It’s been a wild year. Actually, it’s been a few years. Last year, Resgrid started to make some solid forward momentum instead of the endless whack-a-mole that 2020 to 2022 was.

End of the year, we usually take two weeks off. While we did take some much-earned family time, there was a ton of work that needed to be done. So, I’ll cover what we have been busy working on the last three months of 2023 to set us up for more success in 2024.

New Pricing Model

When I started Resgrid, it targeted small first responder departments. So, the initial pricing plans reflected that. As larger departments and businesses began using the product, I kept adding packages with very little separation between them. This added complications to the signup process, and departments that needed more units vs. people or vice versa were left with the feeling of paying for something they were not using.

Resgrid will be shifting to Entity Based Pricing. An Entity is just a name for a Unit or Person. They will be sold in packs of 10, and those ten can be all persons or almost all units (you still need one person for the admin user). Everything else that was different on the package tiers is included now for all people, for example, no more group limits, no more limits on phone dispatching, etc.

If you are on an existing plan or have any active billing relationship (i.e., an invoice customer), you can stay on your current plan. We don’t ever adjust pricing or plans for active existing customers.

With this pricing model change, we also evaluated the underlying cost and adjusted that. This does mean that prices have now increased, but at the lower end, those users now get access to the full suite (i.e., phone dispatching), and at all levels, departments can more accurately pick a plan for the Entities they need, not needing to go a plan up just because they need more units.

So, if you are on an existing plan and like it, there is no impact or changes. If you are on an existing plan and want to move to Entity pricing because it’s cheaper or more convenient for you, you’ll need to cancel your current plan and sign up for the Entity one once your existing time expires.

New Website

So first, some context. Resgrid was fully open-sourced mid-last year. The last remaining items we had were the Responder and Unit app. The Core Application has been open-sourced for years now, but the OSS Core version is downstream of our main repo.

This adds some complexity when we want to sync changes from the OSS repo to the upstream and requires extra work when we want to push changes from the upstream down. This is why if you look at the commit graph, it’s very spiky. The reason for the upstream repo is our public website, and subscription logic is stuff we didn’t want in the OSS code. 

So we are working to cleave the public website and the subscription systems from the upstream codebase so Core turns into the mainline. This will make updates to OSS Core more frequent, and it is a better representation of what is running in our hosted environment.

First up is our public website. When the new Pricing model goes live, so will our new public website. Note that the Core Resgrid application will move to https://app.resgrid.com so if you have any bookmarks in the Resgrid web app, those will need to be updated.

Certifications

Starting in the 2nd half of 2023, we’ve begun to position ourselves to get the certifications you requested—mainly SOC2 and HIPAA. We have already been doing lots of what we need for that, process and function-wise. But what’s needed is the ability to document and validate that it’s being done. This has required us to move from manual processes to automated ones with reporting we can give to auditors. 

Our goal in 2024 is to have SOC2 Type 1 and in 2025 to have both SOC2 Type 2 and HIPAA done. There are some other certifications, like CSA STAR, that we will also be working on in 2024.

New Helpdesk and Support

We are migrating our support and helpdesk functionality from Fresh Support to Zoho. This is part of our Certification efforts as we try and consolidate systems to make it easier to get data for the auditors. This process is starting in January, and I apologize in advance for any issues related to this move, such as dropped or missing tickets, length of responses, etc.

New Email Domain

You thought we were done? Nah! Due to changes with Google and Yahoo in how they process email, we will be separating our Resgrid Systems emails, like dispatches, notifications, etc, from business communications. The new domain system emails will be coming from is @resgrid.net vs @resgrid.com. Inbound email processing and business communications will still come from @resgrid.com. Billing updates and notifications will still be coming from Stripe, which remains unchanged. We have no ETA for this change, but it’ll be in late January or early February. 

Closing

2024 is shaping up to be excellent for us and the Resgrid system. We are more closely aligning the Core hosted system with our Open Source Repository, updating our support offering, fundamentally changing our product plans, and having many new features and changes coming. 

Stay Tuned and Stay Safe!