Milo is on the cloud!

On June 1^st this year, something quietly exciting happened. The Milo database of voluntary action in Scotland migrated from a SQL database with a SharePoint front end to a rebuilt system on the Salesforce platform. It was a move from old technology to new for users at the 32 third sector interfaces (TSIs) across the country. For the first time, rather than being stored on a giant server stack whirring away in the bowels of a secure hosting facility, Milo is on the cloud. The change came about for a number of reasons: some financial in the light of tighter budgets from the Scottish Government, some practical as we look towards smarter use of new technologies. But the biggest motivator for change was to improve the user experience. We haven’t just moved from physical to the cloud; we’ve moved from a bespoke, custom-designed database fully supported by an external supplier, to one that can be largely supported by SCVO’s in-house IT team, and customised locally by local users at TSIs. The new system still does pretty much everything the old one did: it enables staff supporting the third sector to record up to date intelligence on the 40,000 organisations operating throughout Scotland. It provides searchable details of organisations and volunteering opportunities to the Get Involved, Volunteer Scotland and ALISS websites. It allows TSIs to fulfil all of the functions they are funded to provide. Most importantly, it’s still accessible to authorised users via a secure website accessible from anywhere there is an internet connection. But it’s light years from the old warhorse of Milo 1. Behind the scenes, we’re no longer tied to expensive hosting or support contracts. We don’t need to upgrade software or hardware or replace backup tapes. Upgrades and enhancements are rolled out smoothly, and we have all the advantages of Software as a Service: a user base of millions across the world means Salesforce has to get every change right. Most importantly, we in the Milo support team can respond much more adeptly to user needs. Additions and tweaks that would have kicked off an expensive change request process in the past can now be agreed, implemented, and rolled out within minutes and hours, rather than days and weeks. We can take advantage of APIs to make the data available in new creative ways. We’re no longer constrained by budgets or by physical and virtual space, but by the limits of our creativity for how we can use this resource to make the digital third sector a better place to be.