[Global Gatherings] FAQ Mozfest 2015

Hello Mozillians,

Here’s the FAQ for Mozfest 2015, where I pretend to evacuate all the questions that I’ve been receiving over these last days. Apologies for not being able to prepare this earlier.

If you have more questions, please reply to this thread :wink:

1) Where I can find information about Mozfest?
We have a wiki page, that we will be filling with more information, here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mozfest/2015/

2) I was invited by the Participation team to attend. What would be the next steps?
In the email you have a link to a form, please fill that form and indicate if you need a visa. Also, please be sure to include the correct information, we will use that to send you the visa letter. After that, you should go to the Egencia portal, the link is on that email too.

3) How will be the procedure to book the flight?
You will have to book the flight on that site. Note that even if you see a price, you won’t pay for it. Mozilla will take care directly. Please be aware that almost all the flights will say “Out of policy”. That means that it has to pass through a review process by Francisco Picolini. Note that we will be evaluating average price and the convenience of flight hours. We are don’t expect that you fly 30 hours with 2 or more layovers if you have another flight of less than 50% of that time, but costs slightly more.

4) It ask me for Traveler Group and Department, what should I input?
Traveler Group: Mozilla Festival 2015
Department: 1002-Participation

5) I’ve requested an account in Egencia, but I haven’t received anything yet.
Note that the account authorization is manually, so don’t expect immediate replies, or an email on a weekend. Also, if you have already an account, you will be able to access with your user and password. If it has been more than 72 hours without a reply, please contact Francisco Picolini (franc@mozilla.com)

6) What do I need to request a visa?
That will depend on your country, please contact the local UK embassy/office in your city, or the city nearby. Sometimes you will only need a flight confirmation/ticket, and an invitation letter. If you need a letter, please indicate it in the Form, if you haven’t received the letter, and need it with urgency, please contact Francisco.

7) Does Mozilla covers Visa fees?
Yes, we will be covering costs related to visas. Please contact Francisco for more information.

8) How will be the process to request reimbursement for visa fees?
If you are a Rep, you only need to file a budget request through the standard process. There’s already an event page, so you can include it in your request.
If you are not a Rep, please contact a Rep in your country, or in your region to help you out. If that Rep doesn’t know how to help you, or refuse to help you for some reason, please contact Francisco Picolini.

9) According to the embassy, I need a booking confirmation, where I can get that?
The hotel has been arranged by the Mozfest Organizers, you don’t have to book anything on your own. However, if you need a booking confirmation, we are working hard to get a letter from the hotel with the names of the participants included. The hotel won’t send any information directly to the participants. If you need the details of the hotel, please check your inbox, an email has been sent with those details.

10) The visa form requires a contact person.
Please contact Francisco Picolini to request this info.

11) What’s the participation team expect from my presence?
George will be sending an email in the following weeks, and we will make some meetings for the participants. Expect more info soon.

12) I’ve sent a session proposal, but I don’t know if it has been approved or not.
Please contact the Mozfest organization, this selection process is independent from the sessions. Also, we will only arrange the schedule for the Participation space, so if your proposal was accepted by other space, you will have to check the schedule with them.

1 Like
  1. How will be the process to request reimbursement for visa fees?
    If you are a Rep, you only need to file a budget request through the standard process5. There’s already an event page7, so you can include it in your request.
    If
    you are not a Rep, please contact a Rep in your country, or in your
    region to help you out. If that Rep doesn’t know how to help you, or
    refuse to help you for some reason, please contact Francisco Picolini.

Hi Francisco,

I had an attendee who isn’t a Rep ask me for assistance re: her VISA reimbursement, and I’m unsure how to do it. Could you please clarify the process here? There may be other reps who come across similar requests. She also included travel & lodging expenses as part of her VISA application process.

In addition, I’d like to clarify on the extend we’re expected to help non-rep attendees in budgeting. Is it just their VISA applications or it’s their entire MozFest expenses? I would imagine this would be somewhat unrealistic to expect us to assist them on all of their budget requests on top of our own. It’ll be messy for us to track multiple budgets when the reimbursement isn’t for ourselves.

Thanks,
Helen

Hi @hlee,

Helping a non-Rep with the budget requests means, that you will have to file a budget request through the standard process:

  1. Go to the budget request form
  2. Fill the details (event page which I’ve included in a previous link, your Reps profile, if payment in advance is needed, and the paypal account of the person that will receive the money… you don’t have to receive the money, the mozillian can have a paypal account, or request bank wire transfer).
  3. Include your mentor in CC and in this case, include me on CC (if not, Konstantina will include me afterwards).
  4. Since it’s a special event (the global gatherings are), your mentor doesn’t have to approve it. A manager will approve it (or in this case, me), and/or will ask for more details.
  5. Once the payment is made, confirm that the mozillian or you received the money.
  6. Upload the receipts, or if the mozillian has a bugzilla account, he/she can upload it. This can be done at any point of the request, but we will close the bug once the receipts and the payment are all confirmed.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

1 Like

We will cover only Visa fees, accommodation and local transportation during the event. Food will be included during the days of the event. For local transportation we are still working on a solution for everyone.

Hi Francisco! I thought there will also be meal expenses on Thursday night, and/or Monday prior to departure (depending on flight time)? Or this is something you guys are still working on?

If this is the case, are we also responsible for submitting all of these meal expenses for the non-rep attendee? If so, would it be under the same bugzilla request or it’s a separate budget request?

Thanks for clarifying.
Helen

Hi Helen,

We will trying to figure out how we will do that. In any case, that will be reimbursed after the event (we are not accepting bugs that estimates how much they will spend during the event).

Ideally that should be under the same bug, but since we will pay in advance most of the visa reimbursements, you will have to file another bug (which can be a little bit annoying, but it’s the simplest way to solve that).

Cheers,

Got it! thanks for the prompt responses Francisco! :smile: