictions, with controls, with limitations, with caveats with whatever we should work, right. But this asset is expressed now. It seems that okay, it's one one more charge for for bigger partners. But for us, it can be like going below. Like it started getting low losses right in your revenue, right. I want to go into detail, right? But dating back this much higher. And also, again, we've been contributing like for the last four or five conferences. Because because we think it's good to come back to the community and support the effort and support the NGO that runs that. And bigger partners don't do that. Now, because they don't do that that we get paid more than what we were able to afford. So I think we should find a way to make it fair. And again, set the path so that everyone can strive not only the ones that are thriving now.
Yeah, so I agree with yesterday and as you mentioned, you know, there are smaller partners and contributing sponsorship funds to the conference and and larger ones are not and that is what this this change is looking to amend. Right it's for the larger partners to also make that commitment that some of the smaller partners are already making. And if they're not willing to make it, they can move to a different tier such as the verified tier, right. Regarding the funded contribution projects, for those of you who, who don't know because we have some new people in this meeting, funded contributions is an as is an essence, an opportunity in which collaboratives allows a particular budget or enhancements to the platform and to be outsourced to partner and Open edX partner to aid with the development work and discovery work as it relates to the feature enhancements. And so acts of collaborative, collaborative select partners to aid with those initiatives for which sufficient engineering capacity. So that is what Esteban is referring to. So the the project is fully funded by ExIm collaborative and outsourced to one of our partners. So as the band's proposal is that if the partners make an annual contribution towards the open edX project, they should at least be asked to engage in one of the funded contributions for a given fiscal year.
So sorry, just a comment on this. I don't I don't mean they necessarily need to be
assigned a final contribution. What I am saying is that it's like I don't know how to say it. But it's like it is this on any an equal an unfair situation, having a fixed price. When when
but not everyone is considering the same way. Right. So what I don't want to extend this I will elaborate a little bit more precisely right. What I am saying is, we can take from from from my comments today is I think we should think of a way to improve fairness of this mandatory fee. Right? That's whether it's with the family and the division, because I don't mean okay, because you you pay the fee, you have to get assigned a project. Now that's not what I'm saying. Right. The funding of fusion project, this improvement, yes, but it's like some kind of another discussion. Right. What I'm saying is, we should think together is there is a better way to contribute to to advance to the to the conference, but incorporating this factor of fairness in the size of the of the partner in excess of the revenue or what we should find a metric that makes makes this mandatory request a little bit more.
Yes, I mean, we are always open for proposals. So you know, if you if you have proposals in mind, or if you want to take some time to think about it, I think it's great. I think the funded contribution ideas is quite good and interesting. I will raise it internally. But if any proposals come up, of course, share that we can always share this information internally for discussion. I just want to point out it's not a fixed fee. So what we're asking partners to start in 2025 is to contribute to support the next conference at the minimum minimal level, contributing level which is the 5000 level, but they can contribute higher but just not lower. That's that's the and the reason why we chose this level because it allows them to exhibition at the conference. It comes with a demo table. That also comes with the two conference passes. But
yes, but yes, sorry, sorry to add one more. Yes, time is not fixed. The minimum the minimum threshold, right. If this year that there is no room, no minimum threshold, big apartments, don't pay, it doesn't necessarily mean that they will go and pay the full. But anyway, it's okay. It's a good equitable, right. It's the term that I was looking for. Thank you for sharing that.
And then I think the code you
had Yeah, I agree. Definitely to, to Esteban and I remember that. We also raised our hands, when we were discussing the the contributing hours of each providers. And then we found somehow way to go ahead that smaller sized companies can contribute that amount of hours what they really can afford, because, of course, a bigger company can afford more, more contribution hours because of because they have more employees. And I don't really remember I would need to look it up what we what we decided for but I think we came to a solution for this, if I remember correctly, but let me look it up and then I can I can share it with you. Maybe this this helps somehow. This
was part of the contributors discussion I use. Yes, yes. Okay. Yes. Take a look. Okay. Yeah, I will do it. Yes, we need.
I think I just want to echo something, what is being said so, because we don't have the forum to have those conversations, I think it just makes sense to bring it up at least Edan through you to bring it back to the you know, the leadership of the community folks. To maybe retake it right. I think Esteban said it, you know, elaborated a lot more but you know, the the the essence is that the equitable contribution towards building a community can be in many respects, one is towards the contribution right this just came as as one of the one of the items, but if the overall intent is to somehow compensate, to have this community function little bit better, from funding, challenging perspective, I think we just need to maybe look at other avenues and collectively we can just think about being good, more creative, what those avenues couldn't be. Right? Personally, for me, the 10% was a better model than this one. Because there's a given take right? And if the realisation of the benefit is not, again, equitable, you know, 10% that you know, a flat fee, minimum flat fee just seems maybe it's not in proportion to to the contribution that one is making. So I think again, not to spend too much time I thought, if the voices are being made, it makes sense to, for this community to collectively just send our feedback that we may need to find other avenues to balance out the the contribution
and creating a ticket on our GitHub board to begin collaboration. There so if you have any proposals, please add them to the GitHub ticket. Okay, and at the core, creating equitable partner agreement changes so if if those are those of you that have an idea, let me have the ticket here in the channel. Post your comments there, and we can take a look at the proposals that come up. Okay, any other questions regarding the changes the upcoming changes of the pregnant agreement? Okay, there's a comment here from Douglas. It's nothing just another way to Yes. Well, I think Stefan's good point is okay, perfect. Thank you, Douglas. Alright. Any other questions? Okay, so let's move on to the next topic. The next Open edX meet app. Let me add the link here for you guys in the chat. The next meetup will cover a newly developed Open edX demo X course that comes with each Open edX installation. And it was updated by one of our partners Kirk you meet and John Swope, the founder of this organization will present the new course. As part of this meet up that will be held on Thursday February 29, between 10am and 11:30am. We will also have a presentation from the Open edX technical oversight committee. We recently elected three new members to join the committee that will lead the overall technical direction of the project. And they are going to discuss past projects that were worked on as well as future initiatives that they have in mind, including potential integration of plants for AI. So that will be covered in the next meetup and it's free and virtual. Feel free to share it among your team members at your organization or share it also on social media for anybody who wants to join any questions about the meetup upcoming meetup. Okay, with that said, we will move on to our GitHub board. Alright. So the first item on the board and we are preparing to present or exhibit the Open edX platform at the Learning Technologies conference in London, which we have discussed as part of this meeting. This is an ongoing effort every quarter we plan on attending large at tech conferences around the world to promote and advertise the Open edX platform to increase its adoption rate. As part of this particular conference, we have four partners joining the Open edX team we have abstract technology raccoon gang at advanced tech consulting and Adly joining us in this effort, and we will also leverage this opportunity to do some competitive analysis because a lot of ad tech or LMS providers will be present at this conference. This is a very, very large scale conference with over 6000 attendees from around the world. It will allow us to do some analysis in terms of how our product compares to others in the market and why consumers choose products. What isn't important for consumers when they select a learning management system. As part of this effort, we're also working together we have separate planning meetings for this conference. We're working together to develop a survey that we can inquire customers about once the draft of the survey is done I will link it in this ticket so that we can get feedback from from the group as a whole as it relates to this event. Any any questions about that or any anything else that you would like to see us integrate? Other than the survey that we have discussed?
There then let's move to the next one. So this is an ongoing effort, monitoring and analyzing competitors strategies to ensure that our product remains competitive. We have actually, as part of the upcoming conference in South Africa this July, the marketing working group, members of the marketing working group will host business development workshop at the conference, which will cover in an in depth competitive analysis of our main competitors and we have we only selected two as part of this workshop, Moodle and Canvas and and we are in the process of preparing the content for the competitive analysis. Community communication at the bizdev conference. Once we have the content ready, we will link it in this ticket as well. As and after the conference we will add the recording of this workshop in the event that you're not able to attend the conference live you will have the ability to view the presentation in hindsight, the people who will assist or organizations that will assist in this presentation effort at your next Adley assembler open craft at spirit and abstract technology. So, again, I will link the content here and feel free to share your feedback once you view it in this ticket. Yes, go ahead.
Even just just one comment, I think as far as the as part of the assessment, the competitor assessment just may have some additional information. One of the potential clients organization actually to university they had an internal meeting and they chose to go with Moodle. I'm in touch with them just to figure out what were some of the main reasons right. So I'm not sure if if any other kind of addition is going to lead them back into Open edX but at least we would know a little bit more about, about the reasons that that had been discussed at the table. So happy to provide that intelligence as well. Oh, thank
you. That's great that you're doing that. And that actually makes me think our partners in this group or providers in this group doing that in general when they lose a sale to a competitor to follow up with a customer and find out the reasons why
I mean, yeah, of course we do it. But sometimes they are I don't know if in other countries as well. But especially in Germany and in Europe, there are some companies won't do publish all the reasons why well the decision they took, but of course we do it and in some cases we also receive the response.
Okay, yeah, it will be great if, like I said, need Nico. Anybody who's doing that if you can share that, that feedback with us because we can relay it back to our product team to see in which areas we need to become more competitive. Okay, next, we have I recently had a meeting with our product manager regarding promoting Open edX releases heavier on the Open edX website. Right now we don't have a good way for promoting promoting the latest releases. There's a nice example here by blender. That does a pretty good job. Let me add it here into this chat that we're looking to replicate. So they on their website, they have a dedicated navigation bar that showcases their latest release and provides information along with product product information demo videos. And so also tutorial videos how to use the new feature. They have nice visuals that show the before and after version of the product. And so we're looking to replicate this particular model on the Open edX website. So that it's easier to find information related to the latest release. We're hoping to start this with redwood and then create this path moving forward for all other releases. But as part of this effort, the product working group would like our help even though they will create all of the product marketing documentation they will need to help with the marketing working group to help promote it on the on the website and externally as well. So in order to get involved in this effort, I linked in GitHub, our working group calendar, in which the redwood it's called Redwood planning meetings. Redwood is the next release. Next open edX released it's scheduled to be launched in June of this year. These meetings occur once per month, you can add yourself to the meetings in this calendar. However, if you have any challenges doing adding yourself to the meeting and you're interested in joining, please ping me on Slack I can add you to the meeting. Manually as well. But it will discuss the in depth planning process for the next Open edX release and how we plan to market it, market it promote it and communicate the features we can also assist the product working group for creating demo videos for example, and things like that. So if you're interested, please let me know any questions about this ticket?
No, okay. Okay, the next ticket on the queue is the Open edX Wikipedia listing. So just for context for those of you who are new, Open edX does not have its own Wikipedia listing. Because the Open edX platform was created under edx.org. There was a listing wiki. There is a Wikipedia listing for edX. And there's a subsection in the edX Wikipedia listing that talks about the Open edX platform, which is quite small it's about a paragraph. So Esteban came up with a great proposal to create an independent Wikipedia listing for the Open edX platform which has been approved by our legal team and niqab from abstract technology. assisted him in this effort. They have created a great outline for this listing. However, we are awaiting the next steps. The documentation is listed here, but the next step is to proceed with publication.
Yes, another comment here. So first, we want to thank Nicole, she was very, very supportive on this effort, right that we did mostly last year. But the thing is, well what was being reviewed by by the legal team from Maxine. You know, Wikipedia, it's a live entity, right. So now there is a there is an Open edX entry that someone created. So we should review this, how can we apply changes to the existing entry? Right because we were not the first of all in creating it. I'm not very familiar with the Wikipedia process, but I would, I will update the ticket saying that. We saw the first the next step would be to see how can we update the the existing Wikipedia following Rubeus rules? And I'm trying to fit the content that we have developed. Make it quick what it is existing right.
Oh, I'm looking at that's interesting. I didn't know that. They went ahead and posted a Wikipedia listing.
Someone actually, if you see the history, read the person we
just I'm seeing gas on
it No, but the original one, I think, well, if we go to the first one, Milan it was I didn't know him. But there was an initial version and that there were some corrections right so now what we should do is like, improve the last, the last version, and try to fit with what we have developed with
an essence you need to go in and submit the revision requests Yes.
Which seems to be a different process and created a new a new page. But what we'll come to find a way okay. Okay. So I comment a comment here. Is that maybe because I understand this step of the legal and the legal department for my team to review it, but like, we pay it has its own rules. So maybe what we should do is we should like try to update the Wikipedia entry, right, using the information we have already developed and approved by the legal team. And then legal team should go there and if they see something different, we should change it there. Because this process took a bit of long time and what someone entered the initial page, and now we need to modify it right that I don't know exactly how is the Wikipedia process for that? But we'll find the way
Yeah. Yeah, the legal review internally did delay us.
But you said that Hassan worked on the revision, so maybe I can I can ask him how the processes are and if you can take over typing in our version we have
great I will, I will check
with him tomorrow. You know, you both as dependents.
Thank you. Let me add this update in the ticket. Existing. Okay. All right. Thank you, Nicole. That would be great. Since he's already familiar with this process. Okay.
Any questions about the Wikipedia listing?
No, okay. All right. So the other ticket that we have is investigating low conversion rates on the marketplace. This is also going to be an ongoing effort, but we want to ensure that it is easy for customers to navigate through the open edX web marketplace on the website to contact providers in order to configure the Open edX platform or obtain any other related work we get regarding Open edX services, and we have abstract nginx and Edley working on this ticket. We've already integrated a few changes to the website to avoid the number of steps customers have to go through when contacting a provider. And then also, we will be engaging team at Adelaide to assist us in configuring a platform plugin on the Open edX WordPress instance. To aid with some AV testing. So the first change that we have integrated which I mentioned is removing the marketplace tab and into creating the marketplace under the Get Started tab that was the initial change that we've done. And the Open edX marketplace. Tab was one of the lowest performing pages about two months ago and now we have renamed it to Open edX providers. And it is the third highest performing page on the Open edX website now and it also once people were clicking on Open edX providers, it was initially defaulting to an overview page, not the cards of the providers. Now we have defaulted directly to the cards by defaulting the view to installation and hosting but from there, customers can navigate across the filter bar for different services related to the Open edX platform. Then also, we added this click to contact button to make it more obvious that customers actually have to click the card to learn more about the provider and then contact them here. We have integrated Microsoft clarity to continue to monitor customer behavior as it relates to the marketplace. Our fiscal year ends in June and we are planning to allocate allocate additional funds towards a third party vendor who can help us revamp the Open edX website for higher conversion rates so that that investment will go in effect as of July of 2024, which is the start of our next fiscal year. In this effort, we are wondering if anybody in this group has any referrals of of vendors that they have used in the past to help optimize their website for higher conversion rates. If you have any, any referrals, perhaps marketing firms or SEO firms that you worked with that helped you optimize your website? Let us know we're always open to to some proposals, but we are planning to engage a vendor for this effort. Yes. Esteban? Great.
Yes. Thank you even just a quick, very quick consultant, comment. The new button the click to contact button on the on the partners card. It seems a different color than the logos. It was it's like a different kind of violet Right? Was that made on purpose or is because sorry to be this. But I had to ask.
No, that's a good question. It is part of the color palette. So the our WordPress vendors they work with the approved branding color palettes. So it is part of the palette but you're saying it would be nicer to match to the other. The other violet, it would look nicer.
What I would say is or we use the same violet, or the logos or the click to conduct should be another color from the palette right and blue or something right because they are too similar but different. Right? So in this context, it seems like to me it's a personal opinion, right? I don't want to influence the others but it makes a little bit of noise to me. Color nice
that's a great attention to detail. Yeah, I can add that request. I mean, that's a quick change for our WordPress team I can I can make that proposal that's no problem. So your are you thinking like a contrasting color might be nice like a different I think you're muted Esteban
Yeah, sorry. So can you can you share your screen before everyone can see? Yeah. So my, what I would say what I will say is that for example, the first one right so you see click to contact it's what he or she does, he's very subdued. But the let's say the ugly logo or the data net logo. It's like more purple. On the other one is more what more could you call in English but it's so the click to contact Background button is the same as the partner typography. But the title color is different. Violet so are we should use the same violet or maybe we put it in black, blue or another color from from the pilot that it is approved.
Okay, yeah, no problem. I can add that request. That's no problem. I will ask that
you see Wait, wait. So when you when it is white, can you can you go over one of the cards. So you see there, it's the bag, the Background button is black. That sorry, it's white, and the logo is white. That's the same color. I would choose the same color or if not different than by and you have a comment from Nadine in the in the in the chat. Trisha sent
to ask about the website reading and planning to make it on WordPress itself or any other preferences about a branding leaving. Oh, branding revamp yes the branding is a little bit challenging because of our association with to you. And so we have some legal limitations that our branding is subject to because we have tight trademark guidelines between the two organizations. And this trademark agreement is in place for another several years so we have some limitations as it relates to that but yeah, primarily, the goal will be to increase customer conversions into the marketplace for our to generate more leads to our partner and provider network is the main goal as for engaging the vendor initially and then from there. We'll work on other updates and visuals, but but that will be our first goal as we engage this vendor. So if you have any proposals for vendors that you may have used internally, it would be great to get your feedback. You can add it to this GitHub ticket I don't know if anyone here has used a vendor that they liked
when optimizing conversions on their website that you want to share, but if not you can add it to the ticket.
Yes,
is this a branding requirement or is it SEO requirement? Okay, what's the scope? I
just need to understand it's not a requirement. Yeah, it's not it's not a requirement. In essence Sorry, I'm just updating the can be posted here. Okay, lets me open the ticket. Let me share my screen. Okay. So we are including this effort to investigate low conversion rates. So what we noticed is we have high traffic on the Open edX website. However, the conversions of the marketplace are low. There are several issues that tie into this one that we've noticed that customers when they navigate the marketplace, oftentimes before we added this click to contact button, they would see a name of the vendor and go on Google and contact the customer that way. Another thing that we found is under the Get Started tab we have what is called a managed page, where vendors can be the information of vendors can be located within a particular card. They can select links on this site that will lead them directly to the provider website without having to complete a contact us form. So the goal for engaging the vendor is improving the number of form completions that occur on this site. And the form completions are these that are tied to each vendors listing. And this information syncs into our Salesforce instance. And it's reflected for partners and providers in the experience cloud, the Salesforce Experience cloud for you to view and disposition so the main goal for engaging the vendor initially is not necessarily branding or SEO but optimizing the conversion customer conversions for this purpose for the marketplace. Secondary we'll be looking at SEO and branding, with the restrictions that we can update the branding I know even with the color palette, we're not able to update it anytime soon. But we do have an updated Open edX color palette. That is the sort of darkish green red black palette that you may have seen. That's not currently integrated. On the Open edX website those branding changes we can already integrate. But for example, as it relates to branding, one proposal was as part of this marketing working group is rather than having open edX listed as a brand name, this way and people not fully understanding the difference between Open edX and edX perhaps we can change the logo even and indicate Open edX LMS. So it's very clear what the product is. But unfortunately, given the agreements that we currently have in place, we cannot integrate those changes as of yet. Does that answer your question we need?
Yeah, absolutely. I think I think it does. So I think the the problem statement essentially is is internally for us to do the exercise to see why this is happening. Yes. And since why this is happening, is more of a more of a discussion. I'm not sure maybe it just predates my my joining this. This community. I'm not sure if that I have seen that that data has yet what's happening, you know, is a problem. With the target problem is are people coming to the page but not really submitting the contact or what is it a click through issue or is it a conversion issue?
It's yeah, it is a click through issue because they are contacting what we've learned from our providers is that they are contacting them in different ways, rather than completing the form on the website, that's why we've made some changes we've reduced the number of steps that customers take to access the form. And our WordPress team is integrating plugin to do to track all of the changes that we're integrating, and do some A B testing work on that. We're also internally meeting every two weeks to discuss changes to the website which will be subject to the AV testing, but we would like to leverage a professional firm that can help us further optimize the completion of those contact forms.
Perfect, thank you.
No problem. Cecilia.
Um, I can't think of some other reason why people do not go to the forum, especially when we see you know, the links hyperlinks and vendors name everywhere, because when we put some vendors on distribution and their website link, I'm sure if if we your website visitor you will go and click on the vendors link rather than filling in that contact form. It's extra steps for any users to do that. I do not really bland, anybody who do not fill in that contact form unless you give either A or B to, you know to you know, it's not good to remove the vendors name or have their name but Want to find out who they are their reputations on Google and the direct link and they have a contact link Contact Us link even on that to vendor description and and they you see the vendors listing on various spots on this website. I guess no wonder that do not fill in that form. Yeah, that's maybe that's not that shouldn't be the goal that you're working on even
well, in. It's important for us because we need to track since we're not collecting referral fees, we do need to track the value that we're creating for the provider. Network and the board wants to our board wants to see reporting as it relates to this effort, and for us to generate these reports is through the the contact s submissions and then in Salesforce as the providers have access to all of the needs that we have referred to them via this form, and also via direct referrals. We can track conversions in Salesforce, we can report that back to the board that's sort of the internal needs. That's why we have to figure out whether it who knows perhaps we work with a vendor and we eliminate the form and find a different way of reporting. This information, for example, through the integration of UTM trackers is another example where it leads directly to the partners website. This is why we need a professional to analyze this for us and help us identify the best way that we can obtain this data, track it internally and report back on it.
Is there another way like for vendors to report you back? How many referrals are from Open edX platform because we do have the internal CRM or the Google UTM embedded to let us know if these are people from visiting Open edX and come to us or fill in the form coming to us or your your you send emails referred to us? So I mean like make maybe make it mandatory in quarterly report or monthly report because we're also on other communities they force us to do the not forced us they asked us to report them monthly based for example, how many books sold sold through our bookstore or anything else? So I mean, that might be or even my email reminder monthly basis. Do people feel these compulsory?
That's a very good proposal, Cecilia. I like that proposal. It's something that I can discuss with our Salesforce team, what our options are for providers to integrate that data directly into the experience cloud so that it sinks into our Salesforce instance. I will I will obtain feedback regarding that for that. It's a great idea. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you, Esteban.
Yes, comment on this post. I support the idea of having some third party with experience with this. So if we go to the homepage for panorex until you get until where is the partners page? That is very difficult. It should be like there should be a button on the homepage, right? I don't know. So I think we need some help. So we we need some professional help with that. Right to learn the let's say the elites journey, right? Because today it's actually from time to time I want to go there and and reference it and it takes me some time to find which is with all the other main menus is where the button is. And then the other was going to suggest something similar towards Syria said it is it is true that the the way that different people approach to the to the forms, it's different, right. Some people do like to fill in forms. Some people don't. So maybe we should, again, have some help with these these UTM links, right so that we can say okay, because maybe I don't know who comes to us to our website, who can who can from from the open ended website or who can directly from Google, right. So I don't know if there are any tools that I can implement in our website that I can have that information. Another thing is maybe you do know when some people click on the sale listening your website, on your on your website on the openers website, and then from I don't know, every month, say Okay, have you ever received one of these we noticed that all these people click here, but we yeah, we don't know. Who is the one that's leaking there. Yeah. Well, it's yeah. It's nice. Yes, thanks. Well, maybe maybe, I mean, if we find a way of identifying some kind of users that click on a link that has some reference and comes to our site we can then report back Yes, this one. And Turkey, I always ask them, right. They don't always respond right. We should find some kind of if there is any automated tool that will be useful.
I agree. I agree. So I will follow up with with all of you regarding these changes in the next meeting what we can integrate based on our conversations with the Salesforce team. But just to answer your question, that's actually another point of focus is clear and concise messaging, especially on the homepage. So that people right away understand the product, the value add, is right away communicated. That's one thing that's challenging throughout the website. That's we look, that's another thing that we're looking to prioritize to increase conversions. Okay, we are running out of time. Thank you. everybody for your participation today. And we will communicate via slack and GitHub. And if you don't have GitHub, please slack me I will send you access. And thanks everyone again, and I will talk to you soon. Take care everybody.
