If this is your first time contributing, you might be asking: what can I help with?

What can I contribute with?

We organize our ideas and plans in our Jira board. Jira is a tool that allows us to make a list of things to do – as well as keep track of who is doing what, who may need extra help, and so on.

We divide our workload by teams and special projects. We do this because contributors usually have one or other area in which they are more skilled or more willing to contribute. Find your people and start right now!

Every little counts: issues in Jira

Under each project, we divide our workload into smaller tasks. This way, even contributors with little time or experience can find something to help with.

These smaller tasks are called issues. An issue is basically a task, something that needs to be done: so if you wanna do it, let’s go!

Every issue will have a description of what needs to be done, perhaps in which platform or towards which goal. The idea is that all you need to know to work on that issue is written there, so all you need to do is get started.

Divide and conquer: additional information and sub-issues

If a given task can be split into smaller tasks, you can list those other things as sub-issues. This means that more people can work together to get things done!

It also means that we can track how far along are we to get the bigger issue done. And, of course, it allows you to contribute with one issue, but still be able to see how your work is helping others.

Can I just choose anything?

Each issue has information on its status, that is: is someone already working on it? Is it done already? Can I choose to start working on it?

Besides the status, issues also have assignees. Those are the people who are working on that issue. More than one person can work on the same issue, they just need to talk to each other and contribute together. We usually go to Slack for that.

First contribution to Mautic: it is as easy as that

If this is your first contribution and you are unsure as to how or what you can contribute, don’t worry! Once you know what you would like to do, you can find Good First Tasks.

Those are the tasks that more experienced contributors have already flagged as something that you can begin with. We recommend you create a Jira account so you can assign these issues to yourself.

You access Good First Tasks by selecting the “Your work” option in the top menu and then on the tab “Boards”, clicking on “View all boards”. Once the list of boards is up, search for the name and click on the “Good First Tasks” filter and you’ll be able to see all tasks that we would recommend for you.

You can also use the Filters option in the top menu, by clicking the “View all filters” and searching for the “Good First Issues” list. Either method you choose should lead to the same list of things you can start contributing with.

Contribute and enhance your skills

The Good First Issues list includes tasks from all our teams. If you want to further filter those issues based on your skills, you can select a project on the Project filter.

Remember: you can contribute with whatever you want, it doesn’t have to be in the same area you work professionally on.

Join the conversation on Slack

If you are still unsure, that’s totally ok! We welcome everyone and we would be happy to help you choose your first issue.

Join the Mautic Community on Slack and talk to the person who onboarded you, or leave a message at the Slack channel related to the area you want to contribute in.

“In order to gain more experience and contribute as a technical writer, I needed an open-source project that I can be a part of”, says the Nigerian-based developer about her start as a Mautic contributor. Favour’s previous contributions and engagement with the Mautic community were a decisive factor in the selection process of GSoD. “My experience as a member of the community has been amazing as I’ve learned a lot from the team”, she rejoices.

Community and open-source

Community has always been Favour’s focus: she defines herself as “specializing in building and creating accessible user experiences”. It is no wonder she joined communities in which those goals were also at the center of attention.

At Devcareer, a non-profit organization that supports African people getting a kickstart with their tech careers, Favour contributes as community manager. “I coordinate and engage over 13,000 tech enthusiasts across Africa in the community. I organize various community events, webinars, programs, and initiatives to engage community members.”

The open-source world followed closely behind, with the technical writer joining Hacktoberfest last year. Enter Mautic. Favour’s first contributions were related to moving the end-user documentation into the new platform.

Mautic, awareness and learning

To the Nigerian technical writer, “not enough people are aware of Mautic as an open-source marketing automation solution”. And she believes that creating awareness should go hand-in-hand with end-user documentation. “It is crucial that we raise awareness of the product and give adequate documentation to those using it for the first time”, Favour sums up.

And indeed, she lives by her words, as she understands documentation as part of the user experience. “Good end-user documentation implies that you care about your users and are taking steps to make things easier for them”, wrote the software developer in her application for GSoD.

Before GSod, Favour was already working with the Education team in moving the end-user documentation into the new platform. “My favorite part about joining this community is that everyone is willing to help you solve a problem when you run into any roadblock. It has been a pleasure to work with the team these past few months”, she recalls.

Contributing, building and rejoicing

Working with amazing people is not the only benefit that Favour and other contributors get from being a part of the community. “You also get immediate feedback on your development and programming/technical writing skills which will help in your career along the way”. For her, this goes beyond an individual perk, as it advanced the industry in general.

Personally, Favour’s goal in life is “to lead a team of creative developers while working together to build an amazing product”. She also dreams of “creating more opportunities for folks to get started in tech and contribute to open source while bridging the gap for women in tech”.

“People should consider contributing to open-source because it is a great way to build your network. You get to join a welcoming community of open-source contributors like Mautic, interact with them in the open-source space, and build relationships along the way”, enumerates the Nigerian technical writer.

If you share Favour Chibueze’s dream and want to know more about the topics she’s working on, you can follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Want to join the Mautic community? Check out our Community and Get Involved sections.

In this article, Dennis explains a little about the idea behind the Marketplace, and provides a sneak peak of other features to come. He also tells us about how he got involved with the Mautic community and what he likes best about it.

From the tool to the love

Dennis first came across Mautic in 2020, when searching for a Marketing automation tool for a customer. At the time he was working as a self-employed developer, and his first instinct was to look for an open source solution. “There were a few features I thought were missing in Mautic, so I thought maybe I could contribute”, he recalls.

And so he did. He started off with the features he had in mind, but the more he worked, the more curious he was about the open source community. “Things were so well organized, and I wanted to know how people managed that”, he explains. Dennis started contributing more and more, and eventually joined the Product Team.

The fun, the learning and the balance

Dennis describes that contributing to the community is “a lot of fun” and a great learning opportunity. “Beyond developing features for Mautic users, I have an intrinsic motivation to learn more. There’s so much happening”, he sums up. 

On the tech side, helping with product development allows Dennis to dive into different code stacks. But he is also very interested in the open source aspect of Mautic. “There’s a level of responsibility when you decide to jump in and try to find a solution for a given problem”, he points out.

Though Dennis took this responsibility really seriously, the Norwegian developer got a little too involved and things “got out of hand a bit”. He explains that at some point he was dedicating more time than he had, outside of his working hours, so he decided to find a balance between working and contributing.

Enter the Mautic Marketplace

Dennis has been a part of the development of previous major updates of Mautic. He highlights two of them: the upgrade script and the Mautic Marketplace. The first feature allowed for smooth migration to new Mautic releases, “it was a major update and involved a lot of work behind the scenes”. 

His most recent contribution is not at all under the hood, to the contrary: the Mautic Marketplace made its debut on the 4.2 version, released in February 2022. “We hope it will be a game changer”, introduces Dennis.

The developer details that the Marketplace is more than “just” a place to download Mautic plugins. “For starters, it will make plugin contributors much more visible to the community. It will also make it a lot easier for users to know there are plugins and to be able to install them with the click of a button.”

Having the Marketplace, which is launching as beta, is also a way to stimulate the growth of the plugin developers community. With the adoption of Composer from Mautic 5 going forward, the team Dennis is a part of is working on ways to make it easier for plugin contributors to come up with new tools. “We wanna have a sort of ‘plugin generator’ that allows you to create a very basic plugin in maybe an hour, and then build up from there.”

As a community, Mautic’s enhancements will benefit not only the developers, but also the users. “Marketplaces will boost the ecosystem.” Having more plugins available, as well as being able to install and manage them easily will be a major improvement to marketers. “I’m excited to see where our community is going”, describes Dennis about the future.

The power of open source and the Mautic community

For Dennis, the tech side is always accompanied by the community aspect of his contributions. “With an open source app, you can develop your own product, but you can also develop with the community. And though some companies will do a lot ‘in house’, a lot of other companies are willing to pay so specialists can take care of the technical part for them”, he describes.

The software developer believes in a balance between healthy income and open source coding. “We already have a few examples of how this can work, there are specialized companies that run Mautic and are supporting customers very well. This business model is super interesting.”

Dennis reiterates that those companies usually contribute back to the community, which makes for an even more diverse group. As a matter of fact, his favorite past about the Mautic community is that it’s fully international. 

“We have asynchronous meetings, so people all over the world can jump into it at the best time for them. It’s all in writing: we post the topics and discuss them over a 24-hours period. Everyone can contribute and reply”, he exemplifies. “It really is remote-first.”

The Norwegian developer also highlights that this type of meeting allows people time to think and to come up with great feedback. It enhances contributions, on the one hand, and also gives more room for different types of people and of contributions. 

Dennis highlights that the Mautic community is also very well established. “We have a code of conduct, an organization structure, a stable product that we develop even further”. Finally, for those considering contributing to the Mautic community, he compliments how “there’s always room for improvement and new ideas”.

What the future holds

There’s a lot to be done, and Dennis invites all willing parties to be a part of Mautic’s future. He even provides a sneak peak into what is to come: “One thing we’ve been discussing in the Product Team is how we could decouple the front-end (user interface) and the back-end (technology)”. This would allow companies to forgo the use of Mautic visual interface and integrate Mautic’s technology directly into the companies’ own infrastructure.

“To achieve this goal we are looking into ways to integrate the API. It all has to be very well documented, very smooth to work with”, he sums up. And, of course, to undertake such an endeavor, the more hands, the better. “We can alway use more people”, he hints.

Personally, Dennis believes in technology at the service of people. Currently working on softwares to decarbonize electrical grids, he points out that his choice is always to work with products that put human beings at their center. “Software is such a big part of my life, but there’s a human side to each application. It’s not just about making a lot of money, it’s about building products that will have an impact on society, that will empower people.”

If you want to know more about software development and Dennis Ameling, you can follow him on Twitter or check out his GitHub repo, @dennisameling.

Want to join the Mautic community? Check out our Community and Get Involved sections.

Community Teams (Product, Education, Marketing, and Community) gather yearly to get some (more) work done, and also to allow for planning, besides welcoming new contributors who want to get involved with Mautic. During the event, we will work collaboratively on some tasks, and the Leadership Team will also hold a board meeting to work long term strategies. 

The Mautic Community Sprint (see details below) will include unconference-style sessions and workshops facilitated by our leaders. It will also have allocated times dedicated to sprint work, which welcomes everyone willing and interested to get involved.

What to expect

Our yearly sprints are a time to work together on our backlog of tasks, yes, but it is also a chance to get to know in-person some of our contributors and learn from what each and every one can offer. 

If you are interested in becoming a member of our community, this is a great opportunity to see how you can help and understand a little about how we coordinate our efforts to make Mautic even more awesome!

During the Mautic Community Sprint you can expect to:

• Be very welcome, because everyone is!
• Get some hands on experience
• Find out which of your skills can you dedicated yourself to alongside the rest of us
• Get the chance to meet in-person the people you usually work with online
• Learn from everyone’s skills and experience
• Share some of your own skills and experiences
• Work more closely together with other teams, coordinating their knowledge and plans
• Socialize, after hours, and make new friends all around the world

New to Mautic?

If you’re new to our community, or if you haven’t made up your mind yet, come meet us! You’ll get the chance to know how we work together across countries, languages and cultures. Our teams will welcome you and help you see where you fit best, considering your skills and interests.

Worried about your English? No need for that: if you can understand even a little, we can make it work. Remember we are always learning from one another, and always growing together.

Covid protocols

As we organize this in-person event, all current covid restrictions are in our mind. All attendees must be able to comply with the requirements concerning covid, as well as do their best to stay safe and keep the other members and venue staff safe.

What is the sprint for

Not only is the Mautic Community always looking for new ways to innovate in our industry, we are also committed to building our software collaboratively. It is at the core of our open source project that everyone can help, and every skill set can contribute in some way or another.

“As the heartbeat of the Mautic community, our Community Sprints bring together people who use, develop, design, and support the Mautic platform”, sums up Ruth Cheesley, Mautic’s Project Lead. She goes on to highlight that “these events are where improvements to the project are made, where important business connections are built, and where lifelong friendships bloom”.

Sprint Timeline

Our Leadership team is still putting the final touches on the Mautic Community Sprint timeline. More information will be provided soon.

Consider attending? 

Come join us! Attendance is of course free of charge, but we ask you to

Register now (free)

This allows us to know how many people to expect!

Got questions, ideas, comments?

This is the best place for these things: 

https://forum.mautic.org/t/join-us-for-our-in-person-mautic-community-sprint-event-may-2-4-in-budapest/23558

Our heart-felt thanks to

We thank our sponsors Cheppers who are kindly hosting us, Acquia, Leuchtfeuer Digital Marketing and Webmecanik, as well as contributors in our Open Collective for their support. Without it, this event would not be possible.

In this article, Miroslav briefly describes how he started contributing to the community and some of the improvements he was a part of. He also tells a little about the benefits of joining the community.

Why Mautic?

As a PHP software developer, Miroslav had worked as a freelancer and for a few companies before joining the Acquia team two years ago. Acquia provides a marketing and content platform that uses Mautic, among other technologies. The company’s collaborators, like Miroslav, also contribute to the Mautic community, benefiting both the enterprise and the open source project.

Automated tests and then some

Since he has been with the Mautic community, the Czech developer has been working a little with many different features. “I haven’t worked on a specific feature mainly. I improved several areas a bit”, he sums up.

Some of his most prolific contributions regard improvements to automated tests and continuous integrations, which extend to the Mautic 4.2 release of February 2022. Miroslav also lends a hand with general bug fixes, like “campaign jump events occurring twice, support for MySQL full-text search, and custom field order on a contact’s page”, he recalls.

What is good and what is best?

Having the experience to work both with his company’s colleagues and with Mautic’s contributors, Miroslav highlights that contributing to an open source project “is a great way to share your experience and it’s an opportunity to learn something new”.

His favourite part about the Mautic community are the in-person Mautic conferences. “For me it is a great opportunity to get to know other members of the community in a natural and informal way. Listening to lectures is also very helpful, so I as a developer can think about use cases I hadn’t had an idea of before.”

Miroslav’s experience with the Mautic community reflects his personal goals in life. “I want to keep learning new things, working on interesting projects and spending as much spare time as possible with my awesome family.”

If you want to know more about software development and Miroslav Fedeleš, you can check out his GitHub repo, @fedys.

Want to join the Mautic community? Check out our Community and Get Involved sections.

In this article, Favour explains how she became part of the Mautic community, what she has been contributing with and where she sees the project going in the future.

Why Mautic?

​​Favour has always been involved in the open source community, having participated in Google Summer of Code 2019 and 2020 as both a student and mentor respectively. She was also selected to begin working with Mautic through Google Season of Docs 2020.  Favour started her path as a developer, and was transitioning to a technical writer career when she participated in the program.

Her new career was one of the factors that led her to choose Mautic during Google’s program, as she was able to choose to work not with development, but with documentation. In looking for an interesting project, Favour read up on Mautic. “I felt like I resonated more with this community, that here I could make more impact”, she recalls.

Once she started contributing, she met people that were both organised and accommodating. After the program’s three-month period, she decided to stay on, which she credits in part to Mautic “such a nice and impactful community”.

Why documentation?

“A technical writer is part of every project, and I really love writing”, Favour sums up. She remembers feeling anxious at the beginning of her new career, but that changed once she understood better how the daily activities work. “It is just explaining in the simplest way the process of doing something ”, she details.

Favour’s decision to change careers was also motivated by how much she likes to make an impact on the community. She exults how great it feels to be helping people in understanding and making use of tools and resources. In addition to documentation, she highlights that her day to day job includes writing articles, newsletters and other resources that connect users to the program they are working with.

At Mautic, the Nigerian technical writer has been instrumental in documenting new releases and features, as well as in growing Mautic’s Knowledge Base with more step-by-step guides, assets and other high-value contents. Answering users’ questions is also a big part of what she and her peers are contributing with.

What is going on now?

Favour has been working on standardising some of the documentation, as well as keeping it up-to-date and useful. “People use Mautic in different countries, and we have new releases every quarter. It is essential that these users can get the information that they need”, she mentions.

The fact that Mautic is a free tool is also, in Favour’s view, an important aspect that may draw people to this resource. “Documentation helps users to really get how a program works and how to use it”, she details. The technical writer argues that having up-to-date, easy-to-understand information readily available is also part of what makes Mautic accessible.

What does the future hold?

To Favour, great documentation is a very valuable resource to users. Along with spreading the word about Mautic, upgrading those assets and the Knowledge base is her way of helping with Mautic’s growth, as well as contributing to the marketing field altogether.

“It is not just comercial business that can benefit from using Mautic, but many people don’t use marketing automation tools because they don’t really know how. So we are working to bridge that gap, to raise awareness as to what Mautic can do and how people may benefit from it.”

Favour and her team (Leon-Elias Oltmanns, Favour Chibueze, Pragati, Destiny, Robin M) are also working on a new website, which should be released in 2022. This involves migrating both the documentation and the Knowledge base into platforms that will make it easier for Mautic users to get all the information that they need at ease.

“I’m really happy for everyone’s contributions and effort towards this goal. We want Mautic to be on top, to let people know about this open source tool for marketing automation.” 

What about the Mautic community?

To Favour, the best part about the Mautic community is that people can fully be themselves and can contribute in whatever capacity they feel comfortable with. “Everybody has day jobs, they are busy, and everyone in the community appreciates whatever time people can take to do one or two things”, she compliments.

She, for one, rejoices in every little contribution, which she credits to the hard work of each and every member. In her professional life, Favour’s goal is to work as a project manager, with creative teams. “I want to be in a team that works together towards a goal, a team that grows together”, she explains.

Favour is also a co-organizer of the Mautic Meetup Lagos. The Mautic Meetup Lagos takes place once a month, and has different speakers who lecture participants on various Mautic-related topics – as well as any other topics in the open source ecosystem.

Why contribute?

“If you love challenges, you gotta be out there”, Favour sums up. In her opinion, contributing to an open source project such as Mautic is a way of “touching the lives of people and of organisations”. She also points out that the experience in itself is a great benefit, and one that can figure on contributors’ resumes as well.

For those who like to write, having the basic skill is enough to get started, Favour incentivises: “if you can explain something, you can write about it”. She also highlights that contributing to an open source project can kick start people’s careers and land them jobs, as they will be in contact with a great team, full of experienced professionals. “There’s plenty of opportunities, and any contribution you can make will be very valuable”, she pleads.

If you want to know more about technical writing and Favour Kelvin, you can read her blog at Medium or check out her GitHub repo, @fakela.

Want to join the Mautic community? Check out our Community and Get Involved sections.
 

The point of this event is to make good progress in the teams, to increase cross-team action, and most of all: To provide a most convenient entry point for new volunteers.

So if you have considered helping Mautic, this is the perfect opportunity to get started – if you are a developer or not, and even if you are not sure what your prefered area of contribution might be.

Even great English is not required – if you can read and write just a bit, that’s completely fine.

How a ‘virtual’ sprint works

We are spread around the world and in many time zones, but we want to have a close-together experience as well as an efficient working environment. Therefore we use a combination of tools, see below.

Also, we have a few joint events (like Opening / Onboarding / Coffee Breaks – timeline see below), which will allow you to have a good overview and orientation, get to meet other contributors from around the world, and maybe to pick the right team if you are unsure where your skills can best be used. It also provides an opportunity for the teams to coordinate cross-team projects.

Everything else will happen within the teams, with contributors working on each task or subtask individually or in small groups, and with communication as fits.

Many of the tasks have been prepared by the teams, others may be added on the fly during the sprint. For each task, someone will be able to help understand what needs to be done, and to assist if needed. And surely there are tasks that suit your personal skills and interests!

Sign up to indicate your attendance

The first thing to do is to sign up on Eventbrite if you’re planning to join us. You don’t need to be attending the whole time – if you’re only able to spare a few hours that is also super valuable!  Please register using the link below. Attending is of course free.

Sign up to join the sprint

Provide your availability

We have set up a simple way for you to let us know roughly when you are expecting to join us. This helps us to plan our timeline more effectively, so we really appreciate it if you could indicate your availability in our Doodle Poll.

Provide your availability

Sprint Timeline

Below you will find a timeline of the events happening during the sprint.

• Asynchronous start for all who want to
• Mon 9:00 UK Time (see your local time) – “Early opening” (for all)
• Mon 9:15 UK Time (see your local time) – onboarding (per-team)
• Mon 12:00 UK Time (see your local time) – hangout (for all)
• Mon 14:00 UK Time (see your local time) – onboarding (to all teams)
• Mon 15:00 UK Time (see your local time) – hangout (for all)
• Mon 16:00 UK Time (see your local time) – “Welcome Americas” (for all)
• Mon 16:15 UK Time (see your local time) – onboarding (to all teams)
• Mon 18:00 UK Time (see your local time) – hangout (for all)
• Mon 23:00 UK Time (see your local time) – hangout (for all)
• Tue 8:45 UK Time (see your local time) – hangout (for all)
• Tue 9:00 UK Time (see your local time) – hangout (per team)
• Tue 9:30 UK Time (see your local time) – onboarding (to all teams)
• Tue 12:00 UK Time (see your local time) – hangout (for all)
• Tue 15:00 UK Time (see your local time) – hangout (for all)
• Tue 17:00 UK Time (see your local time) – “Farewell” (for all)
• Asynchronous continuation for all who want to

All the information you might need in the sprint can be found from the Sprint Dashboard, a public Google Doc.

Access the Sprint Dashboard

The hashtag for the event is #mauticsprint – please use it in any social media activity you might share!

Tools: Get prepared!

These are the basic things we use in the Mautic Community:

• Chat: Slack. We are using the regular team channels (#t-community, #t-education, #t-marketing and #t-product) as well as a joint channel #community-sprint exclusively for the sprint. If you do not yet have a Slack account: Please go to mautic.org/slack to sign up.

  Join sprint channel in Slack
   

• Video Call: Jitsi Meet. For online interaction (like Opening / Onboarding / Coffee Breaks), including screen sharing, we are using video calls. Please have a webcam ready if you like (just audio otherwise), and/or install the Jitsi app on your mobile device. And, just in case: You can also dial-up via phone through these numbers. 

  Also please do try the service up-front, and make sure to enter your name in Settings -> Profile so that we know who you are when you join

  Try or join sprint main video call

  Please be aware that the main online events will be recorded and the recording will be accessible to all, especially for those who miss an event e.g. due to timezones.

• Task management: Differs per team, we use Google Docs, Trello and more. You’ll find out!
   
• Other tools may be introduced as needed e.g. for brainstorming sessions

See you on Monday!

The event is happening on Friday, 1st November immediately after DrupalCon Amsterdam, and will be hosted at B.Amsterdam. This will be our first Community Summit!  Many thanks to Acquia for sponsoring the event.

We would like to extend an invitation to all Mauticians to join us – whether in person at Contribution Day, or virtually.  Here is an overview featuring some of the projects we are going to be working on during the Mautic Community Summit:

1. Migrating the Symfony framework to a newer version
2. Testing pull requests and triaging issues (support available for new contributors)
3. Reviewing and improving the Mautic Documentation

We will be joined by several of the Mautic team from Acquia, including Project Lead DB Hurley.

There are only 120 spaces available at Contribution Day, so if you intend on joining us in Amsterdam make sure you book your space on the website!  

If you’re joining virtually, please make sure you sign up via the website at www.contributionday.org as well, so we can get an idea of numbers, and join #community on Slack!