Membership System Documentation

After all updates, check your work on the live page on multiple devices. I can’t emphasize how important this step is.

Member Process (on live website)

New Members

These persons should go to the New Applicants page and select the next year’s regular or retired/student membership. They will be asked to fill out a profile in the process, can then choose to pay by credit card or bank transfer, and will be added to the system. (They will also need to be approved as a member, and if paying by bank transfer, the payment confirmed prior to approval as described below.)

Member Renewals

Members wishing to renew or pay for the first time should select the appropriate link on the Membership page.

Member Notifications

Members will receive automatically generated emails at appropriate steps in the process.

Membership Admin

Member Lists

Membership status can be reviewed by selecting the desired dropdown in the Membership List. Many of the columns can be sorted by clicking the link at the top of the column.

I still reference User Lists at times, but the Member Lists have everything needed. Use the Screen Options to hide fields as desired in each of these lists.

The list can be exported at any time using the “Export to CSV” link at the top of the page next to the title. This export will not have all of the “year” columns as your historical member list did, but will show the latest year paid. Use “Data Sort” as desired to analyze in Excel. See additional comments below.

When we believe that no additional members in the “2019” categories will renew, they can be individually edited and changed to “Old Members” by changing “Role” to “–No Role for this Site–” and “Current Level” to ” –None–.” I will help at this time.

Orders

The orders tab or link under Memberships summarizes all recent activity. I used this to bring your historic member list up-to-date. You can continue to use and update the historic member list until comfortable with the new system. This is also the best/first place to review to match up/confirm PayPal payments.

If you want to see all orders on one page, click this link.

Confirm Payment by Bank Transfer

Melitta will be copied by automatic email when a new member chooses to pay by bank transfer.

Melitta: When you confirm that a bank transfer payment is received in your bank account, go to the Orders page, locate the invoice at or near the top of the list. It will be shown as “pending.” Click the order number in the Code column, and change the payment status from “pending” to “success.”

Note added 16-Dec-21: The member will receive an automatically generated email receipt when you change them from pending to success. If you ever need to re-send an invoice/receipt, open the order and simply click “Save Order” again at the bottom (not the Email link at the top).

If a lot of credit card payments come in and/or if Melitta updates receipt of bank transfers less frequently, the “pending” orders could start moving down the list. (Keep in mind that new applicants will want to be approved in the system by Luis quickly after making their bank transfer.) To filter the orders to see only pending, select Show “Within a Status” and filter by “pending,” then click Filter. To see the full list again, select Show “All” and click Filter.

We discussed by email on 14-Dec-21 that an order will appear “cancelled” when the member has paid for the next year. A more complete order history and member level history can be reviewed on the member profile by clicking on their name.

There has been at least one instance of a member selecting Pay by Check and then deciding to pay by PayPal, making the same yearly level show twice in the Orders page. The Pay by Check that was incomplete should be opened in the Orders page and payment status changed to “error.” This will result in the proper total payment for the member in their profile.

Membership Approval Process

Luis will be notified by automatic email when a new applicant has completed registration. Luis will discuss with colleagues and decide if member is to be approved.

The new member registration process (for 2022 or future recurring) will place the person in an “Approval Pending” status, accessed under the Memberships admin menu. Luis will receive an automatic email notifying that there is a member awaiting approval (at the same time as the initial registration email).

The approval section of the website will open to the “Pending” tab for ease of use (and you can further refine with the dropdowns). Luis: First verify that the member is fully paid by going to the Orders page, and look for “success.” Then locate the member in the Approval Pending list, and in the Approval Status column click “Approve.” The member will be informed by email and they will then have access to member-only pages, and Melitta will be automatically copied so she can add them to the listserv.

If you’d like to see All approvals on one screen click this link. We discussed by Zoom that those that show simply “Approved [X]” are those who had already been approved when imported into the new PMPro system, and those who have actually been approved in this system show the date.

Only new members require approval, and everyone that has already been approved will automatically stay in approved status upon renewal. This process wasn’t working correctly for one month after launch. Some existing members went into the approval queue again after renewal. I believe this is corrected as of 3-Dec-21.

Add to Listserv

Melitta will be automatically copied by email on the above approvals so that the member can be added to the listserv. Melitta: add the new member’s email to the listserv.

Only the newer years have been set to require approval, and everyone that has already been approved will automatically stay in approved status upon renewal.

Member List Export to CSV

The exported list is arranged by user ID. Sort in Excel as desired.

All fields are defined as Text in the database and export as General in Excel.

• Since postal codes vary in structure between countries, I could not define it as a number. Those in the northeastern US will be missing the leading zero, such as my postal code which is 05673 but shows as 5673.
• Phone and fax numbers are entered in various configurations, too, so I could not define them any more specifically than text/general. The phone number field shows some long numbers (with no + or spaces) as an exponent, for example  5.73145E+11. These show correctly in the Excel edit field. You can highlight column AF, change the format to number, and then reduce decimals by two. You will have to do this every time you export the list, unfortunately, and only if it matters. You will likely only be copying the information for latest members, and only until you retire the historical member list.
• Foreign characters do not export well. You may have to remind people to use the Roman alphabet, or update their profiles yourselves.
• The address fields, columns F through N, from the old Ultimate Member system are blank. I did not know how to easily remove them. Hide or make narrow or ignore. Our newer profile fields are in columns Y through AH.
• I don’t know what the “fee” column Q means. The payments in column P match those in the Fee column on the website.
• I don’t know why the word “Month” appears beside 2019 Regular members in column R, nor could I find a way to remove it (because I couldn’t find it in the system).

The export only includes the levels shown in the admin Member List dropdown. For example, if you want to export only 2020 Regular members, select that in the dropdown “Show 2020 Regular.” If you want all members, select “Show All Levels.” This export will not include Old Members. You must export those separately after choosing Old Members in the dropdown.

Since the website is dynamic, I would suggest not spending a lot of time with any one export because you will not be updating the exported file. It is only for reference and to update the historic member list. The export will be like a back-up, a record at one point in time.

MailPoet Plugin

Added October 2022 for the purpose of emailing members in groups. Members were exported from the PMPro system and imported into yearly lists. The MailPoet system will remove and add people from lists as they renew yearly registrations. The system was used heavily in October 2022 to encourage renewals before the biennial conference and vote and it worked well. There were a few updates that worked improperly in the December mailing, but it was due to improper adjustments on my part and I maintain confidence that this mailing approach works well. I have not provided detailed documentation yet because I am always cautious about mass mailings. A simple approach is to duplicate a past mailing and update any necessary details before sending. Send a “test” first if in doubt.