Database Team
The Database Team is a small group of Burning Man volunteers who build and
maintain the databases necessary to keep Burning Man's data organized
and flowing. Our job is to make the Burning Man staff's life easier. The
team has been together since late 1999, and is currently organized as
a "domain" under the Burning Man Tech Team.
Our databases support a number of internal Burning Man departments. These
databases include:
- Contacts- Participant mailing list database - 45,000+ names from 50 states
and countries
- Sales- Merchandise and ticket order processing - almost 40,000 invoices
- Volunteers- Volunteer questionnaire, roster, and team management
- Theme Camp/Art- Theme Camp, Art Installation, Pyro, and Theme Art
registration
- *Media- Media "Press Here" online registration and tracking
- *Scholarships- Burning Man's Scholarship application repository
- *PlayaInfo Schedule- On-line scheduler for PlayaInfo shifts for the
event
- *DMV- Department of Mutant Vehicles - online pre-registration
- *Snailmail- Participant snailmail change-of-address web form
- Task Matrix- Online Tech Team to-do list
- Agenda Builder- Staff meeting agenda organizer
*New for 2001
Some of our work in 2001 included: programmed Flambé and Survival
Guide mailing list exports, revisions to the theme camp and art installation
questionnaires, integration with the PlayaNet/ PlayaDirectory project, VPN
work for remote database access, playa Palm Pilot database access, integration
work with the Extranet project, improved user interface for the Contacts
and Sales databases, participant list de-dupe automation, new "Short Form"
Theme Camp questionnaire for unmapped camps, work to coordinate the new
Black Rock Arts Foundation mailing list database and contact management
with our existing files, improved automatic database backups, preliminary
work to allow participant editing of their theme camp and art installation
registration, work to allow volunteers to change their contact info in the
Volunteers database, discussions on several strategies for remote Volunteer
Coordinator database access, several Volunteer Coordinator training sessions
on the Volunteers DB, and routine database administration.
Looking forward in the coming year, the Database Group has several goals:
- Database Migration (see below)
- Completion of a Login feature for participant editing of contact
info, theme camp, etc.
- Support of the Extranet and PlayaDirectory teams' data needs
- Continued refinement of online web forms (Theme Camp, Volunteers,
Scholarship, etc.)
- Further improvements in data import and easy mailing list exports
- Possible addition of inventory tracking and sales reporting to existing
databases
- Better database documentation and procedures for staff and future
volunteers
Migration
Much like the settlers of the old West, we have grown weary of our comfortable
but cramped life, and yearn for the greener pastures of the new frontier.
All of the databases described above are running happily in FileMaker,
but there is a constant pressure to migrate them to a more robust, industry-standard
platform. Several Burning Man programmers have been recommending some
flavor of SQL. The Extranet team has settled on PostgreSQL. The biggest
immediate benefit will be the ability to access our data from outside
the office more easily (i.e. by web browser instead of FileMaker running
slowly over the VPN). This is a huge undertaking. The first steps are
to catalog our existing FileMaker databases, diagram what they store and
how they overlap (architecture), and prioritize which files to migrate
first. The diagram below gives a sense of the big picture.
