Problems with New MyMustang Website

By NATHAN SMITH ‘20

On Tuesday September 25, Mark Heath, Class II Dean, forwarded an email from Dan Beauchemin that caught every junior by surprise. The email announced that Milton’s online student portal, myMilton, had been transferred to a new website called myMustangs.

The myMilton website is a resource for students to get their schedules, vote in student elections, and view documents like attendance, transcripts, and courses. Students rely on the website for information important to their school lives. Beauchemin claimed that the website had been upgraded and it included a link to the new website. When clicked, the link led to a blank page that never stopped loading. The story, however, does not end here. I decided to follow up and ask Mr. Beauchemin a few questions.

Mr. Beauchemin and his team have been working to improve the myMilton website for a long time. He explains that he and his team “took the project over from a consultant [who] could not grasp/handle the nuances of Milton Academy. myMilton consists of three extranets - one for students, one for parents and one for staff & faculty. All [three] were built around the idea that the school needed to deliver personalized information to individual[s] — [a] standard mission for extranets.”

I wondered why myMilton needed to change. Justin Lin ’20 believed that the website didn’t need any changes, noting that “the current website is pretty straightforward with all of the labeled tabs.”According to Mr Beauchemin, however, the website urgently needed fixing. As Beauchemin explains, “The server that runs the extranets is old and needs to be replaced. Old servers are vulnerable to all sorts of issues and it has become a priority to get this done in the first part of the academic year.” This effort is not new: “We have been trying to get this done for 2 years.”

So, why did the website fail? Shouldn’t an upgrade mean connection to the website would be even quicker? Beauchemin explained “There is a lot of testing and programming tweaks that have to happen to get the old codebase to work on a new server.” Evidently, Beachemin’s team has not completed the necessary evaluation to get the website up and running. The release of the new DNS was rushed.

At the moment, there are no changes to the myMilton website other than updates to the server that stores it. Nevertheless, Beauchemin has plans to “redevelop the backend databases and make some significant design changes to the data structures to make them more normalized and scalable.” Eventually, we will see changes to myMilton’s appearance.






USE THIS QUOTE“rebuild the frontend/look of all three extranets, creating mobile apps, content management systms and improving the look and functionalities.”







  1. How long has Milton used the regular mymilton website?

myMilton has been around for at least 6-8 years if not longer. Originally developed to be able to get personalized information to and from the students, especially schedules.


  1. Were you around when the website was opened up? Why did Milton create mymilton? How was it created?

We took the project over from a consultant when he could not grasp the nuances of Milton Academy. myMilton consists of three extranets - one for students, one for parents and one for staff & faculty. All were built around the idea that the school needed to deliver personalized information to individual - standard mission for extranets. We custom-built all of them because Milton has some business logic that out-of-box solutions can't handle.


  1. What was the motivation to change the website?

All technology changes/improves over time. The server that runs the extranets is old and needs to be replaced. Old servers are vulnerable to all sorts of issues and it has become a priority to get this done in the first part of the academic year. There is a lot of testing and programming tweaks that have to happen to get the old codebase to work on a new server. Unfortunately, the time commitment caused me to step out of the Class Dean role for this year - but it is important to get it moved.We have been trying to get this done for 2 years.


  1. Are there any plans to change or upgrade the website’s appearance/interface in the future?

First Phase: get current site/code moved to a new server - doing that now. We are not making any style or function changes to the site, just moving it.

Second Phase: redevelop the backend databases and make some significant design changes to the data structures to make them more normalized and scalable. This has to be done to get to the next phase (III)

Third Phase: rebuild the frontend/look of all three extranets, creating mobile apps, content management systms and improving the look and functionalities.


  1. Last week I was rushing too fast and hadn't run some tests on the new server or communicated well with the IT Dept. Classic mistake. Once the new server is ready, we will move the parent and student extranets, then later the staff/faculty extranet. Moving the third extranet is complicated because of the tweaks needed - and it is the biggest part of the codebase. Once we get it on the new server and the old server is removed, I expect the domain name to return to the familiar "my.milton" domain name.

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